FOR THE RECORD: Orest Deychakiwsky comments on Ukraine's election (12/26/04)

FOR THE RECORD: Orest Deychakiwsky comments on Ukraine's election

Following are excerpts of remarks by Orest Deychakiwsky, staff advisor to the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, delivered on November 30 at a forum on Ukraine's election sponsored by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

When Martins Zvaners contacted me to invite me to this forum a few weeks ago, little did I, or I suspect most of us, think that the subsequent events would turn out to be as dramatic, momentous and, indeed, historic as has been the case, and how they would garner the world's attention. ... I returned from Kyiv last Tuesday night [November 23]. ...

... You've seen the numerous expressions of concern by senior U.S. officials and many other governments, international institutions, NGOs both within and outside Ukraine, including the Ukrainian American community, and the international media. ... Only the CIS observers, who never met an election in the CIS they didn't like, gave these elections the thumbs up. Their conclusions might be aptly labelled as "eyes wide shut."...

The bottom line is that the elections were stolen. The independent and respected Committee for Voters of Ukraine (CVU) asserted that at least 2.8 million ballots were rigged in favor of [Viktor] Yanukovych. Violations are too numerous to enumerate.

They were extensive and they were flagrant, and what happened in Donetsk in terms of "getting out the vote" and the positive vote for the "right" candidate was reminiscent of the electoral zealotry of Soviet times. My colleague from the Commission Ron McNamara and I were in Kirovohrad, in the center of Ukraine - on the dividing line between the northern and western oblasts that voted for Viktor Yushchenko and the eastern and southern regions that went for Mr. Yanukovych.

On election day and night, we were in the infamous Territorial Electoral Commission (TEC 100), where problems were legion during the first round on October 31. Unfortunately, we weren't disappointed. While at some polling stations, the voting process was orderly and normal, at others it was highly problematic. Pro-Yushchenko polling station commissioners had been thrown off the commissions, but many were pushing back. The local court was crowded with those dismissed seeking reinstatement. We hurried to the court where we spoke with people, some crying, who recounted their frustration and disbelief at this injustice. (We heard from some of them, as from so many others in Ukraine - "we just want to live in an honest, decent country"). We met with some of the judges who were reinstating these people as polling commission members, clearly displaying courage in doing so given the possible consequences.

These mass expulsions contributed to an air of confusion throughout the afternoon and into the night. Some polling station chairmen were not allowing polling station commissioners back on even after they had been reinstated. In one case, we accompanied a woman whose case my colleague Mr. McNamara had heard back to her polling station, where the reception towards her was cold, and I strongly suspect the only reason they let her back in was because there were international observers present. Another polling station we observed had only opened up at 4:10 p.m. as eight out of the 18 members of the polling station commission simply failed to show up to open the station in the morning, thus potentially disenfranchising hundreds of student voters at the technical university. The other polling station workers finally had to break into the safe in order to obtain the ballot papers and other materials so that the voters - mostly students - could exercise their right to vote. (You also saw "hanger-ons" and heads of PECs not even knowing who they were representing).

At the count we attended, a pro-Yushchenko observer was forced to leave right before the count commenced. I spoke with this woman and it became clear that the reasons for her being thrown out were specious at best. Others had been thrown out earlier in the week. Despite this, the counting process seemed to go relatively smoothly, and Mr. Yushchenko emerged victorious with 1,221 votes to Mr. Yanukovych's 725. Or so we thought.

After our return to Kyiv the next day, we learned that the Territorial Election Commission had reported that in that particular precinct, Mr. Yanukovych "won" by 1,670 to Mr. Yushchenko's 276. A reversal of the count, with a vengeance! At the polling station where my colleague Ron observed the count in Kirovohrad and where Mr. Yushchenko won by nearly a three-to-one margin, there were 312 unmarked ballots missing, which meant that the results were not accepted. And this is just the tip of the iceberg in Kirovohrad alone.

Group voting with the notorious absentee voter certificates organized by state-owned and some private companies, was one of the major violations that significantly altered the results (nearly 5 percent, according to OSCE), or, something which has gotten less attention, the high numbers of people who participated in mobile voting (i.e., voting at their homes or hospitals), which is ripe for fraud, in certain oblasts compared to the first round. And, of course, pressure on state employees to produce the right results or vote the right way.

In the East, voter turnout in the second round increased by 9 percent. For example, in Donetsk Oblast there was 96.65 percent turn out compared to 78 in the first round (and 96 percent voting for Mr. Yanukovych). But in Western Ukraine, the turn out grew only by 1.5 percent. In some precincts in Donetsk, turnout reportedly exceeded 100 percent. This would point to ballot box stuffing, which used to be a widespread technique in Communist times in order to reach very high voter turn out. ...

Ukraine's democracy, for all of its obvious flaws as illustrated by these elections, and its civil society is further developed than any other in the CIS. It is no accident that the Putins and Lukashenkas of the world are watching this election carefully (And, by the way, the chutzpah of the Russians when they accuse the U.S. and Europe of interfering in these elections and subsequent developments is something to behold. Just imagine the outcry if President George W. Bush would have visited Ukraine several times and actively supported one of the candidates, pumping hundreds of millions, or if Mr. Bush would have twice congratulated a candidate even before he was pronounced the official winner in Ukraine).

I should add that the democratic movements in Belarus, Russia, and the CIS are also watching developments intently, as which way Ukraine goes will shape Russian and CIS moves towards democracy. (For example, Belarusian democrats have been demonstrating in support of the Orange Revolution and some who had been in Kyiv were detained and roughed up at the Ukrainian-Belarusian border).

I think the following quote by Zbigniew Brzezinski sums it up perfectly and more articulately than I can: "The Ukrainian struggle for democracy is the struggle for the future of Russia. If Ukrainian democracy prevails, Russia has no choice but to go that way and be a democracy. If Ukrainian democracy fails, Russian imperial ambitions are reawakened and there is a temptation of an alternative future which is imperial and authoritarian."

Clearly, what is happening in Ukraine has very important geo-political implications. Russia would like to separate Ukraine from the West and make it co-dependent, possibly with a view towards an eventual restoration of empire. It's also about oil and gas pipeline politics, with its intersection of geo-politics and money. However, there are also many Russians who are very uncomfortable with their government's heavy-handed involvement in the Ukrainian elections, including some in their independent press.

But I think that for the average Ukrainian, including those on the front lines protesting, it's not principally, if at all, about geo-politics; not about Russia vs. West. It's about corruption versus reform, democracy versus authoritarianism, trust versus lies, a brighter future versus prolonging the status quo. It's not about the sometimes oversimplified East-West divisions in Ukraine. There have been few public protests on behalf of Mr. Yanukovych and some of his supporters seem to get co-opted when they came to Kyiv to demonstrate for their man. (Reports of Messrs. Yushchenko and Yanukovych supporters in Kyiv intermingling, and even embracing and kissing each other). Rallies in support of Mr. Yushchenko have not been limited to western and central Ukraine - they are also being held in cities in eastern Ukraine.

And even though Mr. Yanukovych won resoundingly in some of the eastern oblasts (and would have even despite the falsifications), one wonders what the results would have been if you would have had the UT 1, 1+1 and Inter TV and other channels reporting objectively during the electoral campaign. ...

Or if you wouldn't have had the use of "administrative resources" and pressure and intimidation on behalf of Mr. Yanukovych.

Or if you didn't have a campaign of so-called black PR - vicious lies designed to portray Mr. Yushchenko as a radical nationalist American stooge;

Or if his poisoning wouldn't have prevented him from losing valuable time campaigning.

Indeed, the authorities' campaign to divide, and not unite, represents one of the lowest of the many low points in the campaign.

Countless people, from the members of the Ukrainian national and local governments, to the military and members of the security forces; to the Ukrainian diplomats in the Embassy here in Washington demanding that the elections reflect the will of the people; to the journalists - both independent and now increasingly those working for the state channels who broke state-imposed censorship; to the protesters old and young alike braving the cold; to the ordinary, and yet very extraordinary women in Kirovohrad fighting for their rights, all are displaying remarkable courage and determination. They are taking risks, because there are no guarantees of how things will come out. ...

But there is one thing that I believe is beyond dispute: the people of Ukraine are determined to achieve their rights in a peaceful manner and to live in a democratic, free and independent country. It's an idea whose time has come!

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