UKRAINE: POSSIBLE ELECTION DAY AND POST-ELECTION

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 KIEV 001108

SIPDIS
E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/22/2016
TAGS: PGOV PINR SOCI
SUBJECT: UKRAINE: POSSIBLE ELECTION DAY AND POST-ELECTION
DAY SCENARIOS


Classified By: Ambassador for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d).

Summary
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1. (C) With Ukraine's pivotal March 26 parliamentary (and
local) election day drawing closer, claims by all sides
continue that their opponents are abusing or plan to abuse
administrative resources to influence election results at
various levels. NGOs and international election observation
missions have told us that problems remain with voter lists
and polling station commissions; however, contrary to most
opposition claims, these problems were scattered nationwide
-- and not limited to opposition strongholds in the east and
south. Moreover, our interlocutors noted that the problems
were slowly getting resolved. Our contacts had no evidence
to suggest that Yushchenko supporters were planning to void
the results at polling stations in opposition-friendly
regions. Two NGOs related that they had evidence that the
opposition Ne Tak Bloc and the radical Progressive Socialist
Party (PSP) were planning to dump busloads of supporters at
polling stations in an attempt to force them to shut down.
Ne Tak and PSP supporters were also reportedly preparing to
put up a tent city in Independence Square and to file
thousands of post-election nuisance lawsuits in an attempt to
void the results of as many polling stations as possible.
President Yushchenko's Our Ukraine bloc alleged that the
Party of Regions, the likely plurality winner in Sunday's
elections, would orchestrate factory strikes and mine
shutdowns in eastern Ukraine to force Our Ukraine to form a
majority parliamentary coalition with Regions. End summary.


Abuse of Administrative Resources...
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2. (SBU) With election day (March 26) drawing nearer,
opposition political parties particularly are becoming
increasingly vocal in protesting what they say are the
Yushchenko administration's abuse of administrative resources
in the election campaign (ref A). The shrillest voices are
those of the Ne Tak Bloc (a melange of Kuchma-crony parties
led by former President Leonid Kravchuk),the leftist
Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) (led by the bombastic
Natalya Vitrenko),and, to a lesser and lower-decibel extent,
ex-Kuchma PM Yanukovych's Party of Regions (ref B).

...Charges and Reality
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3. (C) Throughout the steady stream of charges and
counter-charges, we have checked in with the leaders of key
NGOs and international election observation missions,
including the local heads of OSCE/ODIHR and European Network
of Election Monitoring Organizations (ENEMO),to review the
main charges and separate fact from fiction. Here is what we
found:

-- Accusation: The Yushchenko team is deliberately altering
voter lists in opposition strongholds, especially in eastern
and southern Ukraine, to disenfranchise opposition supporters.

-- Findings: Our NGO and observer mission contacts,
including the head of the non-partisan Committee of Voters of
Ukraine, Ihor Popov, have described the voter lists as
generally being in poor shape (Ref C). Popov noted, for
example, that CVU research indicated that as many as 50
percent of voter names were misspelled on current voter
lists. Moreover, most voters were apathetic, not checking
their names on the voter list. Popov stressed, though, that
this was a nationwide problem, not one limited to only areas
where opposition support was strong. ENEMO Chief Peter
Novatny added that the voter list problems were the result of
mismanagement and disorganization, not a central government
effort to influence the vote -- a point that Popov also
separately seconded. Our contacts also said that polling
station workers generally were working hard to help people
fix spelling mistakes (ref A).

-- Accusation: The government is deliberately hampering the
work of polling station commissions in opposition
strongholds, in some cases preventing the commissions from
meeting.

-- Findings: Our interlocutors all acknowledged that the
problem of non-functioning polling stations was serious, but
one that had been scattered nationwide -- not centered in a
particular region. There was no "east-west" divide; the
suggestion that polling station commissions were functioning
in the pro-government west and not functioning in the east
was fiction. Moreover, our contacts stressed, the problem
was being actively addressed by the government. President
Yushchenko signed legislation on March 17 that, among other
things, expanded the number of people who could work on a
polling station commissions and boosted their compensation.
As of March 20, the Central Election Commission reported that
only 96 (mostly in Kirovohrad) of Ukraine's roughly 33,000
polling stations were still not functioning (ref D). (Note:
Polling station staffing problems were initially caused by
the failure of smaller parties to provide representatives to
polling station commissions.)

-- Accusation: The Yushchenko administration has se cretly
printed extra ballots that its supporters will use to create
provocations in polling stations where opposition parties are
expected to do well. Yushchenko supporters will "stuff"
ballot boxes in these polling stations in an attempt to void
the results.

-- Findings: None of our contacts has seen any evidence to
back up this claim (which was presented to the media at a
March 20 Ne Tak Bloc press conference). OSCE/ODIHR
Ambassador Lubomir Kopaj told us that his mission had
investigated a number of Ne Tak complaints; he described most
as "vague, exaggerations or completely false" (ref A).

What Sore Losers May Do: Election Day...
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4. (SBU) The head of the Europe XXI Century Foundation, Inna
Pidluska, and CVU spokesman Oleksandr Chernenko told us March
22 that they had indications that the Ne Tak Bloc and PSP
were planning widespread election-day provocations.
Apparently panicked by internal polls indicating that they
were not likely to get the required 3% of the vote needed for
representation in the next Rada, the two parties were
allegedly planning to have supporters converge on select
polling stations in buses, in a deliberate attempt to
overcrowd the facilities and force the stations to shut down.
Our contacts noted that, even if this tactic did not shut
down polling stations, it would exacerbate the expected long
lines and long waits facing voters on Sunday.

...And Afterward
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5. (SBU) Our interlocutors also asserted that Ne Tak Bloc and
Vitrenko supporters were, with financing from Party of
Regions MP Ihor Shkirya, planning to set up a large tent city
in Independence Square to "protest" the conduct of the
elections. Our CVU contacts confirmed that they expected
lawyers from the Ne Tak Bloc to file thousands of nuisance
lawsuits in the days following the election, attempting to
contest the results from as many polling stations as possible
and generally turn the post-election situation into, as the
CVU's Chernenko put it, "a complete mess."

What the First Place Finisher May Do
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6. (SBU) Our Ukraine alleged on March 22 that the
organization likely to garner the most votes election day,
the Party of Regions, was also planning large-scale protests
in the wake of the elections. Prime Minister Yekhanurov, in
a press release, asserted that Regions would orchestrate
strikes at Donbas coal mines and factories to pressure Our
Ukraine into forming a governing coalition with Regions. Our
NGO contacts seconded Yekhanurov's view that Regions might
attempt to create unrest in places around the country in the
wake of the elections. Inna Pidluska noted that the
situation in the east, in particular, was extremely tense;
while stumping in eastern and southern Ukraine, Regions MPs
were coarsely referring to Yushchenko's government as "those
Orange bastards."

Comment
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7. (C) Despite the voter list problems and the delay in
getting some polling stations functioning, reputable NGOs and
international election observation groups have underscored to
us that this has been the freest and fairest election
campaign in Ukraine's post-independence history. In fact,
several NGOs have argued that many of the campaign's
organizational glitches can be blamed on the Yushchenko
administration's reluctance to intervene to fix problems lest
it be accused of abusing its administrative powers. Most of
the bellyaching about alleged Yushchenko administration
administrative resource abuse has come from parties with
obvious political motivations and a history of abuse when
they controlled the admin resources.
Herbst