Ukrainian parliamentary election, 2012
- KPU: 32
- PR: 187
- Otherwise:. 7
- Indep. 43
- UDAR: 40
- AVV: 103
- " Swo ": 37
The elections to the Ukrainian parliament in 2012 took place on 28 October 2012. An early elections to the Verkhovna Rada was already scheduled for December 2008 but was postponed to 2009. Given the international financial crisis, which had hit hard the Ukraine and one capable of making decisions governance required, and due to the fluctuating poll numbers for the parties represented in parliament, the early elections were ultimately not be established even to this date. They finally took place after the regular four-year term of office.
Starting position
The initially planned early elections were a result of the dissolution of Parliament by the President, Viktor Yushchenko, which he announced in a televised address on the evening of 8 October 2008. This resulted from the breakup of the coalition government under Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, as well as the inability of the parliamentary parties to form a new government majority within the constitutional deadline. First of December 7, 2008 was intended as election date.
The proposed resolution by the President of the Ukrainian Parliament just over a year after the last election in 2007 was a new highlight of the ongoing political crisis in Ukraine, which has existed since the 2004 presidential election. Its cause lies in the persistent and the political activity of the country's crippling power struggle between Parliament and the President, who is favored by the constitutional division of power between the government and head of state.
Members of Yulia Tymoshenko block ( BJuT ) announced that they legally contesting the presidential decree, as a dissolution of parliament, according to the Ukrainian constitution earlier than one year after its convocation ( 23 November 2007) was possible. However, President Yushchenko and others saw the election date of 30 September 2007 as the starting point of the period. A Kiev district court sat at the instigation of BJuT on October 11 from the president's decree to dissolve parliament and banned the Central Election Commission of Ukraine until further notice any steps to prepare for the elections. President Yushchenko was then dissolve by decree the court, which in turn forbade a higher court.
The surveys looked at the beginning of 2008, first clear the choice Yulia Tymoshenko in the lead, albeit far from an absolute majority of votes. In the autumn of the year, the political climate, however, had shifted in favor of the Party of Regions. Noticeable was also the collapse of the then President Yushchenko parties supporting it and the high number of those who reported not intend to vote or would vote against all.
International election observers
According to reports from Ukrainian media have controlled the 10,000 election observers to the elections should. According to the OSCE international election observers were 3797 registered by the Central Election Commission of Ukraine. Several hundred Long -term observers from OSCE member states met already a mid- September 2012, followed by 600 short-term observers, who should arrive one week before the elections to monitor the polling stations on site compliance of electoral standards.
Germany also dispatched according to the German Ambassador in Ukraine Hans -Jurgen Heimsoeth a large number of election observers to Ukraine.
On October 25, 2012, a delegation of 15 members of the European Parliament, along with more than 700 election observers from various international institutions and organizations in Ukraine.
New voting system
Distribution of votes
End of 2011, the distribution of votes from a pure proportional representation system was changed to a mixed proportional representation Majorz system in Ukraine. Half of the 450 parliamentary seats will be filled by directly elected in individual constituencies candidates.
Direct mandates
Compared to the last general election, the distribution of direct mandates in the constituencies has changed. The Donetsk Oblast has lost two mandates, the Oblast Luhansk has lost a mandate, the oblasts of Ivano- Frankivsk and Kiev and the Kiev city, which is a " city with special status " (see: Administrative divisions of Ukraine) have each added to get a direct mandate.
Result
Poll
The turnout was 57.98 %. This is the lowest participate in an election to the Verkhovna Rada since gaining independence in 1991.
Criticism of the election
The choice is rated by many observers, MEPs, institutions, organization and opposition as a " step backwards ". In a communiqué, the OSCE can announce that the conditions of the election campaign "unfair" are. The Swiss politician and member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council Andreas Gross settled in the aforementioned OSCE communiqué with the words " Ukraine deserves better " quote.
The CDU politician and chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the Bundestag Ruprecht Polenz criticized the elections with the words: " One thing is clear, by our standards, the elections were certainly not carried out ." Polish election observers in the oblasts Kharkiv, Poltava and Sumy told that there had been no tampering or any other abnormality in the three areas mentioned above. The parliamentarians Mateusz Piskorski can be in German about with "I would like to say that I know of no case, would be purchased from the voters or there have been other impairments or election rigging " quote.
On 8 November 2012, the outgoing Parliament granted the application of the Central Election Commission to cancel into five single-member constituencies, the results and repeat the choice. The Election Commission had it was unable to determine in these constituencies a valid result, since there had been irregularities and manipulations in the transport of ballots in vote counting and feeding the results into the electronic database revealed.