Olha Aivazovska took the floor on the annual OSCE/ODHIR Human Dimension Implementation Meeting.
Warsaw, 19 September 2016

Dear colleagues and attendees!

On September 18, we witnessed an unprecedented event, namely the election of deputies of State Duma of Russian Federation on the territory of illegally annexed Crimea. For my part, as a representative of Ukrainian non-governmental organization, which has been working in the field of election observation for many years, I would like to thank the OSCE-ODIHR mission and other credible European institutions for opting not to deploy their observers to Crimea, thus preventing the legitimization of this pseudo-election process and avoiding the creation of egregious precedents that discredit both the monitoring initiatives and the electoral institute in general.

However, an overall assessment of election process in Russia should also include evaluation of the fact of annexation of sovereign Ukrainian territory, falsification of voters’ lists within a national multi-mandate constituency, illegal formation of single-mandate constituencies on the territory of my homeland as well as flagrant violations of international law and standards for elections in general. Such an evaluation can be given by international missions and organizations, as well as particular countries-members of the OSCE.

The so-called Agreement “on the accession of the Republic of Crimea in the Russian Federation and on forming new constituent entities within the Russian Federation”, despite its nullity as a matter of international law, in practice led to enforced and automatic procurement of Russian citizenship by citizens of Ukraine. The voting process in the occupied territories as well as election of deputies of State Duma of Russian Federation in general can by no means be recognized as genuine election due to its non-compliance with basic principles and standards. Compulsory naturalization (passportization) of residents of Crimea, which was established as a fact in the Resolution of the European Parliament, provides evidence of large-scale falsification of voters’ lists for election of deputies of State Duma of Russian Federation and should be assessed adequately by participating States of the OSCE. Voters’ lists for election of deputies of State Duma of Russian Federation were illegally extended as a result of enforced naturalization (passportization) and “automatic procurement” of Russian citizenship by residents of Crimea, which will inevitably lead to unreliability of voting results in this country – both in the federal election constituency and single-mandate constituencies.

It should be noted that even the Russian legislation, adopted in the context of occupation of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol, does not recognize the universality of suffrage for different groups of residents of the occupied territories of Ukraine.

As envisaged by the so-called federal constitutional law “on the accession of the Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol in the Russian Federation”, residents of Crimea holding both illegal Russian passport and legal passport of citizen of Ukraine are should give up their Ukrainian citizenship and surrender their Ukrainian passports to the occupation authorities for removal of restrictions on their right to run in an election and hold the official positions of different levels. Consequently, electoral rights of residents of Crimea retaining Ukrainian citizenship have been affected in terms of Russian legislation. Just like enforced naturalization, the conduct of “election” on the territory of occupied Crimean peninsula is another tool for forcing its residents to cut ties with Ukraine.

Russian administration shows attempts to falsify the election results, while the occupation of Crimea is seen as an additional opportunity to retain power by way of election fraud, in particular by way of manipulation with voters’ lists. Human rights are being massively violated in the occupied territories of Ukraine, and even punitive psychiatric treatment is applied to dissidents as exemplified by one of the leaders of the Crimean Tatar people Ilmi Umerov. Therefore, forcing citizens of Ukraine to participate in pseudo-election of deputies of the Russian State Duma doesn’t seem to be a problem for occupation authorities.

The problem doesn’t only lie in the plane of Russian-Ukrainian conflict, but also centers around processes that discredit the electoral institute in general.

Similar coercive environment including threats and voter intimidation is observed in the temporarily occupied territories of certain areas (rayons) of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, where the illegal armed groups having the support of Russian Federation are organizing the so-called primaries and are preparing for local elections on their own terms in contempt of Minsk agreements. Russia plays a decisive role in this process, but still refuses to avow itself as a party to conflict in the same way as it didn’t avow its participation in the annexation of Crimea earlier on. It should be reminded that election in the Donbas region must be conducted on the basis of Ukrainian legislation and in compliance with international standards, as envisaged by Minsk agreements. However, Russia, which is not a fully democratic country and the elections in which can’t serve as an example even to other post-Soviet states, continues to go along the road of imposing double standards and divergent interpretations. This dangerous trend is not conducive to either resolving the conflict or applying the OSCE standards and principles to organization of electoral processes.

Election can’t be used as a tool for solving the Russian-Ukrainian conflict on the territory of certain areas (rayons) of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts under circumstances where the aggressor country refuses to even avow itself as a party to conflict and to stop supplying weapons, personnel, troops, money resources aimed at supporting illegal armed formations. According to the UN estimates, more than 9,500 civilians and military men have already been killed in Ukraine and this is not the final total number of victims of Russian aggression in our region, as far as we understand.

Under these circumstances we shouldn’t only express our concern, but also give an adequate assessment of the situation. The electoral institute is being endangered by divergent interpretations of standards imposed by those countries which have no intention of implementing democratic reforms and oppose modernization in neighboring countries.