Citizens' committee fears problems on election day (10/24/99)

Citizens' committee fears problems on election day

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - A prominent citizens' election oversight committee said on October 19 that election day in Ukraine could well become a messy affair, and that last-minute election law changes proposed by the Verkhovna Rada could further muddle the electoral process.

Representatives of the group suggested that a possibility exists the October 31 presidential vote could be nullified.

The Committee of Electors, which achieved legitimacy and respectability in its monitoring of the parliamentary elections of 1998, said it had information that as many as 30 changes to the election law are being prepared by Verkhovna Rada committees, ostensibly to fine-tune what is widely regarded as weak legislation. However, with just more than two weeks to the elections, any changes approved would only cause uncertainty and chaos among election commissions on all levels, from the precinct to the national level.

Yevhen Radchenko, a member of the ad hoc citizens' committee, said that, except for a provision clarifying under what terms a candidate's name may be stricken from the ballot, most of the proposed changes are insignificant.

"Most of the rest are of a technical nature and are simply there to confuse local election commissions," said Mr. Radchenko.

He explained that the inability of election commissions to agree on what laws govern in certain situations that may arise on election day could render the precincts and districts unable to submit their official final tallies. He also suggested that lawsuits by various candidates could cause delays in the announcement of final results.

Mr. Radchenko said the Committee of Voters is tracking the possible changes and would publish a pamphlet to be issued to local election commission members if any are approved.

Representatives of the citizens' group also suggested that the absence of a sufficient number of candidates' representatives to observe the actual voting on the district and precinct levels - especially in the second round when only two candidates will be left in the running - could invite ballot falsifications and other fraud.

A list released by Ukraine's Central Election Commission shows that five of the six top candidates will have at least 30,000 authorized representatives on hand for the elections. President Leonid Kuchma leads the list with slightly more than 52,000, while Natalia Vitrenko has barely 12,000.

With approximately 38 million Ukrainian voters, Mr. Kuchma will have statistically 1.37 representatives for every 1,000 voters. A candidate with 30,000 representatives will have 1.27 per 1,000. With about 30,000 voting precincts, most candidates will have on average one authorized representative per election precinct.

"In the second round, with only two candidates left, there may not be a sufficient number of observers approved by the candidates to cover all the precincts. There may not be enough individuals to watch for any falsification that could take place," said Mr. Radchenko.

The Committee of Voters also warned that the vote may not even get to a second round because there may simply not be a sufficient number of electoral commission members on the precinct and district levels in many areas to allow for voting on election day.

"The biggest problem we see regards Article 18, Section 5, of the Election Law, that each electoral commission should have at least six members present to make a decision," said Oleksander Chernenko, another leading member of the citizens' group.

He explained that about 10,000 of the local election commissions have only the minimum of eight members, and that in the last several weeks some 8,000 local commission members have asked to be released from their responsibilities and many more have refused to continue their work.

Some have complained, according to Mr. Chernenko, that the government failed to compensate them for their work in the March 1998 parliamentary elections and that the work and the responsibility is not worth the effort.

Others have said they were informed of their appointments through the press, even though they never gave their approval for inclusion. Mr. Chernenko suggested that many local election officials simply might not show up on October 31. Without a minimum of six members a voting precinct will not be able to open.

The Committee of Voters said it would have some 15,000 of its own observers registered for the elections to monitor voting in the precincts. The citizens' group is part of a large coalition of civic and non-profit organizations - 277 throughout Ukraine - called the Freedom of Choice Coalition, which was organized in March to monitor and analyze the election process. The group, which neither endorses nor promotes any candidate, has organized voter education projects, distributed information packets and developed pre-election surveys.

In two remaining projects, it has received Central Election Committee approval to assist the disabled and shut-ins to get to the polls, and will monitor voting patterns on election day through exit polls that it will conduct in all oblasts of Ukraine.

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