QUARTERLY ACTIVITIES REPORT of Civic Network OPORA for the Period 1 October – 31 December, 2015
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
01103, Kyiv, Pidvysotskoho St. 10/10, office 3 www.oporaua.org, [email protected] +38 044 286 26 70 QUARTERLY ACTIVITIES REPORT of Civic Network OPORA for the Period 1 October – 31 December, 2015 CONTENTS SUMMARY .................................................................................................................................................. 3 POLITICAL CONTEXT .................................................................................................................................... 3 PROGRAM ACTIVITIES ................................................................................................................................. 4 Objective 1: Fairness and integrity of key Ukrainian elections improved through domestic monitoring ........... 4 LTOs .................................................................................................................................................................... 5 STO ..................................................................................................................................................................... 7 PVT ..................................................................................................................................................................... 8 Call-center ......................................................................................................................................................... 12 PUBLIC EVENTS ......................................................................................................................................... 15 Public events within the framework of observation of regular elections of deputies of local councils and mayors of villages, townships, and cities, scheduled for October 25, 2015 ..................................................... 15 Public events within the framework of public monitoring campaign in the repeat elections of city mayors (second round of balloting) on November 15, 2015 ......................................................................................... 17 Public events within the framework of monitoring campaign at the regular elections of deputies of local councils and the elections of mayors of Krasnoarmiis’k and Mariupol in Donetsk oblast held on November 29, 2015 ............................................................................................................................................................. 18 INFORMATION MESSAGES......................................................................................................................... 20 Press Releases sourced from Civic Network OPORA ......................................................................................... 20 Main information trends over the period from October 1 to December 31, 2015 .......................................... 23 ORGANIZATION RECOGNITION IN MASS MEDIA ......................................................................................... 24 The run of information campaign...................................................................................................................... 24 References in the media by region .................................................................................................................... 26 WEB-RESOURCES ...................................................................................................................................... 26 Evaluation of OPORA's website ......................................................................................................................... 26 1 01103, Kyiv, Pidvysotskoho St. 10/10, office 3 www.oporaua.org, [email protected] +38 044 286 26 70 Statistics on the Map of Violations .................................................................................................................... 26 Social media, Facebook,Twitter, and Youtube .................................................................................................. 27 OPORA'S AWARENESS CAMPAIGN ............................................................................................................. 28 Android application, animation video, special services .................................................................................... 28 Weekly radio program “Candidate's minimum” ............................................................................................... 28 THE QUALITY ASSESSMENT METHOD USED FOR EVALUATION OF MATERIALS PREPARED BY OPORA'S OBLAST PRESS-SERVICES ........................................................................................................................................ 29 LEGISTATION REFORMS ............................................................................................................................. 30 Informational occasions .................................................................................................................................... 30 RESULTS OF ACTIVITIES ............................................................................................................................. 31 Objective 2: Political process legislation developed and implemented in a more inclusive and transparent manner and better conforms to European standards. ...................................................................................... 32 Objective 3: Increased organizational and technical capacity of Civic Network OPORA .................................. 35 RESULTS FOR THE REPORTING PERIOD ....................................................................................................... 37 PLANS FOR THE 1 QUARTER OF 2016 ......................................................................................................... 38 2 01103, Kyiv, Pidvysotskoho St. 10/10, office 3 www.oporaua.org, [email protected] +38 044 286 26 70 SUMMARY Civic Network OPORA, which implements the project under Cooperative Agreement No.: AID-121-A- 12-00004 with Modification #2 of 22 December 2013, presents a quarterly report on its activities for the period from 01.10.2015 to 31.12.15. During this period, OPORA was focused on implementation of major project tasks and objectives set forth in the agreement. During the reporting period, our observation activities covered regular local elections held nationwide on 25 October and in 29 cities on 15 November (second round of mayoral elections in large cities), as well as elections in the cities of Mariupol and Krasnoarmiisk on 29 November. OPORA has organized 8 PVTs and deployed long-term and short-term observers throughout Ukraine. All reports and information materials were popular among Ukrainian and international observers, analysts of independent organizations, diplomats and political actors. Besides that, PVT results have influenced legitimacy of the election process, and prevented unsubstantiated political confrontations, which could have been caused by losing parties Besides that, OPORA has prepared and launched a number of products for citizen activists, like an Android application, awareness-rising videos, map of violations with geolocation etc.. The organization has been actively working in cooperation with law- enforcement. As a result of such citizen oversight, over 300 criminal proceedings against voting rights violations were initiated, and 3 enforced court sentences in bribery cases. It is the first precedent in Ukrainian history when organizers of voter bribery were brought to responsibility before the election has finished. Making legislative amendments during the election process is contrary to the principle of legal stability. Therefore, OPORA has focused during the reporting period on preparation of recommendations to by-laws and Explanations of the Central Election Commission, which have directly influenced the election process. For example, OPORA's position has positively influenced the second round of mayoral election in Pavlohrad, procedure for preparation and conduct of elections in Mariupol etc. OPORA continued working on strategic planning. For example, we organized 3 meetings with key personnel, prepared a strategic planning session with regional representatives, 2016 calendar plan, and started developing new safety strategy and preparing IT audit. POLITICAL CONTEXT Political activities reached the peak in October – December. Such intensification was mostly due to the local election campaign, the most active stages of which turned out to be in October-November. Ukrainian Parliament, in fact, stops functioning for this period. According to plenary sittings schedule, MPs are actively involved on election campaigns at sites and don't realize their legislative functions. Campaign agenda has little to do with local self-government. It is mostly focused on national topics, used as a background for popularization of party brands. Besides that, a number of small parliamentary parties assume that the parliamentary coalition might collapse resulting in early 3 01103, Kyiv, Pidvysotskoho St. 10/10, office 3 www.oporaua.org, [email protected] +38 044 286 26 70 election to the Parliament. This assumption influences key statements of politicians and election campaign messages to the certain extent. For example, Batkivshchyna, Radical Party of Oleh Liashko (has officially left the Coalition), and Samopomich usually step aside from the results of parliamentary majority's work. Taking into consideration the possibility of holding early parliamentary elections, national-level politicians use more populist