ELECTION WATCH (09/12/04)

ELECTION WATCH

Bazyliuk blasts Yushchenko on TV

KYIV - Presidential candidate Oleksander Bazyliuk on September 1 became the first candidate to take advantage of free campaign air time on the state-run UT-1 television channel. Each presidential contender has the right to address viewers three times for 10 minutes each. Mr. Bazyliuk leads the Slavic Party of Ukraine and chairs the Congress of Russian Organizations of Ukraine. His election support in polls is below 1 percent. Mr. Bazyliyuk, who spoke Russian, harshly criticized presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko, claiming that the latter intends "to destroy Ukraine as a Slavic state." He added: "We know how enemies of Ukraine have prepared Yushchenko to become the president of Ukraine." He encouraged viewers to "vote for an independent president for Ukraine." According to Ukrainian observers, a dozen of the 26 registered presidential contenders can be categorized as "technical candidates," whose major goal is to attack Mr. Yushchenko in the campaign to impair his presidential chances. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Our Ukraine chief continues to lead

KYIV - According to a poll held by the Democratic Initiatives fund and the SOCIS center on September 1-4, 31 percent of respondents intend to vote for opposition Our Ukraine leader Viktor Yushchenko and 24 percent for Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych in the October 31 presidential election, Interfax reported. Communist Party leader Petro Symonenko is supported by 7 percent of voters and Socialist Party head Oleksander Moroz by 6.5 percent. The pollsters found that in a hypothetical runoff Mr. Yushchenko would be supported by 40 percent of voters and Mr. Yanukovych by 33 percent. The same poll also revealed that 12 percent of respondents believe the elections will be absolutely honest; 32 percent think that isolated violations will not affect the final results; 25 percent believe that there will be significant violations affecting the final results; and 18 percent think that everything will be distorted. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Rada appeals for fair election

KYIV - The Verkhovna Rada on September 7 adopted an appeal to government agencies, local governments, companies, institutions and organizations, asking them "to use every means to promote citizens' conscious choice and uninhibited expression of their civic position" in the October 31 presidential election, the UNIAN news agency reported. The appeal says government agencies must create equal opportunities for candidates to conduct their campaign and rule out any "bias and groundless interference in the election process." The Parliament also adopted an appeal to journalists and media executives, urging them to ensure unbiased coverage of the campaign and prevent "the distortion of facts and use of manipulation techniques." (RFE/RL Newsline)

UOC-KP prays for elections

SAMBIR, Ukraine - "The Church is praying for the presidential elections, showing no preference to any candidate for president." So said Patriarch Filaret (Denysenko), head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Kyiv Patriarchate (UOC-KP), during his visit to western Ukraine's Lviv region on August 27. Among the many meetings during his visit, in Sambir the patriarch met with National Deputy Petro Oliinyk, who is also chief of presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko's local campaign headquarters. According to the press office of the Yushchenko local campaign headquarters, Patriarch Filaret stated that the Church is praying for the upcoming presidential election in Ukraine to be honest and transparent. "We would like God to enlighten people, so that they can discern who is who, and to help them make a correct and aware choice. As the head of the Orthodox Church, I call upon all citizens of Ukraine to make every effort to go through this difficult experience with dignity," said the patriarch. The patriarch recalled the sad experience of previous elections, when people sold their votes "for buckwheat," and he asked people not to make the same mistakes. "We should show our sincere, unhypocritical love for Ukraine, and we are praying for that," he said. Patriarch Filaret emphasized that the Church is not making any open declarations of its preference for any of the presidential candidates, though it is far from being indifferent to whom the Ukrainian people will choose as their president. In his talk with the patriarch, Mr. Oliinyk stressed the need for unification of the Churches into a single national Ukrainian Church. He stated: "The Church is not just a spiritual but also a social institution. In Halychyna 76 percent of the population trusts the Church implicitly. This by far exceeds the number of people who trust state institutions." (Religious Information Service of Ukraine)

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