EDITORIAL: Ukraine's voters abroad (02/05/06)

EDITORIAL

Ukraine's voters abroad

The State Statistics Committee of Ukraine announced in mid-January that Ukraine's population had fallen to 46,958,740 as of December 1, 2005. In the January-November 2005 period, the country's population fell by 0.7 percent, or 322,060 people, according to the Ukrainian News Agency. According to the nationwide census conducted in December 2001, Ukraine's population was 48,415,500. Ukrainians, it seems, are leaving Ukraine in record numbers.

Meanwhile, the number of Ukrainian immigrants living abroad continues to grow. In Italy, for example, the number of Ukrainians has increased tenfold - from 9,000 people three years ago to 93,000 this year, according to the charitable organization Caritas. There are similar situations throughout Europe and the United States, where the most recent wave of Ukrainian immigrants have been settling in what appears to be an upward trend.

These statistics indicate that Ukrainian citizens continue to leave their home country to find opportunities abroad. Their reasons for leaving do not concern us at this moment. Rather, we write today with an eye toward the parliamentary elections in Ukraine, which are scheduled for March.

In light of political developments there over the past few months, it is certain that the newly elected Parliament will hold considerable sway over the future of Ukraine. Therefore, we believe it is imperative that its citizens, who live abroad and are eligible to vote, are given the opportunity to do so. Therefore, the issue of access to voting precincts abroad and the manner in which votes will be secured is of no small concern.

We are concerned about this coming election because we remember well the limited number of foreign voting stations in countries where large Ukrainian populations are scattered over great distances, such as Canada and Russia. It made it nearly impossible to accommodate all Ukrainians who had a right to vote in the previous election.

In a letter sent to Verkhovna Rada Chairman Volodymyr Lytvyn, the Ukrainian World Congress noted recently that, "during the hotly contested presidential elections of 2004, some 100,000 Ukrainian citizens abroad participated, which while triple the next largest turnout abroad in the history of Ukraine, still represented less than one-third of 1 percent of the eligible voters abroad."

There are other concerns, as well. Both the Ukrainian ambassador to the United States and Ukraine's consul general in New York were recently recalled to Ukraine. The new people who will occupy these posts are tasked with overseeing the vote in Washington and New York, two areas heavily populated with eligible Ukrainian voters. We are concerned that Ukraine's new ambassador to the United States and the next consul general in New York may have little time to properly prepare for the elections and we worry that similar situations may occur in other countries.

With the stakes so high for this election, it is important that every Ukrainian who wants to vote can do so. While the actual number of Ukrainians living abroad, or even in Russia, is impossible to determine, official and unofficial figures range from as low as 2 million to as high as 8 million people. And while many may be living abroad temporarily, they nonetheless have every right to vote in Ukraine's elections.

We urge Ukraine's citizens abroad to communicate immediately with their consulates and embassies to ensure that voting stations are made accessible to them. We urge those citizens to identify what it is they need to do in order to vote and ensure that their names are included on the list of voters for the upcoming elections.

And, we encourage members of the Ukrainian diaspora to use their contacts to help ensure that the maximum number of Ukraine's voters who find themselves abroad can exercise their voting rights.

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