The Honourable Senator Andreychuk, Chief of the Mission of observers

The Honourable Senators, Members of Parliament

Distinguished members of the mission

Ladies and gentlemen

Шановні друзі,

First of all I would like to thank you all who made a decision to join Canadian mission of observers and go to Ukraine for the second round of the Presidential election. It is also my great pleasure to thank Senator Andreychuk for leading this mission. Taking this opportunity I would also like to express our gratitude to the Government of Canada, and in particular CIDA, for finding a possibility to provide financial support to the mission. And my particular gratitude is to CANADEM for organizing this training session.

For me, as Ambassador of Ukraine in Canada it is a great pleasure that Canada is sending to Ukraine such a highly professional and representative mission. Many of you, if not a majority, have experience of participation in similar missions and some of you were in Ukraine in the time of the most dramatic elections in December 2004 which resulted in the Orange revolution. In Ukraine everybody knows, that at that time Canada sent the biggest observation mission – 600 members and that those Canadian election observers played a key role in documenting election’s fraud which was used to nullify the results of the second round and forced the re-run of the round resulting in unprecedented spark of national consciousness of the Ukrainian people.

For you it is not necessary to explain the meaning of notions “freedom of expression”, “Orange revolution” “Maydan” as well as importance of these words for all Ukrainians. For all of us they became not only symbols of victory of democracy in Ukraine but a landmark of profound changes in the mentality of the Ukrainian people. Maybe for the first time since Independence of Ukraine the people believed in the possibility through voting to have a real influence on creation of the destiny of its own country, its internal and external policies.

That understanding, to my mind, is particularly important because of the fact that after the first round of the election campaign on January 17, some Ukrainians voters, international observers and media began to speak about the end of “Orange revolution”, return to old times, expressing their pessimism for the democratic future of Ukraine and mentioning in this context names of concrete politicians, their political believes and personal declarations. But those people have forgotten that today’s voters are not voters of 2004. A lot of changes have taken places. Now voters understand much better the importance of their voices. They do believe in the possibility of a fair and genius election, the freedom of choice and they are ready to uphold that choice and know how they can do it. In this context I would like to share those observers who in their comments of the first round of the Presidential elections said that it was won by Ukrainian voters.

I don’t want to give my personnel assessments of the first round of the election but I think that it was the increasing consciousness of Ukrainian voters and democratization of Ukrainian society that made it possible to recognize the first round of election by all observation missions as free and fair. I am particularly pleased that Canadian observers also visited Ukraine and found the elections to be generally free and fair. All missions as well recognized the progress made by Ukraine since 2004 Presidential elections and admitted its promising democratic future. The observers noted that the elections demonstrated respect for civil and political rights, and offered voters a genuine choice between candidates representing diverse political views.

I would also like to say that unlike previous elections so called administrative resources were used mostly for ensuring public safety and organization of the genuine voting process and not for ensuring the victory of a certain candidate. There was no blackmail from state bodies, no interference and in the whole the atmosphere of campaign was much more tolerant in comparison with previous Presidential elections. And we do hope that these positive moments of the first round of elections will be preserved in the second round.

Obviously the second round will not be easy task. But it is evident as well that it will take place in much more democratic environment that it used to be in 2004. And if even there re today some things including as a result of not perfect elections legislation which can somehow result in mild violations, we have much more confidence in a fair second round. I believe that missions of observers, especially Canadian, will ensure all the necessary transparency. I would like to especially note the Canadian mission because it is a unique one if we take into account the number of its members who are of Ukrainian origin. A lot of you can speak Ukrainian that can make your work significantly easier.

As you probably know the President of Ukraine ordered all the law enforcement bodies to ensure the legislation and peace during the second round. He will preside over the meeting of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine on February 3, 2010 which will be devoted to these issues. Besides the political statements of President Yushchenko that he doesn’t support any candidates give us some kind of guarantees that interference of the authorities in the election process on the side of one of the candidates will be minor.

Of course we cannot exclude, I would say so called, non-standard situations during the voting process in some ridings. Everyone understands that actual ratings of the candidates and their political forces don’t give us a possibility to say with 100% certainty who will be the winner. Today’s estimations show us that the winner will have minimal majority and both candidates are sure in their victory. Obviously such situation causes emotional tension among voters because of understanding that each vote could be decisive. I think that the most important in this case is guaranteeing a rigorous adherence to the electoral legislation and professional work of the members of election commissions.

And we will be waiting of course for results of your mission and assessments of the voting process. We hope they will be positive. I am confident that your conclusions, whichever they are, will be extremely useful for further development of democracy in Ukraine, and further “education” of our voters. And all together we will come closer to the standards of the electoral traditions of developed democracies like Canada.

I would like to wish to all of us very successful second round of elections and successful mission to you.

Thank you.