Chief of Canada’s election observers says election was “free and fair”
OTTAWA – Despite Russian attempts to interfere with Ukraine’s presidential election, the two rounds of voting were held under a “free and fair” democratic process and resulted in Ukrainians choosing as their head of state political neophyte Volodymyr Zelensky, “a riddle wrapped up in an enigma,” according to the head of Canada’s election observation mission to Ukraine.
In a phone interview from Winnipeg with The Ukrainian Weekly, Lloyd Axworthy said, “I came away very impressed with the way Ukrainian voters had a real dedication to make their vote count. For them, it was about making change happen.” Mr. Axworthy previously visited Ukraine during his time as Canada’s foreign affairs minister from 1996 to 2000, and afterwards as president of the University of Winnipeg.
The 160 Canadians who participated in the recent observer mission visited 2,366 polling stations, which in Mr. Axworthy’s opinion ran as efficiently as those in Winnipeg, when he successfully ran for office at the Manitoba provincial and Canadian national levels as a Liberal.
During the first and second rounds of voting in Ukraine’s presidential election, “polls opened on time; ballots were counted properly; law-enforcement officers were available for security; and grievances and problems were quickly responded to,” said the 79-year-old Mr. Axworthy, a Nobel Peace Prize nominee for his work while he was foreign affairs minister to ban land mines.
He also credited Ukraine with developing an “early-warning prevention” system to address any potential disruptions to the election campaign – including Russian attempts to disseminate disinformation through social media in the lead-up to the first round of voting on March 31.
That interference was “phased down” by the time of the final vote on April 21, “because there was no real need to prop up one candidate or the other [since] the election was going the way [the Russians] wanted,” Mr. Axworthy told journalists during an April 24 teleconference. “But there were continuing outbursts of websites with hate and mobilization and protest.”
The former Canadian minister declined to say whether he thought the Kremlin favored Mr. Zelensky over the incumbent Petro Poroshenko. However, Mr. Axworthy has concerns about the 41-year-old actor who has played a president on a popular Ukrainian TV show and who will soon occupy that position in real life.
“Statements were made by his press spokesperson [during the campaign] that they don’t have to rely upon conventional news media outlets and [could] do politics in a different way. There was no access given to the candidate during that period of time,” Mr. Axworthy said in the teleconference.
In less than four months after announcing his candidacy, Mr. Zelensky won the presidency with 73 percent of the vote after taking a somewhat populist – and life-imitating-art – approach to pursuing elected office. The TV series in which the president-elect appeared, “Servant of the People,” is also the name of his new political party.
“With governments elected with very large populist movements behind them, there is always a risk that they may end up trying to limit the constitutional and democratic principles which we’re all interested in promoting,” said Mr. Axworthy.
However most troubling for him is a commitment Mr. Zelensky made during an April 19 debate with Mr. Poroshenko held at the Olympic Stadium in Kyiv.
“[Mr. Zelensky] talked about wanting to find a peaceful solution to the border conflicts [with Russia] in two to three weeks, [and] that’s a pretty bold statement,” said Mr. Axworthy during the call with reporters.
“[Russian President Vladimir] Putin just has one basic ambition, and that is to destabilize Ukraine so that he can bring [it] under the [Russian] orbit and also not have [Ukraine] as a frontline border example of a democratic system working. So I think he’s 24/7 on this file.”
Mr. Axworthy said there is a fear among Ukrainian veterans’ groups and families of soldiers at the front of the conflict in the Donbas “that there might be a negotiation with too much given away, and they were probably the strongest voting bloc for Mr. Poroshenko.”
Whoever become Ukraine’s foreign affairs and defense ministers will indicate the direction the incoming president and his government plan to take regarding Ukraine’s relationship with Russia, said Mr. Axworthy, who noted that he is unaware of Mr. Zelensky’s personal stance on that relationship.
“I was told that he has different circles of people who have been working with and supporting him – some with different points of view on how to deal with Russia and the occupied territories,” Mr. Axworthy explained.
He offered that one possibility is that President Putin might seek a commitment from the incoming Zelensky administration that it would not pursue membership in the European Union or affiliation with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in exchange for Russia offering some “signs of moderation,” such as returning the 24 Ukrainian sailors captured by Russia in the Kerch Strait last November.
During the presidential campaign, Mr. Zelensky said that he was in favor of taking Ukraine toward both the EU and NATO, but would want Ukrainians to make those decisions via referendum.
Mr. Axworthy also does not see Mr. Zelensky mirroring the pro-Russian stance taken by outgoing President Poroshenko’s predecessor, the ousted Viktor Yanukovych. “Zelensky rejected Yanukovych’s overture of good wishes,” said Mr. Axworthy.
However, Canada’s chief election observer suggested that the Kyiv-Moscow dynamic could change following the Ukrainian parliamentary election on October 27. “That’s where the coalition of pro-Russian voices can come together and maybe get 15 or 20 percent of the seats [in the Verkhovna Rada], which would give them some real leverage.”
Mr. Axworthy is encouraging Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland, who is of Ukrainian descent, to embrace a “more activist” approach on the Ukrainian file.
“I think Ukraine could become a very strong ally of Canada,” said Mr. Axworthy, who also noted some ways in which Canada is already working with Ukraine, through a Canadian military training mission, Operation UNIFIER, that has been extended until 2022, and an initiative involving former Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers to establish a police academy in Ukraine that now has about 800 students.
Two days after Mr. Zelensky’s landslide win, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spoke to President-elect Zelensky “and reiterated Canada’s unwavering support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity” according to a readout released by Mr. Trudeau’s office.
Both leaders discussed “the underlying democratic values that are shared by Canada and Ukraine, and the importance of working together to defend them globally,” and “looked forward to deepening and strengthening bilateral cooperation and partnership, including through the Ukraine Reform Conference, which will take place in Toronto this July.”
The Canadian government committed up to $17.8 million (U.S.) to advance electoral reforms in Ukraine. Of that amount, $8 million was allocated to support the team of Canadians who participated in the election-observation missions of both Canada and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.