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Financial Times (UK)
26 March 2002
Observers face challenge monitoring Ukraine poll
By Tom Warner in Kiev
As hundreds of foreign observers pour into Ukraine to monitor the fairness of parliamentary elections this Sunday, Yuri Orobets, a candidate in one of Kiev's districts, says he feels "ashamed".
"I'm very embarrassed that we need foreigners to tell us how to be democratic," he says. "For a country with a European culture and tradition, this is a very heavy shame."
When he was a member of parliament in 1994-1998, Mr Orobets crusaded against the consolidation of power in his country by groups he describes as "economic-political mafias". He won re-election in 1998 but the results were declared invalid.
Then Mr Orobets won in two successive repeat elections but each time the results were thrown out. In June 2000, he lost a third repeat election to Ivan Saly, a former official in the administration of President Leonid Kuchma (pictured) .
Mr Orobets' case gained notoriety after the appearance in late 2000 of a set of scandalous recordings allegedly made in the president's office. In one recording, the voice of the then interior minister brags how a special squad "with no morals" terrorised a man who distributed Mr Orobets' leaflets. In another, the voice of Mr Kuchma calls Mr Orobets an "ass" and orders the then secret police chief to push the vote in Mr Saly's favour.
As Mr Orobets and Mr Saly prepare to face each other again, his case reflects the challenge facing the teams of foreign election observers now spreading out across the country.
Last week, both houses of the US Congress adopted resolutions warning Ukraine that future US aid would depend on the fairness of the elections. The resolutions noted that Ukraine's domestic election observers had already reported numerous violations, including government pressure on opposition and independent media and coercion of individuals to join particular political parties and contribute to their campaigns. Similarly, most western observers, especially the Americans, believe they should be prepared to complain vociferously about electoral abuses.
But Viktor Chernomyrdin, Russia's ambassador in Kiev, shot back last week by accusing the US Congress of "warning and dictating how elections should be in Ukraine". "Why doesn't Ukraine come out with a similar statement, that in the US they elected one president but another man is in power?" Mr Chernomyrdin remarked at a news conference, referring to the disputed 2000 US presidential election.
The US-Russian spat is exacerbated by the fact that Ukraine's most pro-western political force, former prime minister Viktor Yushchenko's Our Ukraine bloc, appears to have the most to lose if there is manipulation. Our Ukraine has taken a strong lead in the polls, with an estimated 25 per cent to 30 per cent of voters' support while its main rival, Mr Kuchma's For a United Ukraine bloc, is wallowing in the single digits.
Mr Yushchenko's bloc is likely to do well in the nationwide contest among parties and electoral blocs, in which half of the parliament's 450 seats will be divided among the parties that receive at least 4 per cent of the votes. However, Mr Kuchma's allies are expected to win most of the other 225 seats that are being contested in direct, first-past-the-post elections.
The chairman of the largest Ukrainian observer group, Igor Popov, praises the US government's support for election monitoring, which includes funding for his group. But he predicts that after the elections, Ukrainian media will give most of their attention to the appraisals of observers from the Russia-led Commonwealth of Independent States, who are expected to be less critical of any abuses.
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