LETTER FROM KYIV: Going to the polls (04/12/98)

LETTER FROM KYIV

by Marta Kolomayets

Going to the polls

I've been going to the polls with Ukrainians since 1991, watching them vote on a referendum regarding their status within the Soviet Union, eagerly awaiting their confirmation of independence and the election of their first president, listening to their musings on Kravchuk and Kuchma, going through the painful process of rounds and rounds of parliamentary elections to fill 450 seats in the Verkhovna Rada. (That Parliament never did get all 450 seats filled; after two years of run-offs, they managed to elect 417 deputies.)

I covered all those elections as a journalist, but this time, on March 29, I was an international observer during Ukraine's first mixed-system parliamentary elections. Starting out at 6 a.m., I, along with a colleague from USAID and I, made our way down to a polling station located in Kyiv's city center to make sure that the polling station commission had received its ballots and to witness the sealing of the ballot boxes. By 7 a.m., when the station opened, the first voters, two elderly men (who shared one pair of glasses) were waiting to fling aside the blue-and-yellow fabric of a makeshift booth in order to mark their ballots and drop them into cardboard boxes adorned with the Ukrainian tryzub (the national emblem).

Throughout the day, as I traveled around the capital city, I saw crowds lining up to vote; some spent more than an hour in line to cast their ballots. There were voters of all ages coming to the polls throughout the day, until they closed at 10 p.m. University students came to take advantage of their right to vote for the first time; many of them had worked on various candidates' campaigns or volunteered to be observers at the polling stations. Pensioners born in the 1910s and 1920s, who had always regarded voting day as a "praznyk" or holiday, paid a visit to the polling stations, but complained that the buffets (tables overflowing with vodka, "pyrizhky," candy and cakes) had been grander during Soviet times, when music would sound from loudspeakers, and local bands and choruses would entertain the voters.

Despite the fact that many of these Ukrainian citizens have not been paid in months, that unemployment is up and production is down, that the quality of life has declined for many of them, they came out in masses to cast a vote, to make a choice, to have a say in their future. Overall voter turnout was 70 percent, with voter participation in western Ukraine reaching 84 percent in the Ternopil Oblast. According to the Central Election Commission, more than 26.5 million people took part in the elections, and only 800,000 ballots were invalidated because they were not filled out correctly.

Some say that it was old party discipline and the legacy of the past that brought the voters out; others contend that it was force of habit, voting for something that is familiar, while still others insist that it was a social event, an alternative to an otherwise mundane life. Looking at the members of the polling station commissions, who arrived at their district polling places at 6 a.m. and did not make it back home earlier than 9 the next morning, observing voters who stood in line for up to an hour and carefully studied literature displayed on the walls of the polling stations, I want to believe that these are people who want to take responsibility for the future of their own lives and the lives of their children, as well as the fate of their independent state.

Ukraine is a funny and often inexplicable place, and its people are patient, tolerant, obedient and forever hopeful. Election results show that Communists and leftists took a good chunk of the vote, but that national democratic parties and centrist parties and blocs could have won more of the votes if they had unified into a strong force instead of myriad small, insignificant parties, referred to as "kyshynkovi" (pocket-sized).

In analyzing voting patterns in the regions, the Communists crossed the 4 percent threshhold in all but one of Ukraine's 25 administrative districts: Ternopil. Analysts interpret this as a vote not for the Communists, but against the current Kuchma government. (In reality, President Leonid Kuchma's "party of power" the National Democratic Party received only 5.5 percent of the vote). Many of the pensioners - the largest segment of Ukraine's population - long for the past and think leftist forces can bring it back. After seven years of independence, however, this is unlikely.

A confused and uneducated electorate had too many choices and not enough of an understanding of the new system to make an educated choice to make their vote count. After all, it is not difficult to be confused when you are handed ballots for Parliament (majoritarian and single-mandate), city council and raion and are expected to chose from 30 blocs and parties on one ballot, which measured 60 centimeters - that's 24 inches - in length. Once that is done, you are also supposed to choose a candidate in the single-mandate districts, where up to 30 candidates ran for one seat.

Many of those who voted for leftists voted in protest of what is going on in Ukraine, or more precisely, what is not going on in Ukraine. The leftist forces did not spend much money on their campaigns, but spent much effort in promising people what they want to hear: pensions will be paid, jobs will be had, food will be on the table. No explanations were given as to how this would be attained, but people just needed to hear that things will be good again.

According to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, which issued a joint statement on the elections on Monday, March 30, based on reports from 243 short-term observers, "on election day, the process was carried out in a generally peaceful and orderly manner."

The Ukrainian Congress Committee of America, which also had observers at the polls on Sunday said the elections were held without serious violations, although many polling places were not adequately prepared, resulting in long lines of voters, which made it very difficult for the polling station commission members to work and monitor the legitimacy of voting. There were numerous cases where the secrecy of voting was not observed because many voters had to fill in ballots outside the voting booths.

Family voting, long a tradition in this part of the world, is still a common practice here in Ukraine, and it was no different this Sunday. Grandparents came with two generations of family members, making voting day an outing for all. Many started out at the polling station and ended up at McDonalds.

Some election districts did not have information describing the parliamentary candidates, political parties and election blocs.

And although the UCCA reported that some of the stations did not allow observers to monitor the process of voting, for the most part, each station I visited had at least four observers from parties, candidates and the Committee of Voters (they trained 17,000 Ukrainians to observe throughout the country) keeping track of the day's events and staying at the station until the early morning hours to witness the vote count.

I've been thinking about everything that happened since March 29, and I believe that these people all deserve a better life and a government that works. When will this finally happen?

A good friend of mine, Serhii Naboka, who is the president of the Ukrainian Media Club and the director of the independent press center Elections 98, summed up the events of March 29 by saying "democracy scored a victory on Sunday, but democratic forces lost."

Perhaps, this is a lesson to be learned by the democrats - one more time: there is strength in unity. Being a Ukrainian American I can only hope.