UKRAINE: PARTY OF REGIONS ELECTION STRATEGY: A NEW

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 KIEV 001022

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/15/2016
TAGS: PREL PGOV PARM
SUBJECT: UKRAINE: PARTY OF REGIONS ELECTION STRATEGY: A NEW
APPROACH?

Classified By: Charge d'Affaires, a.i., reason 1.4 (b,d)


1. (C) Summary: Ukrainians and outside observers are
currently contemplating the increasing possibility that Party
of Regions, led by Viktor Yanukovych, may return to power as
part of a coalition emerging from the March 26 elections in
which Regions will by all accounts win a plurality (an
estimated 30 percent). In the wake of then-PM Yanukovych's
failed attempt to steal the 2004 Presidential election,
application of administrative resource abuses, and advice
from the Kremlin's top political consultants, Regions
seemingly adopted a different approach to the 2006 elections.
Its foreign advisers hail from the U.S., not Russia; its
formal party platform reads like an ideal pro-business,
pro-investment manifesto; Regions has pledged its election
observers will follow a code of conduct and has publicly
highlighted potential election process concerns it ignored,
or caused, in 2004.


2. (C) The question remains, however: is there a new Regions?
Many Ukrainians who remember well the actions of key
Regions' figures in office and during the 2004 campaign
remain skeptical. Recent Regions actions suggest a two-track
strategy. On February 17, local Regions representatives in
Crimea used a flawed election law provision to secure a court
ruling, since overturned, to shut down a media outlet, Black
Sea TV, in the only known such incident of the 2006 cycle,
but reminiscent of the pressure the same forces, as
incumbents, placed on media in 2004. On March 9, Regions
Campaign Chair Kushnaryov unleashed an anti-American diatribe
accusing the U.S. of meddling in Ukraine's internal affairs,
posting it on the Regions website. On March 14, the
Committee of Voters of the Donbas, a Regions-affiliated NGO
created in 2004 to confuse voters and obstruct the work of
the genuine Committee of Voters of Ukraine (CVU),elaborated
on Kushnaryov's charges of U.S. interference in the election
process. Meanwhile, concerns about potential election day
abuses in the Regions base of Donetsk persist, fueled by the
Regions' March 14 attempt to secure Rada authorization for
Polling Station Commissions (PSCs) to amend voter lists on
site on election day. End summary.

A new Regions to help move past the divisions of 2004?
-------------- --------------


3. (C) Prematurely written off after the 2004 presidential
election cycle, ex-PM and Regions' party leader Yanukovych
made a remarkable political comeback in late 2005, as Regions
took over the lead of opinion polls when the leading Team
Orange accrimoniously split into factions in September.
Regions has run a well-organized, active campaign throughout
most of the country, in contrast to Our Ukraine. To help
facilitate the possibility of a return to government after
the elections, which would require joining a coalition with
one of the larger Orange parties, Regions quietly began to
build bridges both inside Ukraine and abroad, hiring
image-making consultants, suggesting that it could serve as a
reliable coalition partner with a pro-business, minimalist
government approach, and stating that its presence in
government could help heal the divisive wounds of the 2004
election which divided Ukraine into "Orange" and "Blue."
Amid the continuing fratricidal Orange sniping between Our
Ukraine and the Tymoshenko Bloc (BYuT),conventional wisdom
in Kiev's chattering classes have come to believe that an Our
Ukraine-Regions grand coalition was more likely than a
post-election Maidan reunion.


4. (SBU) Regions' 2006 campaign has featured a new focus on
the integrity of the electoral process. Its American
campaign consultants run a "Ukraine Election Integrity
Project" for training campaign workers and raising concerns
about election process shortcomings (ref B). On March 13,
Regions held a press conference to voice concerns about
administrative flaws which they said could undermine the
integrity of the March 26 elections, primarily understaffed
PSCs and voter list problems, calling on Ukrainians and
international forces to support Regions-proposed fixes to the
electoral law, some of which were passed March 14 (ref C).
Regions also asserted these shortcomings were a part of a
concerted strategy by those currently in power, particularly
Our Ukraine, to undermine the election, including creating
new voters' lists to replace those used in 2004; and
fostering problems in transliteration from Russian to
Ukrainian, which disproportionally affects the Regions' bases
of support in eastern and southern Ukraine; and boycotting of
PSCs in the east and south to prevent their functioning due
to a lack of a quorum. (Note: the claim that the
transliteration problem affects Regions' base areas more than
others has some merit, though it affects Russian-speaking
"Orange" strongholds like Kiev as well).

With some familiar faces...
--------------


5. (C) For many, memories of the abuses under
Kuchma-Yanukovych and during the 2004 presidential election
cycle remain fresh; while Yanukovych started denouncing
Kuchma and Kuchmaism as early as December 2004, prior to the
revote which elected Yushchenko President, Yanukovych has not
acknowledged Regions' role in perpetrating the electoral
fraud witnessed by thousands of domestic and international
observers. Instead, we understand that he continues to rage
privately about how the election was stolen from him by
Kuchma and Western figures whose "putsch" denied him the
Presidency (refs A-B).


6. (C) Regions' Rada list includes many 2004 election
mischief makers. The ex-Central Election Committee Chair who
presided over the falsification effort and declared
Yanukovych the winner, Serhiy Kivalov, is number 27 on the
Regions' electoral list, guaranteed a Rada seat that will
give him immunity from criminal prosecution. Many of the
former governors/oblast officials who applied administrative
resource abuses on behalf of Yanukovych are also prominent
Regions list candidates, led by ex-Kharkiv governor and
Regions Campaign Chair Yevhen Kushnaryov (number 11) and
Donetsk Oblast Council Chair Borys Kolesnikov (number 10),
identified by most as the real political brains behind the
Donetsk clan and Regions. The ex-Prosecutor General who did
not prosecute any high-ranking perpetrators of the 2004
election fraud, Oleksander Piskun, is number 96 on Regions'
list, also guaranteed a Rada seat and immunity if current
polls prove accurate.

...and Echoes of familiar tactics
--------------


7. (SBU) In mid-February, the Crimean branches of Party of
Regions and a pro-Russia group of parties called the Russian
bloc took advantage of a misguided clause in the election law
passed in mid-2005, which experts had warned could be used by
those of ill-intent to shut down legitimate media commentary
on elections, parties, and candidates, to secure a February
17 ruling by a Simferopol district court to suspend Black Sea
TV's broadcast license until after the elections. The
pretext was that a program on Black Sea TV, whose owner is
affiliated with BYuT, had announced poll results that
allegedly were biased in favor of BYuT and thus caused a
negative impact on their local Bloc for Yanukovych. (Note:
Regions consultants told us that the National Regions party
had not authorized the action; ref B).


8. (SBU) To date in the 2006 election cycle, this remains the
only effort by any political party to shut down a media
outlet, echoing a frequent concern in 2004. After the
Crimean Appeals Court invalidated the ruling February 23,
local Regions leader Vasyl Kiselyov filed a defamation suit
against Black Sea TV March 2, securing a second shutdown
ruling by the same Simferopol Court March 7. Black Sea TV
Director-General Tetyana Krasikova told us March 15 that the
Crimean Court of Appeals threw out the March 7 ruling on
March 14. Krasikova had told us March 10 that local cable TV
operators across Crimea were illegally dropping Black Sea TV
under pressure from pro-Yanukovych municipal officials.


9. (C) The day after the U.S. House of Representatives passed
legislation abolishing the Jackson-Vanik amendment for
Ukraine, Regions' Campaign Chair Kushnaryov unleashed a
strong anti-American diatribe March 9, belittling "sharply
accelerated U.S. actions on the eve of the Ukrainian
elections." He alleged that the U.S. was promoting better
economic relations with Ukraine (Market Economy Status, a WTO
bilateral accession agreement, Jackson-Vanik) in order to
meddle in Ukraine's election campaign and ensure that a
"Maidan team" willing to "take orders from across the
Atlantic" stayed in power. The U.S. interference as a
"shadowy player" was necessary, according to Kushnaryov,
because the Orange parties could not win honestly.
Kushnaryov who as Kharkiv governor in 2004 was noted for
administrative pressures on state officials to vote for
Yanukovych, referenced Ambassador's calls to regional
governors in 2004 urging them to ensure elections were
conducted fairly, asked if similar calls were being made in
2006 now that "Orange" forces were in office, and suggested
this was a classic example of American double standards.


10. (SBU) Kushnaryov's charges of U.S. interference in the
elections were echoed at a March 14 press conference called
by a little known NGO "The Committee of Voters of the
Donbas," whose representative spun the alleged web of
organizations and procedures the U.S. supposedly used to
influence the electoral process and civil society in Ukraine.
While the NGO does not claim any affiliation, Dmitry
Tkachenko, the head of the genuine CVU in Donetsk, told us in
May 2005 that the pseudo-NGO was the creation of Regions'
Donetsk boss Kolesnikov (ref D). Kolesnikov had launched the
Committee of Voters of the Donbas two months before the 2004
election, according to Tkachenko, to confuse voters and
prevent the CVU from carrying out its activities in Donetsk,
with the collusion of Donetsk authorities.


11. (C) Comment: The reappearance of the Committee of Voters
of Donbas in the 2006 election cycle, reprising its 2004 role
of confusing voters and providing misleading information, is
a disturbing indication that Regions has not abandoned all
the tactics used in 2004. The well-choreographed March 14
effort, complete with thousands of chanting young supporters
on the streets around the Rada, to secure quick Rada approval
for measures to allow PSCs to amend voter lists on the spot
on election day, loosing provisions intended to prevent
election day manipulation in the name of ensuring the
constitutional right to vote, recalls similar justifications
and positions by the same Rada parties in December 2004
(Regions, Communists, SPDU(o),and Labor Ukraine, now known
as the Lytvyn Electoral Bloc) prior to the December 26 revote
(ref C). That said, there are problems with the voter lists,
and both the CVU and the CEC endorsed court-authorized
election day changes in combination with safeguards to
prevent duplicate voting (ref C).


12. (C) Among observers in eastern Ukraine who have watched
Regions operate for years, there is skepticism that Regions
has genuinely changed in the past 17 months. Roman
Pyatyhorets, Zaporizhzhya oblast head of the CVU, predicted
to us February 28 that Regions would more or less play by the
rules in this election in an attempt to get back into power,
but that their true nature would reemerge if successful.
Volodymyr Piskovy, Zaporizhzhya correspondent for the weekly
pro-reform Dzerkalo Tyzhnya, expressed the same sentiment
more colorfully: "Regions politicians still follow the code
of criminals: whatever can be taken is ours, and what is ours
is not to be given away." In the end, no one can say for
certain how Regions would conduct itself in office until they
return to government, a moment which may come sooner rather
than later.


13. (U) Visit Embassy Kiev's classified website at:
www.state.sgov.gov/p/eur/kiev.
Gwaltney