Parliamentary elections in Ukraine were held in a democratic way and the newly elected Verkhovna Rada is legitimate
Parliamentary elections in Ukraine were held in a democratic way and the newly elected Verkhovna Rada is legitimate. This was stressed by the Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Volodymyr Lytvyn taking the floor during the meeting of the IPA CIS Council in Saint Petersburg on Thursday.
“Overall, observers, participants of the election process and voters believe that parliamentary elections in Ukraine were held at an acceptable democratic and organizational level involving a lot of Ukrainian and international observers,” he said.
The Chairman of the Parliament said that despite of a number of violations and criticisms that can be observed during any elections, their nature “does not provide any grounds to call current composition of the Parliament illegitimate”. V.Lytvyn noted that despite of the critical nature of the OSCE, PACE and NATO PA election assessment, they do not presuppose direct non-recognition of the election results.
Thereat, the Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada reminded that criticism declared in Ukraine before the start of the election process, was “politically programmed” to a large extent, due to the well-known trials over a number of Ukrainian political figures. “Thus, Ukrainian parliamentary elections have found themselves in the situation of ‘presumption of political guilt’ already before the start of the election process, which appeared to be another convenient reason for additional political pressure on the Ukrainian authorities,” he said.
The Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada noted also that unprecedentedly high stakes and uncompromising stand of political forces, parties and politicians in their fight for deputy mandates, in view of upcoming 2015 presidential elections, have led to the use of “all arsenal of shady means, typical of developing democracies”.
Summing up, V.Lytvyn stressed that Ukraine “has received an absolutely new type of the Parliament, being politically diverse, facing challenging contradictions between the majority and the opposition, having ideologically incompatible political forces and future factions, and also facing a thread of possible decline of professionalism”. Thus, he believes, the settling of issues connected with precise organization of legislative process should be the parliamentary top-priority task.