UKRAINE ELECTION SNAPSHOT: REGIONS PARTY TAKES

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 KIEV 001258

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PGOV PREL KDEM
SUBJECT: UKRAINE ELECTION SNAPSHOT: REGIONS PARTY TAKES
CRIMEA AMID CRIES OF FOUL IN LOCAL ELECTIONS


(U) Sensitive but unclassified; please handle accordingly.
Not for Internet distribution.


1. (SBU) Summary: In an election in which the status of
Russian language and ties with Russia figured heavily in the
local political agenda, voters in Ukraine's Autonomous
Republic of Crimea delivered the majority of their votes to
Viktor Yanukovych's Party of Regions in voting for the
national parliament (Verkhovna Rada) March 26. Polling
station disorganization and faulty voter lists were evident
in Crimea as elsewhere throughout Ukraine, but did not
prevent election day from proceeding calmly. In the race for
Crimean parliament, Regions, running together with a
localized "Russian bloc" under a "For Yanukovych" banner,
scored a 32-percent plurality. Crimean PM Burdyuhov,
representing President Yushchenko's People's Union-Our
Ukraine party, called for the Crimean parliament race to be
annulled due to vote count irregularities and failure to
distribute ballots for the Crimean rada at some polling
stations likely to vote in favor of Our Ukraine. The race
for Simferopol mayor was annulled due to last-minute
deregistration machinations and will be rerun. The house of
one of Crimea's leading journalists, Liliya Budzhurova, was
subject to an arson attack March 1 after she published a
Ministry of Interior list of hundreds of criminals and
suspected criminals running for office in Crimea; a village
administration head winner was the subject of a fatal assault
March 29 in what may have been an election-related crime.
End summary.

You've got that Russian feeling
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2. (SBU) The run-up to election day in Crimea was dominated
locally by efforts to place a Russian-language referendum on
the ballot and nationally by concerns that hundreds of
suspected or convicted criminals were running for seats in
the Crimean Parliament and local councils. The Crimean
Appellate Court and Central Election Commission put a stop to
the Russian-language referendum effort, saying it had not
complied with appropriate legal procedures..


3. (SBU) In March 25-26 visits to a dozen precincts in the
region around Simferopol covered by District Election
Commission (DEC) no. 1, we sensed a strong resonance for the
pro-Russian, anti-West, anti-U.S., and anti-Ukrainian
nationalist messages of the Crimean branches of Party of
Regions, Vitrenko's People's Opposition, the Communists and
the SDPU(o)-led Ne Tak bloc. The pro-Russian attitude of
Regions' Crimean branch was even more pronounced than that of
its headquarter, according to Crimean Tatar activist Nadir
Bekir, as Regions compteted against a greater array of
Russophile political forces in Crimea. Yanukovych received
81 percent of the Crimean vote in the December 2004
presidential election re-vote.


4. (SBU) With 100 percent of Crimean precincts reporting the
March 26 election results, Regions received 58 percent of
Crimea's vote for the Verkhovna Rada. "We know they are
SOBs, but they're our SOBs," one local polling station
commission (PSC) member told us March 26. The main
countervailing influences that we detected were Crimea's
Tatars (who now form 13 percent of Crimea's population and
have traditionally affiliated with Rukh, a component of the
national Our Ukraine Bloc) and the Tymoshenko Bloc (BYuT),
whose populist message resonated among some younger people.

Crimean parliament - Crimean PM claims: We wuz robbed!
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5. (U) The voting for Crimea's own 100-seat parliament (rada)
was more dispersed. (Note: The Crimean Rada is separate
from the Crimean Tatar Mejlis, a communal council which
represents the interests of the Tatar population, is not a
formal government institution, and is elected on a different
cycle.) With 92% of precincts reporting by late March 29,
the "For Yanukovych" electoral bloc, formed by the Crimean
branch of Party of Regions and a local "Russian bloc" party,
had received a plurality of 32.1%, followed by former Crimean
PM Kunitsyn's bloc (8.4%),Rukh (6.9%, representing the Tatar
vote),"Soyuz" (Union, advocating union with Russia 6.8%),
BYuT (6.3%),Communists (5.8%),and Vitrenko (4.1%).
Apparently failing to clear the three-percent threshold were
Ne Tak! (2.7%),Lytvyn's bloc (2.4%),People's Union Our
Ukraine (1.4%),and the Socialists (1.0%).


6. (U) Crimean PM Anatoliy Burdyuhov, appointed in September
2005 and the top candidate on the Crimean parliament slate of
People's Union Our Ukraine (PUOU),which ran separately from
its fellow national Our Ukraine bloc component Rukh party in
the Crimean elections, cried foul at a March 29 news
conference. He blamed "considerable falisifications" for
PUOU being shut out of the Crimean parliament, claiming that
PUOU had recorded instances where votes cast for PUOU and the
Socialists were "recorded as votes given to the For
Yanukovych electoral bloc." On March 28, PUOU's Crimean
branch called for the annulment of the elections to Crimea's
parliament, claiming its observers had documented that voters
had not been issued ballots for the Crimean parliamentary
election at 14 different PSCs.

Despite disorganization, mainly calm election day
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7. (SBU) Despite widespread fears nationally about problems
with voter lists, long and complicated ballots, and shortages
of PSC members, our visits to Simferopol precincts March 25
and on election day revealed generally well prepared
commissions that had worked conscientiously to correct voter
lists in the lead-up to election day. In precinct 132, for
instance, 500 names had been added after an entire block had
inadvertently been left out of the list issued in November
2005, increasing the precinct's total number of voters to
just over 3,000. Voters at the precinct did at one point did
have to wait 45 minutes to vote, but appeared tolerate the
inconvenience.


8. (SBU) Somewhat surprisingly, we also did not observe any
problems with computer-aided transliteration from Russian to
Ukrainian of names on the voter lists, a problem constantly
highlighted by spokespersons for Regions Party and for the
independent NGO Committee of Voters of Ukraine (CVU). When
we asked poll workers about the transliteration problem, most
dismissed it, noting that when problems arose, they had
authority under the law to authorize on-the-spot corrections.
The local CVU representative and OSCE/ODIHR long-term
observers (LTOs) did not identify any major concerns,
emphasizing instead the dirty campaigning that had been
conducted at the local level.


9. (SBU) One notable glitch occurred in the Simferopol
mayoral race. Confusion over implementation of an 11th-hour
court order to delete and/or reinstate a Simferopol mayoral
candidate on the ballot led to uneven actions across
Simferopol. As a result, the mayoral race for Simferopol was
declared invalid and will have to be rerun.

Criminals, criminals, everywhere?
--------------


10. (SBU) Crimea attracted negative pre-election coverage
regarding concerns about the potential criminalization of its
local councils (where deputies' immunity was available) after
Interior Minister Lutsenko announced in late February that
over 100 candidates for the Crimean parliament were the
subject of open criminal investigations, and that over 500
candidates for local councils were convicted criminals.
After independent Simferopol-based journalist Liliya
Budzhurova published the names of those fingered by Lutsenko
in her Pervaya Krymska paper, her house was the subject of a
middle-of-the-night arson attack March 1 (no one was injured,
as the fire was fortunately quickly extinguished).


11. (SBU) Budzhurova told us March 2 that the situation in
Crimea was as bad as it had been since the early 1990s, with
criminals once again acting with impunity. Anatoliy
Symonenko, the victorious candidate to head the Mirny village
administration near Yevpatoria, died early March 30 after a
brutal March 29 assault by two unidentified club-wielding
individuals. Lutsenko, presidential chief of staff Rybachuk,
and National Security and Defense Council Secretary Kinakh
all spent time in Crimea in early March attempting to ensure
the situation did not spin out of control and to make clear
to Crimean authorities that Kiev was watching developments
closely. March 30 press reports indicated that Lutsenko
would personally supervise the criminal investigation into
Symonenko's death.


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