REFLECTIONS OF ELECTION OBSERVERS: On assignment in Vasylkiv (02/06/05)

REFLECTIONS OF ELECTION OBSERVERS

On assignment in Vasylkiv

by Katya Bowers

My husband, Hank, and I were observers for the December 26 elections in Ukraine under the auspices of UCCA. I was an observer for the parliamentary elections in 1991 when Ukraine was still a Soviet socialist republic. I was there as an observer later that year on December 1 when the people of Ukraine went to the polls to cast their votes in a referendum on independence and to elect the country's first president, Leonid Kravchuk. I was in Kyiv to lend a helping hand when the United States opened its Embassy in 1992. I served as a regional director in Kyiv for one of the USAID assistance programs to Ukraine from 1993-1994.

Therefore, I had to be there on December 26, 2004, to observe the election of the first democratic president in Ukraine, Viktor Yushchenko. I was happy to have my husband participate with me, also as an official UCCA observer. He is a non-Ukrainian, but firmly supportive of his Ukrainian-born wife.

Our desire to be present at the historic elections was almost thwarted by the late arrival of our visas from the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington. They finally came 24 hours before our flight to Ukraine. Our late arrival in Kyiv meant that we could not go to Kharkiv as planned, because the team of observers to that eastern oblast had already departed. It was a disappointment. I was born south of that city in a village called Plysova. In 1993, 50 years after the Nazis drove us off our land, I stood where our house once stood and walked along the rows of sugar beets where my father's apple orchard had grown. The village was burned to the ground in late 1943, part of Hitler's scorched earth policy as the German eastern front withdrew behind the Dnipro River to the west bank before an advancing Red Army. I was hoping to see Plysova again and to show my husband my ancestral village.

At the UCCA headquarters, located at the corner of Prorizna Street and the Khreschatyk, the staff reassigned us to an area close to Kyiv. Leaving the building, we had our first chance to take a closer look at the tent city clearly visible from the foot of Prorizna. It looked like a permanent encampment, with a press center, posted sentries and stoves inside the tents to fend off the bitter cold. Later that day, December 25, we celebrated my birthday with our longtime friends, the noted Ukrainian artist Oleksander Dubovyk and his wife, Iryna. All in all, it was a full but happy day.

On the 26th we met our driver, Aleksei, a Russian, at 6 a.m., in order to arrive at our first polling station in Vasylkiv no later than 7:15. Vasylkiv is a small town just outside Kyiv on the same side of the Dnipro River. We were instructed to be present before the polling station was open at 8 a.m. to certify that the polling boxes were sealed and not tampered with before the voting started.

The 16-member local election board at polling precinct No. 1 in the Cultural Center at Vasylkiv was very cooperative. The head of the board, Olha Hryhorivna Blyzniuk, explained carefully every step she was taking in a procedure that was spelled out by election law. She invited us and the Ukrainian observers in the room, representing each candidate, to examine the four sealed polling boxes, the ballot forms and the pens - making sure they were not filled with disappearing ink. She also allowed us to inspect each of the six polling booths where voters would cast their ballots in secret. There were 2,318 registered voters in that precinct. Hank carried his camcorder and was able to film the entire opening of the polling station. as well as the first voters to arrive.

From there we went on to other polling places in the town: to precinct No. 9 located in a factory with 2,236 registered voters, and precinct No. 4 in a school with over 800 registered voters. We encountered no problems. Several times we found ourselves in a polling station with other international observers, from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe or the European Parliament. Then one or the other group would quickly leave and move on to the next precinct. There was a lot of ground to cover in one day.

Leaving Vasylkiv, we moved on to nearby villages in the direction of Obukhiv Raion. We went to Pohreby and Barakhty. One of the most memorable of them was a small village called Liubianka. The polling precinct was located in the village council building, or silrada, and had only 225 registered voters. The entire village was relocated to the area just outside Kyiv from the 30-kilometer contaminated zone around Chornobyl in 1986, shortly after the nuclear plant exploded.

Curiously, it was the only voting place where a uniformed militiaman tried to intimidate us. He took our observer credentials from the head of the local board and reported both of us to someone over the phone. It was a clear infraction of the voting rules designed to intimidate the observers and the voters. According to election law, only the election board, the voters and the observers are allowed in the room where voting is taking place.

It was the only instance of intimidation we encountered. We had more fear of falling on the slicked walkways leading to the polling stations than of physical harm from any individual. Clearing roads of snow and ice appears not to be a priority in Ukraine.

Back in Kyiv that night, as every night since November 21, the maidan was filled with thousands of cheering people, celebrating, singing, enjoying the fireworks. Hank and I were staying in an apartment on Mykhailivskyi Provulok, just a block away from Independence Square. We went down there every night to admire the Christmas tree, enjoy professional and more spontaneous entertainment, absorb the energy and spirit of the crowd, and hear Mr. Yushchenko address the people. That was the best. That was unforgettable!

Toward the end of our stay I got sick with the flu and was too weak to travel to Kharkiv before leaving for home. That trip has to wait for another day.

Katya and Henry Bowers, MD., live in Sanibel, Fla. Dr. Bowers is a retired pathologist who was the director of laboratories at Mount Vernon Hospital in Alexandria, Va. Ms. Bowers is a Soviet expert with 20 years' experience in Washington, most recently as the WESTNIS Regional Director in Kyiv for the Counterpart Foundation, a not-for-profit organization funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development to provide programs to help the civil sector in Ukraine.

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