UKRAINE: ZAPORIZHZHYA PRE-ELECTION SNAPSHOT --

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 KIEV 001055

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PGOV PREL PHUM
SUBJECT: UKRAINE: ZAPORIZHZHYA PRE-ELECTION SNAPSHOT --
FREE CAMPAIGN IN FULL ROAR


(U) Sensitive but unclassified, please handle accordingly.
Not for internet distribution.


1. (SBU) Summary: In 2004, the abuse of administrative
resources by a coordinated "Blue" power "vertikal" and an
extra 100,000 dead souls voting in the city of Melitopol
delivered 70 percent of Zaporizhzhya oblast to Viktor
Yanukovych. In 2006, the absence of administrative pressure
from an "Orange" governor allows for a vigorous Rada campaign
for parties across the political spectrum. Efforts by the
mayor, unaffiliated with any major party, to squelch
competitors' mayoral campaigns have been checked by vigorous
watchdog action by the local Committee of Voters of Ukraine
(CVU),demonstrating the continued vital role of civil
society organizations. Ex-PM Yanukovych's Regions Party is
the best-organized party and is headed to at least a
40-percent plurality win, but its oblast leaders remain
paranoid about the Orange Revolution and suspicious of the
United States. Yuliya Tymoshenko's Bloc (BYuT) has emerged
to lay claim to a strong second position; in contrast,
President Yushchenko's Our Ukraine is in shambles, in danger
of pulling less support than it received in 2002. End
summary.

Once Red, then Blue, Zaporizhzhya now in play
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2. (SBU) The southeastern industrialized oblast of
Zaporizhzhya suffers from Ukraine's worst environmental
degradation outside the Chornobyl zone and a track record of
shifting electoral loyalties. The Communists scored a
33-percent plurality in the 2002 Rada elections, with SPDU(o)
in second (11%) and Our Ukraine third (8%). Backed by heavy
administrative pressure in a solid power "vertikal" from
district chiefs and mayors to the governor's office to ensure
Zaporizhzhya would be solidly "blue" in the 2004 presidential
elections, Yanukovych scored a 70-percent return. This
included perhaps the single largest incident of so-called
voting "dead souls" in the country, according to Zaporizhzhya
CVU head Roman Pyatyhorets; the oblast town of Melitopol,
population 168,000, ended up with 270,000 names on its voter
list, 94 percent of whom voted for Yanukovych.


3. (SBU) In stark contrast, Zaporizhzhya in 2006 is awash in
a rainbow of campaign colors from across the political
spectrum. The first traffic circle on the road leading from
the train station to the center of town sports a double
billboard, with an orange Our Ukraine "Tak!" billboard on the
left and a red, white, and blue "Ne Tak!" board on the right.
Along the squares of the main street, still called Prospekt
Lenina (Lenin Avenue),up to a dozen information tents of
political polar opposites stand cheek to jowl: the pink and
blue Vitrenko People's Opposition next to the white, black
and red BYuT; the Red Za Soyuz (For Union with Russia) next
to the yellow and blue of Kostenko's Ukrainian People's
party; the pink of the Socialists next to the green of Rada
Speaker Lytvyn's bloc. The once powerful Communists were
nowhere to be seen.


4. (SBU) In similar terms, Zaporizhzhya's four primary
industrial enterprises support a range of different parties
in 2006; Motor Sich's Vyacheslav Bohuslayev is number 5 on
Regions' list; Auto ZAZ' Tariel Vasadze is number 41 on
BYuT's list; ZaporizhTransformator's Grigorishin (Russian
citizen) has ties to Our Ukraine, and Zaporizhstal
contributes to all parties and bankrolls the supposedly
unaffiliated incumbent mayor Kartashov.

CVU plays an important role checking local admin abuses
-------------- --------------


5. (SBU) The Zaporizhzhyan CVU has played a key role in
keeping the local playing field level. While local CVU head
Pyatyhorets characterized the Rada race as completely free
and fair in Zaporizhzhya, he described disturbing tactics and
violations in local races. Pyatyhorets has deployed hidden
videocams and has made surreptitious phone recordings of
violations. This included Zaporizhzhyan incumbent mayor
Kartashov, purportedly unaffiliated with any national party,
ordering local advertising companies early in the campaign
not to give billboard space to his competitors or to national
parties other than Lytvyn's bloc; one recording captured
Kartashov suggesting the companies tell parties that they
would only take commercial clients, or alternatively that all
boards had been booked up.


6. (SBU) Pyatyhorets holds press conferences every few weeks
for local Zaporizhzhyan media outlets, providing voter
education information and detailing the types of violations
uncovered. He told us with pride February 28 that his team
had "infiltrated" every major political force and covered
developments in the oblast better than any media outlet
thanks to "12 years of experience in the election wars."
When the city prosecutor's office issued him a threatening
summons to produce evidence to back up his charges or face
prosecution, he put together a multimedia presentation that
left them gasping and pale, "because they realized if they
accepted our evidence, they would have to prosecute half the
city council," Pyatyhorets related with glee. There were no
subsequent problems regarding advertising access, he noted
dryly.

Regions in the lead, BYuT Second, Our Ukraine disorganized
-------------- --------------


7. (SBU) Pyatyhorets and pro-reform weekly Dzerkalo Tyzhnya's
Zaporizhzhya correspondent Volodymyr Piskovy told us that
Regions was running the best-organized campaign and would
score a solid plurality of around 40 percent, though far off
Yanukovych's 70-percent return in 2004. Pyatyhorets said
that his polling indicated BYuT surging with 24 percent,
bolstered by a strong new organization built around the ZAZ
leadership. (Note: Piskovy claimed to us that ZAZ owner
Vasadze had paid BYuT $5 million to secure his "guaranteed"
Rada seat.) ZAZ deputy director and quietly confident BYuT
Campaign Chief Krainy told us that their polls showed BYuT at
16 percent and rising; their target was 25 percent.


8. (SBU) Our Ukraine's effort, led by former governor
Artemenko, a Grigorishin ally whom Yushchenko dismissed in
September in favor of dismissed Transport Minister and Orange
oligarch Chervonenko, was derided by everyone we talked to as
hopelessly ineffectual. Our Ukraine likely would receive
less than its 2002 eight-percent return. On the positive
side, everyone agreed that Chervonenko had played a
completely hands-off role, meeting with all visiting party
leaders except Tymoshenko, and not exerting any influence on
Our Ukraine's behalf. (Note: Chervonenko trumpeted this
reality on the March 3 edition of "Svoboda Slova" (Freedom of
Speech),effectively countering charges by Regions' national
Campaign Chief Kushnaryov that Our Ukraine-appointees were
exerting pressure in the oblasts on behalf of their party.)
But Socialist oblast campaign chief Kuzmenko lamented that
Our Ukraine had utterly failed to counter Regions'
anti-government propaganda, letting scurrilous charges go
unanswered. Kuzmenko said that the Socialists would secure
its 5-7-percent target by taking votes away from the
Communists, but that he had hoped Our Ukraine would have put
in a much better showing to boost overall "Maidan"
performance.

Regions still upset about Orange Revolution, U.S. role
-------------- --------------


9. (SBU) Regions' oblast chief Borys Petrov warily received
us after checking with Regions' national headquarters,
showing lingering paranoia about the Orange Revolution and
suspicions of the U.S. role. Petrov started by referring to
a supposed February 26 "admission" by President Bush that the
U.S. had funded the Orange Revolution with "$60 or $400
million, I forget which." Returning unprompted to the Orange
Revolution topic, Petrov thundered: "What happened in Kiev
in December 2004 was an overthrow of the constitutional
order! What mayhem! I visited the Maidan myself; It was
like an army! At least 25 percent of those present were well
equipped and clearly had received prior training. I'm not
necessarily saying they were trained and equipped from
abroad. But where did the money come from?"


10. (SBU) After hearing our explanation of U.S. democracy
support programming, focused on institution building not only
for groups like the CVU but party training which had trained
hundreds of Regions' functionaries, references to the
Embassy's frequent meetings with Yanukovych and Akhmetov, our
willingness to work with whichever government the Ukrainian
people chose, and a discussion about Kiev municipal
authorities who used up their annual budget supporting the
Khreshchatyk tent city and then failed to clean Kiev's
streets of snow in February-March 2005, Petrov and his
associates relaxed, finally offering us "welcoming" cups of
coffee at the end of the hour-long conversation, rather than
at the beginning.


11. (SBU) Petrov said Regions' was determined to "play by the
rules" in the 2006 election cycle to avoid charges of
election violations. His associate complained, apparently
with justification, about administrative resource abuses used
by incumbent mayor Kartashov against Regions' mayoral
candidate Kaltsev. (Note: In what is widely seen as a close
two-horse race, everyone we talked to predicted a Kartashov
victory.) However, both the CVU's Pyatyhorets and journalist
Piskovy took issue with the notion that Zaporizhzhya's
Regions reps had truly changed, predicting a reversion to
past form were they to manage to strike a deal and return to
government (reftel).


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