CBC Monitors Ukrainian Elections
On October 2, Mrs. Irene Sushko was interviewed by Carol Off on
CBC Radio’s As It Happens current affairs show. Mrs. Sushko was head of
election observer mission sent by the Ukrainian Canadian Congress to observe
Moderator Barbara Budd: In some ways, it feels
like a rerun of the Orange Revolution. The results of the Parliamentary
election in
The election has been marred, again, by questions
about the fairness of the vote. President Victor Yushchenko has ordered an
investigation into voting irregularities in the regions dominated by
Yanukovich. On September 28, we reported that Canadian election monitors in
that same area were harassed by police when they discovered that officials were
distributing too many ballots.
Irene Sushko is the head of that Canadian
election-monitoring team, sent to watch the vote by the Ukrainian-Canadian
Congress. We reached her in Kyiv.
Q.: Ms. Sushko, what’s your sense of how fair
this election has been?
A. In terms of fairness, Carol, we have had a
varying degree of results, some from the reports that you have already heard
that occurred in
this is for the audience to remember that Gerard
Kennedy was talking to us about that on Friday, about Donetsk … and we were
anticipating that may happen but we had the opposite end of the spectrum in
places like Lviv, Kyiv and some of the other places. I personally opened and
closed [monitoring] at one of the [polling] centres and everything there was
absolutely exemplary but, generally speaking, there have been some things that
we noticed, voter lists that perhaps were incomplete, sometimes there were
extra ballots … but in terms of the general fairness, in terms of the democratic
process, I think all would agree with me that we certainly felt that the
democratic process is alive, that it is what the citizens of Ukraine would like
to see.
Q.: There have been a lot of discussions about
how this might be a replay of the
That is difficult to ascertain at this moment. I
understand that some of the parties are really planning to object to some of
the results. It’s our hope that this will go through a legal process and a
fairer process …
Q.: There is the sense that, in the end, it’s
going to have to be determined in the courts as it was in 2004 or how do you
think, if it is this close, and there are going to be coalition blocs forming,
who will ultimately call it?
Well, it will have to go to the courts. The
parties not pleased with the results or have some questions about the results,
will have to take it to the courts. That, of course, could be time consuming
but if it’s done that way, then that shows that democracy is working.
Q.: Is it your sense that the fight which you’re
seeing, though, being so close between Victor Yanukovych and Yulia
Tymoshenko,[and] that the coalition will be the determining factor, is how many other of the smaller parties join
with either the “Orange” or “Blue” side - is that your sense of it?
I would think so, that once they determine even
which of the smaller parties are going to be in on it. I think they’re still
questioning that. Now, that would definitely determine what the coalition would
be.
Q.: If it’s just based on what we’re seeing with
Yulia Tymoshenko and with the party that supports Victor Yushchenko, it would
look like the “
That is what we have heard, but stranger things
have happened as in the past. The obvious predictions would be that the Yulia
Tymoshenko group and the Yushchenko group would join. But it’s difficult,
depending on what happens with the smaller parties.
Q.: This election was supposed to settle the
deadlock in Parliament, I wonder, could Ukrainians be back at the polls again
soon?
I would certainly hope not. Our hope is that they
would resolve this and move much more quickly in forming the government
because; stalling was not good the last time and being deadlocked was not good
the last time, creating this whole situation.
Ms. Sushko, I want to thank you very much for
speaking with us …
Thank you so much, bye.
Irene Sushko is the National President of the
Ukrainian Canadian Congress.