REFLECTIONS OF ELECTION OBSERVERS: In the town of Kupiansk (02/06/05)

REFLECTIONS OF ELECTION OBSERVERS

In the town of Kupiansk

by Yaromyr Oryshkevych

Now it can be told. Ukraine had the third (and final) round of its presidential election, and democracy won. When the call went out from various monitoring organizations that they needed monitors to be at the polls during the election on December 26, yours truly (and many of my friends, including Dr. Roman Serbyn, who became my traveling partner) heeded the call, made reservations, and flew to Ukraine.

I found out upon arrival that there were over 12,000 foreign election observers, most from the U.S. and Canada, and that we would be sent into "hostile" areas, where the greatest fraudulent occurrences were detected in the previous election.

On the evening of December 25 several of us took a train from Kyiv to Kharkiv, found our hotel and located the individuals for whom we carried "sposterihach" certificates which allowed them to function as official election observers.

I was then rousted out of bed at 4 a.m. on December 26 and told that two vehicles would carry a group of seven of us (plus two drivers) to a smaller city, Kupiansk, about two hours to the east, near the Russian border, where we would do our poll watching.

We were also told by people who had visited the area the day before that we would be approached by burly men, verbally or even physically assaulted, our lives possibly threatened, our badges stripped from our jackets (we were told to put them away), and to be aware of the possible cutting of electrical wires to the polling place, and that we were to videotape any and all such occurrences.

At about 5:30 a.m., our vehicles stopped for a "smoke break" literally in the middle of nowhere, with half a foot of snow covering the countryside and not another person or car in sight. After the break, a couple of people got switched; we had a new passenger, and we received a repeat of the previous precautions.

By about 6:45 a.m., we arrived in Kupiansk, got oriented and proceeded to the first polling place, which I expected to be guarded by black-jacketed burly men with axe handles and ski masks. Instead, a smiling gentleman in a suit escorted us in, and a line of ladies at the sign-in tables welcomed us with smiles and friendly greetings. (So far so good.)

We observed the entire procedure from the opening of the safe, distribution of the ballots and signed petitions, the assembly and sealing of the voting boxes, to an explanation of what to do with individuals who cannot identify themselves - everyone needed a passport. Well, now we're getting better. (The bad guys must be hiding).

We left a couple of our people there, and after visiting another polling place, our cars split up, and we paired up and visited several more polling places. Everywhere the poll workers were quite friendly, the leaders were quite cooperative, with an occasional resistant one, and we filmed anything which could have been remotely out of place. The occasional black-jacketed burly guys were few and far between, and I certainly didn't see any axe handles.

We visited a local establishment that supplied us with delicious ethnic food (the waiter could have used a little Dale Carnegie refresher), and over the meal we plotted our strategy for the afternoon and evening.

Our pair continued to visit various polling places, some more difficult to find than others, and I continued to film the facilities and the conditions under which people voted. Some people had to travel quite a distance in the snow - many walked, some took public transportation - to vote, but the voting commission provided buses for invalids who wanted to come to vote (if they didn't have a physician's certification, no vehicle would be sent to collect their vote, so they had to come to the polling place to vote in person), and they came. One elderly lady who couldn't even walk, was assisted by two burly men, cast her ballot, and, when asked for whom she voted admitted that she voted for Viktor Yanukovych. Even though Mr. Yanukovych was not thought of well by people in the western part of the country, he was still the candidate of the east.

Several more polling places later, my partner Constantine and I arrived at a site we visited previously and spent the remainder of the evening here, watching the last vote being cast, witnessing the closing of the doors, the announcement of the procedures to be followed and the opening of the voting boxes. Then the counting began. I thought the woman who repeated Yanukovych's name 1,500 times would be in a straight jacket by the end of the evening, but she did well. Mr. Yanukovych beat Viktor Yushchenko by about 5:1; again, democracy at work.

We followed the vehicles carrying the sealed packages of the certified ballots and final counts to the central election bureau, where we were to witness 170 polling places post their results. By about 7:30 the next morning all 170 reported, and Mr. Yanukovych had at least a 6:1 margin. The people were expressing their will.

By about 8:15 a.m. our remaining five some (the others left earlier) drove west to Kharkiv, drooping and dozing as the countryside swept by, but elated by the fact that we made sure democracy worked and that the people were able to vote for the candidate of their choice. Our presence possibly prevented the 6:1 margin from becoming a 10:1 margin (as happened on November 21 in many places). By the time we arrived in Kharkiv, we found out that Mr. Yushchenko had already been declared the winner (by CNN exit polls) by about 54 to 46 percent, but that the final results wouldn't be available for several more days. The Orange Revolution succeeded, even though when we were in the eastern part of Ukraine we could show no colors nor express any opinion.

Several challenges by random individuals at the polling places proved that we came as impartial observers, and that made other observers present feel at ease. At one polling place, an elderly gentleman came up to us and started to tell us what he thought of Mr. Yanukovych (mind you, as a Yushchenko supporter he was in a 5:1 minority, and he felt "safe" in expressing himself to us); our videographer continued to film while this gentlemen continued his diatribe; when he asked us what we thought, we emphasized that we wanted to make sure that the voices of the people of Ukraine would be expressed through their vote, and that democracy would be the winner. He then quieted down, went back to his place and we continued to observe.

The black-jacketed burly men kept a low profile, we were followed much of the time, cell phones announced our departure from one place and approach to another, but the foreign eyes that we lent to the proceedings, and the video cameras that recorded many of the events helped to maintain the principles we were trying to guarantee: free speech, one person one vote, majority rules, no verbal or physical intimidation - all spelling democracy for a newly emerging country.

Yaromyr Oryshkevych volunteered to be an observer under the auspices of the UCCA. A resident of the suburbs of Washington and a dentist in Waldorf, Md., he was born in Zolochiv, Halychyna.

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