Yanukovych and Yushchenko head for run-off amid accusations of falsifications
by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau
KYIV - Both Viktor Yushchenko and Viktor Yanukovych claimed victory in the October 31 presidential elections in an exceedingly close vote count that many here are saying was being falsified.
With 97.7 percent of the election ballots counted, Mr. Yanukovych maintained a hangnail lead of 39.88 percent to 39.22 percent over Mr. Yushchenko, the difference between the two closing steadily as further results slowly became known. Supporters of Mr. Yushchenko have stated that the numbers that follow the 98 percent of the vote counted put their candidate in the lead.
Voter turnout was 75 percent, up from 69 percent in 1999.
At 2:30 a.m. on November 1, Mr. Yushchenko - who continued to look weak after a mysterious poisoning that he has called an assassination attempt sidelined him for most of the month of September - claimed victory as he addressed weary campaign workers and supporters at his campaign press center.
"We have victory, which the Ukrainian voters accomplished with their effort," exclaimed Mr. Yushchenko.
Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych gave a different version of the outcome later that day when he stated that he was pleased with the results and ready to go to a run-off with his main rival.
"The Ukrainian people have expressed their support for their government," said Mr. Yanukovych.
There were divergent points of view in most every aspect of the presidential vote. The previous evening differing exit polls had forecast outcomes favorable to both Mr. Yushchenko and to Mr. Yanukovych. There was also disagreement among international observers over whether the elections were fair and free. While most said the election was a step backward for democracy in Ukraine, some noted no major violations of democratic election standards (see sidebar below right).
There was no question, however, that Mr. Yushchenko had decisively won the battle for the number of Ukraine's 25 regions (24 oblasts plus the Crimea Autonomous Republic) taken outright, receiving a majority of votes in 16 of the administrative regions, including all of western Ukraine and most of the central oblasts. Many of the areas still to be tallied were considered Yushchenko strongholds, leading to speculation that he was the winner.
Four days after the vote, the Central Election Committee had yet to publish the final tally, even though it had counted 95 percent of the returns within a 10 hour time period. CEC Chairman Serhii Kivalov had stopped the vote counting process unexpectedly at midday on November 1, stating that the commission members would take a break. The commission has not held a public session since. The CEC has 10 days from election day to announce its official results.
During a highly charged session of Ukraine's Parliament on November 2, National Deputy Yurii Kliuchkovskyi alleged that the CEC had already counted up to 98.8 percent of the vote but was not publicizing the results inasmuch as they showed that Mr. Yushchenko had taken the lead by 37,000 votes.
Yushchenko supporters believed that state authorities did not want to announce the final results to leave an impression among the electorate of a Yanukovych victory in the first round, which could give the prime minister a psychological advantage going into the run-off poll.
In Kyiv, it took three days to count the vote. Members of at least one district commission left their offices and went home to sleep before returning to finish their tabulations. However, when the final numbers were in, Mr. Yushchenko had taken 63 percent of the vote to 14 percent for Mr. Yanukovych - a margin of difference few experts had expected. By the next day, however, the Kyiv numbers still had not been compiled into the general vote count.
CEC is questioned
Lawmakers who support Mr. Yushchenko went to the CEC on November 3 to inquire why the returns were not being updated and released to the public. National Deputy Ihor Ostash said he had information that the vote was almost fully counted, reported the Associated Press. Mr. Ostash, along with lawmakers Ivan Pliusch, Yevhen Chervonenko and Mr. Kliuchkovskyi, with election observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and two former presidential candidates in tow, also tried to determine whether the election results were first going to the presidential administration for tweaking before being routed to the CEC computer, as some sources were alledging.
National Deputy Stepan Havrysh, Mr. Yanukovych's representative to the CEC, disputed that account, stating that the lawmakers supporting Mr. Yushchenko and computer hackers had forced their way into the CEC offices in the middle of the night and had demanded access to the CEC computer server. Mr. Havrysh said he and a group of lawmakers who support Mr. Yanukovych's candidacy would maintain watch at the CEC to fend off any more attacks.
Guards at the government building that houses the CEC told the Associated Press on November 4 that there were no reports in their incident book of problems occurring the previous evening. The CEC website was not working as The Weekly was going to press.
The Yushchenko team maintained that its own parallel vote count showed that its candidate had won by a decisive majority. National Deputy Oleksander Zinchenko, who heads the campaign team, told reporters on November 1 that the difference between the candidates was some 12 to 15 percent at that point, with Mr. Yushchenko just short of an absolute majority. The next day National Deputy Yulia Tymoshenko, the leader of the eponymous political bloc and co-leader of the Yushchenko election coalition called Power of the People, offered a final parallel vote count of 50.3 percent in support of Mr. Yushchenko and 27.8 percent in support of Prime Minister Yanukovych.
Speaking during the same Verkhovna Rada session, Mr. Zinchenko said the results of the national vote showed that the nation could do battle with the state authorities.
"Viktor Yushchenko is the winner in the first round. He is the victor even with the dubious vote count taken by the CEC," stated Mr. Zinchenko.
Mr. Yushchenko said in an interview with the Financial Times on November 3 that he would challenge the vote results. His press secretary, Irena Heraschenko, told The Weekly that Mr. Yushchenko's campaign team had copies of all the documents on which the vote results were officially tabulated from the district level on up.
"We have all the protocols, which were given to us by our observers and representatives, and we will demand from the CEC to see every vote registered at the territorial and district levels," explained Ms. Heraschenko. "We believe they are using the time now to work out the details of the falsifications. We know that the manner in which the results should be released was planned earlier."
Falsifications, violations
Accusations of vote falsification added more vitriol to what already had been a violent, dirty and highly polarizing campaign season. Most international election observers criticized the extensive use of government administrative resources and the lack of access to the mass media for all the candidates except the one supported by state authorities.
The rumors of vote-rigging came after extensive problems with improper voter lists left up to 10 percent of the country's electorate unable to vote - a number cited by the Committee of Voters of Ukraine. Charges of fraud also came after busloads of miners were bused into other regions of Ukraine to vote with absentee ballot chits, apparently allowing them to vote more than once and denying ballots to people residing in the districts.
Other accusations of impropriety involved hundreds of election committee members on the local, district and territorial levels who were replaced in the two days before Election Day in what election officials said was an effort to resolve huge inadequacies in the preparation for the vote. Most of them were representatives of the candidates in opposition to the political establishment. The Committee of Voters of Ukraine had earlier criticized the lack of adequate preparation by electoral commissions throughout the country in the weeks before Election Day.
One glaring incident occurred in Kirovohrad on October 30, where Volodymyr Babyi, the head of a territorial election commission in the oblast, refused to sign a statement that would have replaced on short order 25 of its members with individuals loyal to Mr. Yanukovych. Mr. Babyi feigned illness and did not appear at the October 30 commission meeting. On Election Day he took the commission's official stamp and, along with the 25 original members, disappeared for the day. The CEC has refused to release the results of voting there until after a court has decided how to proceed. Many experts believe the results from that commission would be nullified.
More problems with vote counting came to light when it became apparent that the official result from seven regions showed more votes cast than ballots issued, while in eight others the opposite occurred: more ballots were issued than votes cast.
Odesa showed a variance of some 52,000 votes between the number of ballots issued and the number of votes counted. In Donetsk the difference was 26,000 more votes counted than ballots issued, while in the Crimea the figure was 18,000.
CEC press spokesperson Zoya Kazanzhi said the problem was simply a technical error that had been corrected. She explained that in the regions where votes outnumbered ballots the problems arose because in some cases election commissions began submitting their reports before the polls had closed, which was not followed up with the final numbers. She did not explain why there were also instances of more ballots issued than votes recorded.
The scene in Kyiv
While many problems remained with the actual vote, as many had predicted would be the case, other rumors and forecasts of impending violence and fears of a "Chestnut Revolution" following the vote proved unfounded, although state authorities had prepared for the worst. Kyiv seemingly became a military encampment beginning the night before the national vote.
The day began in the capital city with an almost festive feeling and spontaneous displays of support for Mr. Yushchenko. The now familiar orange banners, bandanas and ribbons associated with the Yushchenko campaign were everywhere, on fences, bridges, street lamps and automobile antennas, which seemed to support an assertion made by the Yushchenko campaign chief, Mr. Zinchenko, a couple of days later that Mr. Yushchenko had become the candidate of the people.
That night the atmosphere changed dramatically as heavy military vehicles, including armored personnel carriers and water cannons, were positioned inside the territory of the government building that houses the Central Election Commission. Huge construction vehicles filled with sand appeared along streets near the building, while dozens of special forces troops arrived in columns of buses and troop carriers, and were situated in the surrounding neighborhood.
The building itself was cordoned off in a multi-tiered manner, first with a tall grated metal fence, followed by razor wire and finally a metal wall some four feet high.
The previous week Mr. Yushchenko and his campaign officials had battled law enforcement officers before the building after thugs had rampaged through a crowd of supporters of the opposition candidate, beating and bloodying 11 individuals. The events had occurred at the end of a day in which some 100,000 Yushchenko supporters had taken part in a mass rally before the building.
On to the run-off
For the two candidates left in the presidential election race there remained another obstacle on the road to victory. The candidate who could attract the most supporters of the other 22 candidates who hadn't made it to Round 2 could almost assure himself the presidential chair.
Two leftist party leaders, Socialist Party leader Oleksander Moroz and Communist Party leader Petro Symonenko, would now become the focus of that attention. Between them the two failed candidates had received about 11 percent of the vote, with Mr. Moroz earning nearly 1 percent more than Mr. Symonenko.
Mr. Symonenko has said that his party would not back either of the candidates - both of whom he has called "representatives of oligarchic, capitalist clans." Earlier on there was an expectation that Mr. Symonenko would throw his support behind the Ukrainian prime minister. Experts believe that changed after the Communist chairman received only about 3 percent support in his home oblast of Donetsk, long a Communist stronghold, which routinely gave a majority of its votes to that party's candidates. There is widespread belief that the Yanukovych team skimmed off a considerable number of Communist votes for its candidate in the vote count.
On the other hand, Mr. Moroz has openly called the October 31 vote rigged and has stated that he would not negotiate with Prime Minister Yanukovych on obtaining his endorsement. On November 3 he announced that the executive committee of the Socialist Party could throw its endorsement to Mr. Yushchenko if the presidential candidate would agree to include three key Socialist planks in his presidential program.
First, they demanded that Mr. Yushchenko agree to political reform, which he has said he couldn't support at least until a new Parliament was elected in 2006. Then they wanted him to back a moratorium against the sale of land. Finally, they required that he agree to pull Ukrainian troops out of Iraq.
The matter of political reform would be the key to whether Mr. Yushchenko gains the support of the Socialist Party, inasmuch as he has expressed support for troop withdrawal in the past and has already stated that he would refrain for the time being on making land a commodity. The Socialist Party executive committee is expected to decide on its endorsement on November 13.
"All-Ukrainian Marathon"
Also on November 13 the Power of the People election coalition plans to hold a national rally, what it was calling an "All Ukrainian Marathon." It hoped to gather supporters of Mr. Yushchenko in the central squares of several major cities in Ukraine in an effort to inform voters how to prepare for the November 21 vote in order to lessen the chance for additional fraud and to make public their own vote tally for the first round of voting.
Meanwhile, the Committee of Voters of Ukraine announced that it had begun a public voter campaign it is calling "Find Yourself," an initiative to have voters go to their polling stations in the days before the run-off to make sure their names are included on the voter lists and properly spelled.
Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, November 7, 2004, No. 45, Vol. LXXII
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