UKRAINE: ELECTION OBSERVERS OSCE/ODIHR AND ENEMO ON PROCEDURAL PROBLEMS IN RADA ELECTIONS

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 KIEV 001040

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/16/2016
TAGS:
SUBJECT: UKRAINE: ELECTION OBSERVERS OSCE/ODIHR AND ENEMO
ON PROCEDURAL PROBLEMS IN RADA ELECTIONS


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


1. (C) Summary: In a March 16 meeting with Charge,
OSCE/ODIHR Ambassador Lubomir Kopaj said he thought the
Central Election Commission was making efforts to deal with
electoral procedural problems, but that election day would
still be problematic, particularly due to precinct
overcrowding. Kopaj opined that while there were problems
with the voter lists and non-functioning polling station
commissions (PSCs),these problems were solvable, and of a
much lesser scope than opposition political parties alleged.
Kopaj expressed concern that the campaign environment was
becoming acrimonious and that the politicization of
procedural problems could lead to tension. Representatives
of the European Network of Election Monitoring Organizations
(ENEMO) told Charge separately March 16 that their
observations told them that the much-complained about
election administration problems were the result of
disorganization, not a government-engendered conspiracy.
Voters who tried were having success getting on voter lists,
and the CEC was aggressively trying to fix outstanding
problems. End summary.


2. (C) Charge met with OSCE/ODIHR Ambassador Lubomir Kopaj
March 16 to discuss acknowledged election procedure problems
and their potential effect on Ukraine's March 26 Rada
(Parliament) and local government elections. Earlier in the
day OSCE/ODIHR held a briefing for the diplomatic community
on their election observation efforts.


3. (C) Kopaj told Charge that he agreed with Central Election
Commission (CEC) Chairman Davydovych that the main problems
with the elections were staffing Polling Station Commissions
(PSCs) and the quality of the voter lists. Kopaj offered
that the CEC was doing a great deal to improve the situation,
but other potential problems concerned him about the
situation on election day and during the vote count. Kopaj
noted that there were many precincts with too many voters on
their rolls, 1200 precincts with more than the maximum
recommended number of 2500 voters, and two notable precincts
in Mykolayiv oblast with 3600 and 3700 voters. Kopaj thought
that it would be very difficult to process this many voters,
and that there would be lines, exhausted commissioners, and a
potential for unrest or misconduct in the polling station.

Environment getting tense?
--------------


4. (C) Kopaj expressed concern that the campaign environment
had turned "sharp," with the Party of Regions alleging that
President Yushchenko's Our Ukraine bloc was planning a
systematic rigging of the election, and Our Ukraine running a
half-hour television presentation about the criminal
backgrounds of some candidates on the Regions list. Kopaj
pointed up a number of recent protests in Kiev that garnered
more than 1000 protesters, as well as rumors that
approximately 5000 Our Ukraine members would be going east to
serve as observers or on PSCs, as signs that the pre-election
situation was getting tense. Although he said that he had no
specific reports of tensions from his long-term observers
(LTOs) in the field, Kopaj expressed concern that politicized
technical election issues could lead to confrontation rather
than attempts to resolve them. Kopaj noted that in eastern
Ukraine, anti-government forces were presenting procedural
problems with the election as a structured GOU plan to
exclude eastern voters from the election. The effort to
politicize the CEC's organizational shortcomings concerned
him.

Allegations of misconduct mixed, procedural problems fixable
-------------- --------------


5. (C) Kopaj stated that OSCE/ODIHR had received a number of
allegations of electoral misconduct on the part of the
authorities from the Party of Regions and the
SDPU(o)-dominated Ne Tak Bloc, and had investigated the
allegations thoroughly. Some allegations were concrete and
therefore verifiable, but most were "vague, exaggerations, or
even completely false." Those they had verified did not
appear to be centrally orchestrated and were limited in
number. Kopaj offered as an example of unfounded allegations
claims that, on the voter lists in the east, names were not
just transliterated from Ukrainian to Russian, but in some
cases names were translated. Kopaj said that his LTOs had
been unable to find any verifiable instances of this actually
happening. Another example Kopaj offered were the
overinflated reports of non-functioning PSCs, which only
accounted for 1-2 percent of all PSCs. (Note: CEC head
Davydovych told us earlier in the day that there were only
541 non-functioning PSCs out of 34,000 -- septel.)


6. (C) Kopaj said he thought all of the procedural problems
were fixable, and that if political parties would expend the
same effort on fixing the problems as publicizing them, they
could substantially improve the process. Kopaj offered the
example of a protester in front of the CEC bearing a placard
saying "My name isn't on the voter list" who could easily go
to his election precinct and get his name put on the list.
When questioned about the geographic distribution of
non-functioning polling stations, Kopaj asserted that
non-functioning PSCs were throughout the country, and that
there wasn't an east-west divide. Kopaj indicated that the
primary cause for the non-functioning PSCs was the failure of
political parties to ante up their representatives for the
commissions; it was mostly small parties that were not able
to fill their seats on PSCs. Kopaj concluded that the
election was not badly prepared.

Adding voters on election day: double-edged sword
-------------- --------------


7. (C) On the March 14 Rada-passed amendment to the
parliamentary election law allowing voters to be added to the
voter list on election day, Kopaj said there were conflicting
messages over whether President Yushchenko would sign the
amendment. (Note: Reports are that Yushchenko will sign the
other two, less controversial, amendments.) In any case, the
effect of the amendment was uncertain. Kopaj thought the
provision could help potentially disenfranchised voters, but
could also be misused. Kopaj said that Davydovych predicted
that the CEC would have trends of election results by the
evening of Monday, March 27, and more definitive results by
Tuesday, March 28. Because of this, Kopaj said ODIHR's
preliminary statement on Monday afternoon, after the
election, would be based mostly on observer reports on the
voting procedures and some reports from the vote count.

EMEMO sees no conspiracy, says problems are being fixed
-------------- --------------


8. (SBU) Peter Novatny, mission chief of the election
monitoring organization ENEMO (European Network of Election
Monitoring Organizations) told Charge March 16 that the
election arrangements problems being hotly discussed in
recent days were, from their observation, the result of
mismanagement and disorganization, not some central
government attempt to affect the vote. President Yushchenko
had in fact instructed the Presidential Secretariat to keeps
its hands off electoral arrangements matters. Contrary to
the hue and cry some parties were raising over
disenfranchised voters, the citizens they saw trying to
legitimately place or correct their names on voters lists
were having success. PSCs were doing their best to help
them. The CEC, ENEMO advisor and Freedom House rep Juhani
Grossman said, appeared to be agressively doing its part to
fix voter lists and inadequate PSC staffing issues. He added
that the only way to determine the state of the voter lists
would be their use on election day. His sense was that the
lists might prove to be better than their 2004 predecessors.


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