ANALYSIS: Opposition denied equal media access in parliamentary election campaign (03/10/02)

ANALYSIS

Opposition denied equal media access in parliamentary election campaign

by Taras Kuzio
RFE/RL Media Matters

Ukraine's parliamentary elections on March 31 come at a time when public trust in the media is relatively low. Ukrainians who fully trust the media range from a low of 11.6 to 15.5 percent, depending on the region, according to a January poll by the Center for Economic and Political Studies.

One reason the media is not trusted is because it is mainly controlled by the executive and oligarchs who are denying equal access for all 35 election parties and blocs - especially those in opposition to President Leonid Kuchma.

Recognizing this problem, the Verkhovna Rada last month approved a resolution "On Securing Citizens' Right to Information" during the elections.

The regular flouting of media legislation by national deputies and the executive is a second reason that there is a low level of public trust in the media. The honorary president of the television station Inter is Oleksander Zinchenko, head of the oligarchic Social Democratic Party (United) [SDPU] parliamentary faction and chairman of the parliamentary committee on Freedom of Speech and Information. Inter, which broadcasts mainly in Russian, regularly flouts Article 9 of the law "On Television and Radio," which states that 50 percent of programming should be in the state language, Ukrainian.

At a February meeting with the Central Election Commission, the National Television and Radio Council (NTRC) complained that the greatest number of legal violations had been undertaken by foreign (i.e., Western) media subleasing broadcast time from Ukrainian media and warned that the licenses of these Ukrainian media outlets would be revoked. This kind of official hostility to foreign media only applies to Western - not Russian - media.

The election law prohibits election campaigning by foreign media, although these articles have never been applied against the extensive Russian print and television media available in Ukraine. The NTRC did not threaten Ukrainian television stations, such as Inter, which re-broadcast Russian programs. Russian TV and radio programs support pro-Kuchma and oligarchic blocs and are not favorably disposed to the anti-Kuchma opposition or to former Prime Minister Viktor Yushchenko's Our Ukraine bloc.

The main target for the NTRC are Western radio stations, such as the BBC, Radio Liberty, Voice of America and Deutsche Welle. These stations are far more objective, more willing to expose election malpractices and, therefore, less positively disposed toward the "party of power" and the oligarchs.

Official media policies in general - and especially during elections - do not grant equal access to all political forces. Both the moderate and the radical opposition to President Kuchma and to the oligarchs are at a great disadvantage in the current elections in obtaining access to the media. The authorities are using every method at their disposal to prevent Oleksander Moroz's Socialists and the Yulia Tymoshenko radical opposition bloc from obtaining access to the media in an effort to restrict popular support for these two blocs. Mr. Yushchenko's Our Ukraine bloc faces fewer media restrictions because it is only anti-oligarch, not anti-Kuchma, but it also faces severe problems.

The executive and the oligarchs control most of the country's media. The most popular television stations in Ukraine - which cover between 70 and 90 percent of the country - are 1+1 and Inter on channels 2 and 3 respectively. Both television stations are controlled by the SDPU and its ally, the oligarchic Democratic Union. The Labor Ukraine oligarchic party controls the ICTV and Era television stations.

In addition to restricting access to the media, the executive and oligarchs have undertaken a number of concerted actions against independent media or those sympathetic to the opposition.

In Odesa, 15 journalists on the Hot Line television station were fired after they openly stated their intention of maintaining neutrality in the elections. The decision was a warning to journalists that they should work only for pro-presidential parties.

In Luhanske the Efir-1 television company was closed by the City Council after it refused to endorse the dismissal of Mayor Anatolii Yahoferov, a sympathizer of Mr. Yushchenko's Our Ukraine.

In November 2001 presidential spokesman Ihor Storozhuk was appointed head of the National Television Company to ensure that the executive fully controlled this important station. The only Ukrainian-language newspaper in Crimea, Krymska Svitlytsia, stopped receiving state funds in November 2001 because it never hid its support for Mr. Yushchenko. Ivan Drach, a leading member of the Our Ukraine bloc, was replaced as chairman of the State Committee on Information, Television and Radio on February 7 by Ivan Chyzh, a defector from Mr. Moroz's Socialists. It was important to the executive branch that Mr. Drach and the Our Ukraine bloc have no influence over the State Committee during the election campaign.

Ms. Tymoshenko and Mr. Moroz, radical opponents of President Kuchma, have encountered the greatest difficulties in receiving media coverage of their programs.

In Cherkasy journalists of the Socialist newspaper Rubezh went on a hunger strike on January 30 because printing facilities had suddenly stopped being available to them. Ms. Tymoshenko had been unable to place a single paid advertisement on any state or commercial television station; on February 14 the Ms. Tymoshenko bloc sent an open letter to the heads of television stations complaining of an "information blockade" because of Ms. Tymoshenko's opposition to President Kuchma.

Kyiv printing houses canceled their contracts to print Ms. Tymoshenko's Slovo Batkivschyny and Vechirni Visti newspapers, and she had to relocate their printing operation to western Ukraine. Serhii Pravdenko, editor of the parliamentary daily newspaper Holos Ukraiiny and a candidate for the Ms. Tymoshenko bloc, was accused of misusing funds and a criminal case has been launched against him.

The STB and Novy Kanal TV stations, which cover only 23 to 28 percent of Ukraine's territory, are sympathetic or neutral to Mr. Yushchenko's Our Ukraine, while other television stations controlled by the executive or oligarchs provide negative coverage. On a tour of Poltava, Mykolaiv, and Kirovohrad earlier this month Mr. Yushchenko was barred from appearing on oblast-level state television and radio. When he finally managed to insist on his right to appear on Mykolaiv Oblast state television, the electricity was cut off.

Our Ukraine activists have been arrested for distributing and putting up leaflets "in the wrong place" by the militia in eastern Ukrainian cities. The militia does not apply these rules to the pro-Kuchma For a United Ukraine and SDPU election blocs, whose posters are to be found everywhere.

Thus, it is clear that all 35 parties and blocs active during the current political campaign are not being granted equal access to the media during the run-up to the Ukrainian parliamentary elections. Such unequal access to the media particularly applies to those election blocs that are anti-oligarch and/or anti-Kuchma. Preventing equal media access also contravenes President Kuchma's stated promise to Western governments and international organizations to allow free and fair elections.

Taras Kuzio is a research associate at the Center for East European Studies, University of Toronto.

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