Greens shut out as party fails to reach 4 percent level in by-party balloting (04/07/02)

Greens shut out as party fails to reach 4 percent level in by-party balloting

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - The Party of Greens of Ukraine, frequently subject to criticism for its questionable fervor for ecological issues, but never for its support of issues dear to President Leonid Kuchma, whom it often backed, apparently fell out of favor with Ukraine's voters and perhaps the president as well in the last few weeks before the election.

Party leaders said during a press conference on April 2 that, while that may be the case, they also suspected extensive voter fraud had as much to do with the end results, in which the party obtained barely 1.3 percent, or some 215,000 votes in a country of 50 million. As a result, Ukraine's Greens, whose name, critics have long said, has as much to do with the color of money as with the color of trees, will no longer have a seat in the Parliament.

Chairman Vitalii Kononov said he believes that more than a million votes were stolen from his party, primarily because the party failed to either join or expressly support for one of the major blocs.

"The error we made was that we did not bloc with anybody," explained Mr. Kononov. "We did not cause conflicts either, but because we refused to enter partnerships we left ourselves open."

He said he also believes the party did not succeed in getting its ideological message of ecological correctness out to the voters.

However, what was most perplexing to party leaders, explained Mr. Kononov, was how its ratings fell so quickly and steeply in merely two weeks. Indeed the Party of Greens of Ukraine (PGU) had maintained what seemed like a fairly strong and consistent rating of between 3.5 and 5.5 percent two weeks before the election, at which time election law forbade the publishing of pre-election surveys.

While those figures could not assure party leaders that their spots in the next Verkhovna Rada were sealed, the numbers were far higher than what the final tally showed. Mr. Kononov noted that only the Union of Women for a Future political bloc, which had seen a meteoric rise, had shown a similarly drastic rating drop. Mr. Kononov said he is convinced his party's vote tallies were reduced by "administrative manipulation" of voting results.

"We were approached by people who asked whether they could take our votes because we would not be allowed through anyway," said Mr. Kononov.

Mr. Kononov added that, while he had a good idea of who was responsible for the fraud, he had no desire to reveal names. He also said that while the PGU was gathering documents to submit evidence to various European organizations, including the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the Council of Europe, it had no plans to appeal the vote count to a Ukrainian court.

"Everybody who got in is happy, and no one is going to allow our claim to be heard," said Mr. Kononov.

The PGU and the Union of Women for a Future were not the only ones that saw what looked like opportunity turn to defeat in the last weeks of the election. The controversial and radical National Deputy Natalia Vitrenko, leader of the Progressive Socialist Party who headed a political bloc named after her, also witnessed a decline in her fortunes, falling 0.78 percent short of cracking the 4 percent barrier of voter support that was needed for a political party or bloc to gain a seat in the Parliament. Her Progressive Socialist Party had been part of the first two Ukrainian Parliaments.

While admitting she was disappointed, Ms. Vitrenko said she was ready to wait for the next elections. In the meantime she would bide her time building political organizations, including an anti-American group and a national revival movement.

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