Dirty election techniques already evident (08/01/04)

Dirty election techniques already evident

Ukrainian media have already registered some examples of dirty election techniques that, according to many observers, will be used profusely in this year's presidential campaign. On July 2, three Ukrainian regions, Kharkiv, Sumy and Poltava, were flooded with more than three million bogus leaflets of the Socialist Party - titled "To Prevent the Traitor From Coming to Power" - in which the party's presidential candidate, Oleksander Moroz accuses, Our Ukraine leader Viktor Yushchenko of being "an agent of the Kremlin" and a "guarantor of the interests of Russian capital."

Moreover, the Ukrainska Pravda website on July 6 quoted two "temnyky" - unsigned secret instructions that are regularly sent to major state-controlled and private media outlets - that effectively tell journalists to reduce their coverage of Mr. Yushchenko's moves in the presidential campaign to factual reports, without expanding them via any commentaries. On the other hand, one of the temnyky instructs journalists to highlight the recent publication of a book whose author, described as a "medium-level tax inspector," discloses, among other revelations, that Mr. Yushchenko stole "millions of dollars" from the state in 1991-1992.

"I'm looking to next year with fear," President Leonid Kuchma had told journalists back in December 2003. "Everybody agrees that the [2004] election will be the scariest and dirtiest ever."

Given that the presidential administration led by Viktor Medvedchuk is widely seen in Ukraine as the main compiler of temnyky, Mr. Kuchma may be one of the best-informed persons with regard to what some presidential candidates should fear in the next several months.

- Jan Maksymiuk
RFE/RL Belarus and Ukraine Report

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