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Last Sunday there were parliamentary elections in Ukraine. The results showed an overwhelming success for Servant of the People, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's party: for the first time in the history of independent Ukraine, one party managed to get a majority in parliament without the need for a coalition. But then Zelenskiy is also a very popular actor/comedian with sufficient financial resources. How are candidates who do not have that? Our partner in Ukraine, the youth movement SD Platform, participated in the elections for the first time this time with one candidate: one of its founders, Bohdan Ferens. Friso Ages travelled to Kyiv to participate in the last days of his campaign and to watch election day. Below is his report.
Dancing to stay awake
The mood among our Ukrainian partners SD Platform is good on Monday morning, 22 July, the day after their parliamentary elections. Although they did not manage to win a seat, everyone is grateful for the great campaign they ran. There are very many activists present, dancing vigorously just before the closing campaign rally to celebrate their long campaign and to stay awake. Indeed, the final campaign days required a special commitment from all involved.
SD Platform was founded in 2012 out of dissatisfaction with politics in Ukraine. Politics in Ukraine consisted mostly of conservative voices and little was being done for Ukrainian youth. A number of young activists then started their own movement called Social Democratic Platform. This movement would spread social democratic values among young people to ensure a better future in Ukraine in the long run. FMS has been assisting this movement with support and training for years. In 2019, it was time to finally participate in the elections. I was asked to be present at the final days of the campaign so that I could experience their election process up close.
Ukraine's electoral system works with two ballots, one for party elections and one for district elections. SD Platform had a candidate in these elections in a district in Kiev. The candidate was one of SD Platform's founders, Bohdan Ferens, who himself lives in the district (something that is not necessary). When I spoke to him, he mostly talked about how difficult it is to successfully participate in elections in Ukraine.
Money and politics
For one thing, it is very expensive to stand as a candidate. In Ukraine, they try to keep the number of candidates small by attaching a deposit to a candidacy. However, it could also be seen as a way to keep mainly the rich in power. In addition, you have to deal with a big difference in financial resources. Many parties are backed by oligarchs or have leaders who are very rich themselves. It is therefore not easy to be a platform that precisely wants to do something against this system, because you can expect little support from those with a lot of money.
I found it very special to see how many young people want to commit to SD Platform's ideals. Especially since enthusiasm for politics is often lacking among Ukrainian youth. On election day, these activists were very important because they had to act as observers at the polling stations in Bohdan's district. To do so, they had to be ready to go to their polling stations as early as 6.30am and were not ready again until the following night because they also had to be present during the counting. All these observers were needed because there is little trust in Ukraine's institutions.
At polling stations
Indeed, there is still a lot going wrong at polling stations. In the afternoon of election day, all observers met at the campaign headquarters to discuss their initial findings of the morning. This showed that many of the polling station committee members had no idea at all about the rules surrounding the polling station. The SD Platform observers, armed with a law book, had to correct this on the spot so that the elections would be fair. For instance, some "independent" committee members gave voting recommendations themselves. Others added voters to the already established official voting list, even though this encourages fraud. In addition, it was also common that information on the SD Platform candidate was missing while other candidates were highlighted.
I personally visited 5 polling stations with one of the co-founders of SD Platform, Igor Iltyo, to see if everything went well there. In fact, there were not enough activists to man all polling stations and they had to be visited as well. At one polling station, there was a problem with the positioning of candidate information. The candidates should be arranged alphabetically but here one specific candidate was placed at the front. This was later found to be due to the headmaster of the school in which the polling station was. He had a preference for this particular candidate.
On to the next challenge!
Despite great efforts, Bohdan unfortunately did not turn out to get enough votes to win a seat in parliament. SD Platform itself, however, is combative and is already thinking about their next steps. In a few days, they will already have training sessions at their annual summer school where FMS often attends. They are also already cautiously thinking about the next elections. It was a special experience to witness all this. In the Netherlands, our trust in democracy is so great that we don't have to worry about it at all. Here in Ukraine, on the contrary, they are working day and night to make their democratic processes fair.
