Dangers and the Vote

By Oksana Bashuk Hepburn

As Ukraine nears the September 30 election, voters are splitting three ways: one third favours the Orange forces led by Yulia Tymoshneko’s  Bloc; one third supports Prime Minister Victor Yanukovych and his Party of Regions; and the rest won’t say.

Who will win?  That depends on the undecided vote and its view of front runners like the Party of Regions.  After 18 months of parliamentary power, it reaps the benefits of office.  The Prime Minister has projected a respectable image shedding the somewhat bumbling, goon-like one from the 2004 Presidential Elections. Ukraine’s robust economy favours him as well.  Foreign investments have surpassed five billion dollars, almost three times the 2003 figures. 

For Western minded Ukrainians, his negatives include a wobbly stand on NATO and charges of corruption.  To them, the most dangerous aspect of his candidature lie in taped messages from a secret meeting last month with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin.  Realnaya Polityka, a Russian website, reported that among others, the two leaders agreed that Ukraine’s state language should be Russian; Ukraine will guarantee Russia’s energy passage to Europe; they will work on a new global pan-Slavism strategy; and, according to Putin “…things will not change in Ukraine…Yanukovych will be Prime Minister.”  

Whether the tape is real or not is a moot point: the issues are real.  The danger to Ukraine’s free election is Russia’s determination to control it through the Party of Regions regardless of Ukraine’s national will.  Russia needs Ukraine for its energy dominance, as a global counterweight to the United States and the West, and for Ukraine’s strategic attributes both geographic—proximity to Europe, the Black Sea, and economic—agriculture, metallurgy, space industry.  Its empire-building strategies depend on it.

The alternative to Yanukovych is Yulia Tymoshenko’s Bloc united with other Orange parties, supported by 1/3 of the electorate and making headway.  Once the lone standard bearer of the Orange Revolution, she articulates Ukraine’s national aspirations and couples them with good-for-Ukraine economic policies. She is seen by the pro-West minded electorate as its champion.  She is credited for a rapprochement among the Orange forces - Our Ukraine and Yurij Lutsenko’s Peoples Self Defence party.  She achieved similar unity during the Orange Revolution only to see President Yushchenko, to whom she handed power, turn on her.  Many of the undecided voters must be wondering about the dangers facing her victory. It’s hard to believe that Russia will let her, and the West, win outright

In previous Ukrainian elections, fraud occurred at all three levels of voting, the most blatant in 2004 at the Central Elections Commission where Yanukovych supporters introduced false results into the computer to give him a slight win. This precipitated the Orange Revolution. 

At the local polling station level, dead people’s names, mertvi dushi, have appeared on voters lists; corrupt election official have been video taped adding rolls of ballots during the count.  Now, there are complaints that the electoral lists vary by about as much as 20% from the previous year.  Is the accusation real or not?  Either way, it can be used to trip the election.

Any transfer of ballots is open to abuse.  Concern about voting at home, where election urns are carried to the sick, needs attention.  Moving hundreds of sacks of ballots and documents from local voting stations to regional centres is opportunity for massive falsification.  Election observers need to be trained and the electorate assured that there are checks throughout the system preventing fraud.

Punishment of corrupt officials could be a serious deterrent.   However, during the last election there was only one television advertisement showing that election law violation—threats of job dismissal for not voting as told--is punishable in jail. Serhij Kivalov, the dismissed Chief of Ukraine’s Central Election Commission, went un-punished for running two fraudulent presidential elections is running again for parliamentary office as a leading member of the Party of Regions.

However, the ultimate election sabotage could happen after the vote. After the Orange forces’ experienced their slight win in the last parliamentary elections, parliamentarians were prevented from taking office for months by which time some of them crossed over to the Yanukovych side.  It could happen again—by threat of life or corruption.  Allegedly, the price for switching sides in the last election surpassed a million dollars.  The evidence being fancy cars, Rolexes and Savile Row suits some parliamentarians suddenly boasted.  

The best enforcer of electoral law has been Ukraine’s free press.  It needs to keep up the pressure on politicians; keep them honest.  Make them provide assurances that during the transition period, Ukraine’s wealth is protected from raiders; that positions are not being offered to pals or lubi druzi.  The media needs to keep asking the hard questions.  Will the Orange coalition hold?  Will parliamentarians switch parties? Who will comprise cabinet?  Will there be grand victory celebrations abroad like there were before or will the new government get down to the business of governing? 

The post election transition period is ripe with opportunities for Russia’s Mr. Putin to make a power play should Yulia and the Orange forces win.  The last parliamentary election chaos allowed Russia to place its people in high offices and demoralized much of Ukraine’s electorate - one third of which is controlling the outcome of this election.

Oksana Bashuk Hepburn is the President of U*CAN, a consulting firm specializing in relations with Ukraine, and a commentator.