UKRAINE: REGIONS' CONSULTANTS WARN DEFICIENCIES

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 04 KIEV 000936

SIPDIS


E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PGOV PREL PHUM
SUBJECT: UKRAINE: REGIONS' CONSULTANTS WARN DEFICIENCIES
COULD CALL LEGITIMACY OF ELECTION INTO QUESTION

REF: KIEV 912

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


1. (SBU) Summary: Party of Regions' U.S. campaign
consultants Paul Manafort, Phil Griffin, and Catherine Barnes
called on DCM and poloff March 10 to share Regions' concerns
about election organizational problems that they feared could
call the legitimacy of the March 26 election into question.
Manafort complained about the indifferent attitude of
OSCE/ODIHR. He also claimed that the identified inadequacies
were not mere oversights, but were intentional on the part of
those in power, specifically Yushchenko and Our Ukraine; he
said that Regions' past experience allowed them to "see what
was coming around the corner." If these shortcomings were
not fixed by March 14, the day the Rada would consider
technical amendments to address problems, warned Manafort,
they could call into question the integrity of the March 26
vote. Manafort acknowledged that the 2006 election cycle was
considerably better than in 2004 but stressed that the U.S.,
ODIHR, and other western countries and institutions needed to
be as supportive of the democratic process in 2006 as they
had been in 2004, lest the impression be given that there
were two sets of standards depending on who was in power.
Manafort added that the people who felt that the 2004
elections had been stolen from them -- and since he was not
in Ukraine in 2004, he could not judge what had happened --
would feel that it was happening to them again. End Summary.

Regions concerns about voter lists, precinct committees
-------------- --------------


2. (SBU) Manafort stated that "massive inaccuracies" in
voter lists and the lack of formation of polling station
committees (PSC) made it impossible for some voters to check
the lists and seek administrative remedies. We noted that
Ukrainian NGOs had identified the same concerns (reftel). In
response to a question, Manafort suggested that the
inadequacies were not mere oversights but were intentional on
the part of those in power, specifically Yushchenko and Our
Ukraine, and said that Regions' past experience allowed them
to "see what was coming around the corner." If these
shortcomings were not fixed, warned Manafort, they could call
into question the integrity of the March 26 vote, and an
"explosion" could result. We asked if he thought the
problems he had cited resulted from acts of commission or
omission. He replied that those in power had the ability to
correct the problems.


3. (SBU) Regions had delivered specific information on their
concerns to the prosecutors' office, the Central Election
Commission, OSCE/ODIHR, and now to the Embassy. Manafort
complained that the ODIHR deputy head of Mission, Robert
Cherreli, had met with a Regions delegation including an MP
earlier March 10 dressed completely inappropriately (jeans,
hiking boots, shirt hanging out). He also characterized
ODIHR's response to Regions' concerns as "indifferent; they
didn't seem to be bothered about the allegations and did not
plan on taking any action." We pointed out that ODIHR's
mandate was as an observer mission, not a lobbying
participant, and that OSCE member-state Russia in particular
had been highly critical of ODIHR, accusing it in the past of
exceeding its observer mandate.


4. (SBU) Manafort disputed this line of argument, which ODIHR
itself had used in response to the Regions' concerns,
claiming: "everyone knows what OSCE does in these sorts of
situations." Manafort warned that western countries like the
U.S. and institutions like OSCE/ODIHR were risking the
appearance of not pushing as hard for high standards of
democratic process in 2006 as they had in 2004, and that
there could be negative consequences in the eyes of people
who saw the "West made certain demands on the one hand when
one group was in power but reacted differently, or stayed
silent, when another group was in power." We made clear that
the U.S. position on the importance of free and fair
elections was unchanged from 2004 to 2006. Manafort replied
that the "perception" nevertheless was "out there."


5. (SBU) Manafort added that the people who felt that the
2004 elections had been stolen from them -- rightly or
wrongly, that was how they felt -- would feel that it was
happening to them again. In apparent anticipation of our
next statement, Manafort offered that he was not in Ukraine
in 2004 and could not make a judgment of what had happened.
What was past was past; he was concerned about the present.


6. (SBU) Manafort's associate Catherine Barnes opened a
folder with documents she said supported the Regions'
complaints. The most specific example cited was a Luhansk
precinct (Oktyabr district) in which 10,000 eligible voters
were supposedly missing from the list, including entire
apartment blocks; 16,000 were listed incorrectly, mainly due
to mistakes in translating from Russian into Ukrainian.
Barnes said that the possible remedy in the works was a
series of technical amendments the parliament (Rada) could
pass March 14 to address the problems. There was consensus
among Rada factions about certain corrections, but
disagreement on others.


7. (SBU) Manafort claimed that CEC Chair Davydovych supported
all the amendments under consideration and had characterized
the condition of the voters' lists as being worse than in

2004. In contrast, according to Manafort, President
Yushchenko's Our Ukraine representative had rejected a
mechanism to allow voters recourse on election day to have
the PSC add their names, vowing that Yushchenko would veto
it, either with a direct veto or fail to sign the
legislation, which would have the same effect, since the
election would be less than two weeks away after the March 14
vote. He also said that, except for Our Ukraine, there was
broad agreement among all political forces including
Tymoshenko's Bloc that the amendments were needed. We
observed in reply that in the 2004 election, a district court
or the territorial election commission could add someone to
the voter list, but not the PSC itself. Our understanding of
the proposed legislative fix under consideration in the Rada
was that it would allow a local court to authorize same-day
additions to the voter list, not PSCs.


8. (SBU) Manafort suggested that on March 14, two sets of
amendments could be put to a vote in the Rada, one with
consensus support, and the other including fixes supported by
Regions and other parties, "including some orange parties,"
but likely to be rejected by Yushchenko/Our Ukraine. This
rejection could cause a "major problem" for perceptions of
the elections' legitimacy. Even though "it would not change
the result, it could change the magnitude."


9. (SBU) Catherine Barnes, Project Manager for the "Ukraine
Election Integrity Project," a Manafort sub-project to train
Regions' poll watchers in the standards of the code of
conduct adopted by the Party for the 2006 election cycle,
briefly mentioned her efforts, which have trained over 1200
Regions' members. The materials she handed to the embassy
about the integrity issues brief notes that while Regions
expects to win handily, it "has serious concerns about the
political will of the current government to conduct free and
fair elections, concerns that are increasingly shared by the
CEC and other political parties in the Verkhovna Rada."


10. (SBU) We noted the great differences between the 2006 and
2004 election cycles. On the streets of Zaporizhzhya, there
were nearly a dozen political party tents representing the
entire political spectrum lined up right next to each other,
without incident or problem; on the same street in 2004, only
one color was allowed to be seen. Manafort, Griffin, and
Barnes nodded in agreement, with Manafort adding: "and that's
why we have to ensure this opportunity to cement gains made
isn't lost."


11. (SBU) DCM raised the case of Black Sea TV, a Tymoshenko
bloc-affiliated station which had been subject to a court
ruling to shut it down, based on a petition from a local
Party of Regions branch citing a clause in the election law
universally condemned by free media advocates. Manafort said
that the action had not come at the request of the national
Party of Regions, claimed that the petitioning party was not
a local Regions branch per se but were supporters of
Yanukovych, and suggested that in fact Yushchenko-affiliated
forces had inspired the shut down action in a "Black PR"
effort to besmirch Party of Regions' reputation. DCM asked
if Yanukovych had or planned to distance himself from these
actions. Manafort replied that this was deemed unnecessary,
because "the courts would take care of this."


12. (SBU) We also raised the March 9 statement of Regions'
Campaign Chief Kushnariov, who had attacked US policy towards
Ukraine, accused it of meddling in the election process by
passing the repeal Jackson-Vanik amendment, granting Market
Economy Status, and signing a bilateral WTO accession
agreement to keep in power an "orange" government willing to
"take instructions" from across the Atlantic. Kusnariov's
statement was posted on the Regions' website. Manafort said
that he would talk to Kushnariov, who had not mentioned it to
him in their daily morning meeting; the statement was in
Russian, but had not been posted on the English version of
the site, Manafort added.


13. (U) Note: In comments to the media in Uzhhorod March 9
picked up by the UNIAN wire service, Ambassador underscored
concerns over the voters' lists and sufficient staffing of
precinct commissions.

Other views
--------------

14. (SBU) Our Ukraine's Anton Klymenko held a press
conference March 10 alleging that Regions, not Our Ukraine,
was involved in voter list manipulation in eastern Ukraine,
and that the "new" voter lists for some precincts in Donetsk
which had stripped off many "dead souls" on the 2004 rolls
had been replaced by the voter lists used in 2004, when fraud
in the East was prevalent. Yarema Bachinsky, who runs a
USAID-funded election-related education project, said that at
this point there is no way to confirm the mutual accusations,
which echo the charges and counter charges made in the 2004
election cycle. Since the Central Election Commission has
not officially indicated how many PSCs are not fully
functional, it is difficult to assess the extent of concerns
about voter lack of access to a mechanism to check and
possibly correct their names.


15. (SBU) This perspective was echoed by ODIHR's Political
analyst Beata Martin-Rozumilowicz, who told us that Regions,
NeTak and Communists are making an issue of the
transliteration of names, alleging that either their voters
won't be able to vote or there is a possibility of double
listing/voting. ODIHR doesn't have any way of verifying the
lack of access to non-functional PSCs, though they cited a
report that the CEC deputy Chair told the Rada in
mid-February that 7000 PSCs lacked enough commissioners to
function. CEC members are supposed to go out to the
provinces over the weekend of March 11-12 to assess the
current state of readiness. Regarding the Rada
consideration of amendments, Martin-Rozumilowicz added that
the CEC has proposed one set of technical amendments, and the
Party of Regions has proposed its own.


16. (SBU) Note: Following is the original text of memo handed
to DCM only at the conclusion of the meeting. The
consultants did not voice the appeal in the final paragraph
preceding the note.

Begin text:

MEMORANDUM

To: Sheila Gwaltny, Deputy Chief of Mission, US Embassy in
Ukraine
From: Paul Manafort, Davis Manafort
Re: Meeting with OSCE-ODIHR
Date: 10 March 2006

This morning, there was a meeting between the Party of
Regions and OSCE-ODIHR to discuss the party's grave concerns
about massive inaccuracies in the Voters' List and the
problems in the formation and functioning of PECs which makes
is impossible for voters in some areas to check the Voters'
List and seek administrative remedies.

These meeting was not positively assessed by the Party of
Regions, which interpreted the OSCE-ODIRH response as
indifferent.

During the meeting, POR representatives made a presentation
on the massive problems with the Voters' List that they have
identified in there core regions in the South and East and
provided extensive documentation on the magnitude of these
problems. In once district in Lugansk, for example, 10,000
eligible voters are missing from the list and 16,000 are
entered incorrectly. They also indicated that some 7,000
precinct election commissions have yet to be properly formed,
which impedes the ability to check and correct the lists as
envisioned by the law.

POR sees these issues as potentially leading to the complete
unraveling of elections in Ukraine if not dealt with before
Election Day. It is working in consultation with other
political parties in the Verhovna Rada and with the Chairman
of the CEC to propose a series of technical amendments to the
parliamentary election law to address these problems.

These include steps to ensure the proper functioning of PECs,
reducing the quorum required for PECs to make decisions, and
providing for the addition of eligible voters to the Voters'
List at the polling stations on Election Day. There is broad
consensus on the problems and on the technical remedies. The
main hurdle to adoption of these technical amendments is the
party of power, Our Ukraine.

During the meeting with OSCE-ODIHR, the severity of the
problems was established and documented. They indicated that
there is a multi-party process underway in parliament to
provide technical solutions was elaborated upon and that the
key amendment, additions to the Voters' List on Election Day
is being opposed by Our Ukraine.

POR asked for assistance from OSCE-ODIHR in urging the
Government to join with other political parties to support
the technical amendments to the law in order to avert a
disaster on Election Day. These technical amendments must be
adopted at the Verhovna Rada session that begins on 14 March
and the President must immediately sign the amendments into
law to ensure their implementation.

OSCE-ODHIR indicated that it was aware of the problems and
appreciated the documentation provided by POR. It promised to
look into the problems and indicated that its long term
observers were already in contact with POR representatives in
the regions. It indicated, OSCE-ODIHR indicated however that
as an observer mission that it cannot intercede in the
political process.

PbR impressions of the meeting where that OSCE-ODIHR, while
cognizant of the problems and increasingly willing to
investigate and report on them, appears to have no political
will to prevent the impending disaster by encouraging the
President to take the necessary and broadly supported steps
to fix the problems that his Administration created.

In order to stop this ticking time bomb, the intervention of
the international community is needed. Without the
leadership of the United States, it would appear that the
time bomb is set to explode.

Note: The meeting was attended by Elena Lukash, POR
representative on the CEC and Victor Slauta, an MP
representing POR and who serves on the parliamentary working
group considering technical amendments to the parliamentary
election law attended as did Catherine Barnes, election
integrity advisor for Davis Manafort.

OSCE-ODIHR was represented by the Deputy Head of Mission,
Roberto Cherreli, the elections advisor Kamel Ivanov, and the
legal advisor Hans Birchler. The Deputy Head of Mission
showed up in casual attire (jeans, hiking boots, shirt
hanging out),to meet a member of parliament, which suggests
the seriousness with which the meeting was taken.

End text.

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