Ukraine – The dirtiest elections yet

Even before the vote, it is already possible to say Ukraine’s
presidential election campaign was neither free nor fair,
argues Ivan Lozowy
in Transitions Online (TOL).

KIEV, Ukraine – Back in December, President Leonid Kuchma
surprised many Ukrainians by declaring, “Everyone agrees that these
will be the worst, the dirtiest elections in Ukraine,” referring to
the presidential elections due in 2004. Today, many Ukrainians must
be asking themselves, “How did he know?”

With days to go before Election Day, 31 October, the consensus
of observers within and outside Ukraine is that, even in the
increasingly unlikely case of a smooth vote, the large number of
election violations that have already taken place make it very
difficult for the elections to be considered free and fair.

Ukrainians themselves were convinced back in mid-September that
the elections will be rigged. A poll conducted then by the
Kiev-based Razumkov Center for Economic and Political Studies
showed that 64 percent of Ukrainian voters believed the results
would be falsified.

The government, for its part, has in effect shrugged off
criticism. When the monitoring committee of the Council of Europe
parliamentary assembly issued a highly critical report on the
election campaign, the deputy head of Kuchma’s presidential
administration, Vasyl Baziv, responded in a somewhat Kafka-esque
document that, “[The report] coincides completely with our own
position. … [It] contains paragraphs that overall are like those
written by the president’s administration.” But such apparent
complete agreement with its critics has not encouraged it to do
anything to prevent the violations, which mostly work in favor of
Kuchma’s chosen successor, Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych.

Elections most foul

A 650-strong army of observers from the Organization for
Security and Cooperation in Europe is descending on Ukraine to
monitor the elections. But the election campaign, which began on 4
June, has already seen widespread, systematic, and relatively
well-documented violations. 

Local government officials have used their powers to intimidate,
harass, and obstruct opposition politicians, particularly Viktor
Yushchenko, in visits to the regions and in meetings with voters.
The opposition’s meeting halls have been closed, organized groups
of drunks and louts have disrupted some meetings that they have
managed to hold, roads leading to the meeting places have been
closed, and television interviews with Yushchenko have been
sabotaged (by blank screens, by other stations’ programs suddenly
appearing on that channel, or by pressure forcing editors to pull
the show). 

Militia and special police units, such as the elite Berkut
force, have harassed and in some cases arrested activists for
opposition candidates, including Yushchenko and the Socialist
Party’s Oleksandr Moroz. Universities have expelled student
activists for campaigning on behalf of opposition
politicians. 

After Channel 5, the only national TV channel not in
pro-government hands, aired hidden-camera videos showing two
rectors exhorting students to vote for Yanukovych, it had its bank
accounts frozen and the broadcasting regulator refused to renew its
license. 

It’s not surprising, then, that television and media outlets
controlled by the government and the “oligarchs”–the government’s
financial partners–have presented Ukrainian viewers with a highly
distorted picture of the two front-runners for president. According
to the Academy of Ukrainian Press, television news gave Yanukovych
almost twice as much coverage as it did Yushchenko. Worse still,
over one-third of Yushchenko’s coverage was negative while only a
tenth of Yanukovych’s coverage could be considered negative.

The presidential administration has persisted in its attempts to
control the major mass-media outlets by continuing to issue now
infamous temnyky, instructions on how to cover (and
not to cover) particular news events. A
typical temnyk instruction from 2 July read: “Signing
ceremony of an agreement creating a coalition between Our Ukraine
[Yushchenko’s power base in parliament] and the Yulia Tymoshenko
Bloc … Commentary: Leave out any information on this topic …
Presentation of the book Yushchenko: History of an
Illness … Commentary: An important and topical issue. Analysts
expect coverage to include excerpts from the book (quotes and
documents). The first chapter of the book is the most appealing for
broadcasting. For example …”

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