UKRAINE: VOTERS LOOKING FOR SOMETHING DIFFERENT IN

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 KYIV 004383 SIPDIS SENSITIVE SIPDIS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PGOV PREL UP SUBJECT: UKRAINE: VOTERS LOOKING FOR SOMETHING DIFFERENT IN LOCAL ELECTIONS REF: KYIV 4211 (U) Sensitive but unclassified, please handle accordingly. Not for internet distribution. ¶1. (SBU) Summary. The Embassy, representatives from several USG-funded NGO's (NDI, IRI, Freedom House and IOM) and monitors from ENEMO (European Network of Election Monitoring Organizations) observed four repeat mayoral elections this month, all in the central Ukraine heartland which gave pluralities to the Tymoshenko Bloc (BYuT) in March 26 parliamentary elections. With the West still heavily pro-orange and the East locked down in the Regions camp, the center of the country remains Ukraine's swing vote, as it was in the 1994, 1999, and 2004 Presidential cycles. The by-election winners came from a variety of parties--one Regions, two BYuTs, and either a Communist or an Our Ukraine rep. ¶2. (SBU) The bottom line seems to be that local politics remains local, and often personality rather than party-driven. National parties were often detached from their candidates or supported more than one candidate. Candidates who actually worked to improve their constituents' lives or who were young and fresh or, in at least one case, who represented the security of the past for the mostly elderly electorate that turned out, found support. On the other hand, former mayors who tried to manipulate the system from their new home in the Rada were not able to hold on to their powerbases. Voter turnout was low (20-30 percent, compared to 70-80 percent in the March general election),a sign perhaps of voter weariness at the fifth voting day in little over two years. End summary and comment. Local Elections: Take Two (or three) -------------- ¶3. (SBU) Chernihiv, Poltava, Kirovohrad, and Cherkasy form a ring around Kyiv's eastern and southern borders and have a more politically-diverse political landscape than their neighbors to the west and east, although all gave strong pluralities to BYuT in the March 26 Rada elections. The first three oblasts held mayoral by-elections on November 26 to replace mayors who joined the Rada, while Cherkasy held a repeat election on November 5 after two previous failed attempts. In general, voter turnout was low (20-35 percent), as people disgusted with political games surrounding repeat elections stopped participating. In Poltava, however, the city where the municipal government functioned best under an acting mayor and new city council, people still believed their votes mattered, according to an exit poll conducted by the Committee of Voters of Ukraine (CVU),and this was probably reflected in the slightly higher voter turnout (33 percent) there. Kirovohrad: Still Flawed -------------- ¶4. (SBU) Kirovohrad, home to some of Ukraine's most blatant cheating in the 1998 and 2002 local/parliamentary elections as well as the first and second rounds of the 2004 presidential election, was the messiest of the four mayoral elections. A leading candidate, Oleksandr Nikulin, previously mayor of Kirovohrad from 1998-2002, was improperly removed from the ballot at midnight before election day by the territorial election commission (TEC). According to Nikulin's camp and confirmed by CVU, only 9 of the 15 TEC members were present at the vote--two-thirds are required for quorum--and the local court reinstated him hours before the polls opened. The TEC then overruled the court, removed Nikulin again, and decided to declare invalid any votes for Nikulin that were cast during the two-hour period when he was reinstated, resulting in several thousand votes being thrown out. The uncertainty about the validity of Nikulin's candidacy caused chaos in several polling stations as local officials tried to decide whether or not to strike his name from the ballots--as the first voters of the day were arriving. ¶5. (SBU) Prior to election day, local residents talked about a lack of leadership in the city, with some hinting darkly that the "interim authorities" would prefer to have no one win the election, leaving them with the reins of local power. Valeriy Kalchenko (BYuT, former Kirovohrad governor in 1999),won the mayor's race in March while managing BYuT's successful Rada campaign in the province, but he chose to take up his Rada seat instead of serving as mayor. In August, Kirovohrad journalists and city council members told us that after Kalchenko's departure, BYuT found no one to fill the void. Instead, Kirovohrad experienced a sense of KYIV 00004383 002 OF 003 drift and lack of municipal leadership over the summer. The interim authorities decision to significantly delay the start of municipal heating--the only such occurrence in a oblast capital country-wide this year, angered local residents. ¶6. (SBU) Overall, voter turnout was low, about 20 percent and primarily pensioners. After the initial chaos of the morning, the vast majority of polling places functioned smoothly, with poll workers taking professional pride in doing a good job. As of November 29, there still was no official winner although early exit polls gave the nod by a narrow margin appears to Communist Volodymyr Puzakov over Our Ukraine's Oleksandr Danutsa (15.8 to 15.3 percent). Danutsa was the only one out of 44 candidates who is under 50 years of age; a young city council member who started his political career after the Orange Revolution. He impressed us during a brief August encounter as a person to watch for the future. The de-registered Nikulin has already contested the election in the local court; with apparent legal grounds for a successful challenge, Kirovohrad may see a repeat election in a few months. Poltava: Electing a Mayor Who Gets Things Done -------------- - ¶7. (SBU) Poltava in March re-elected Regions MP Anatoliy Kukoba, who had run Poltava like a personal fiefdom since before Ukrainian independence, but Kukoba also chose to take his Rada seat rather than serve as mayor. The difference from Kirovohrad, however, was that the interim mayor chosen by the BYuT-led City Council, 42 year old Council Secretary Andriy Matkovskiy, made a quick splash, according to many we talked to in Poltava November 25-26. The Matkovskiy-led City Council tackled a number of quality of life issues, achieving "more in five months than Kukoba had done in five years," quipped one Poltavan. City Councilwoman Hanna Kyshchenko (BYuT) told us that the Council had significantly expanded street lighting (provincial Ukrainian cities are disconcertingly dark at night),bought more city buses and playground equipment, and repaired some long-neglected roads. ¶8. (SBU) The results showed on election day, when Matkovskiy scored a resounding victory, with the CVU exit polls suggesting a 56-27 percent victory over closest competitor Viktor Zhivotenko. Zhivotenko, who as the "non-Kukoba" opposition candidate in the March election had come within 1500 votes of upsetting Kukoba, had Kukoba and Regions throwing their last minute support behind him. Several observers suggested Kukoba's team was attempting to prevent the emergence of a long-term effective BYuT mayor. Some of the last minute tactics seemed out of character for the Zhivotenko team, including a "black PR TV documentary" alleging Matkovskiy had shady ties which ran in the week prior to the election, and election day efforts to manufacture the appearance of possible vote buying and carousel voting among students, allegedly on Matkovskiy,s behalf. (Note: Matkovskiy has now filed defamation law suits against some of the media outlets that he says tried to smear him before the election.) ¶9. (SBU) The Poltava by-election was the most relaxed, tension-free and straightforward Ukrainian election yet witnessed by the members of the embassy observer team, who had a combined 15 election observations since 2004. One precinct committee member summed up a prevailing sentiment by saying: "Both Matkovskiy and Zhivotenko are local Poltava boys with proven management capabilities. We can't lose either way." Moreover, Poltava saw a slightly higher voter turnout of 33 percent, and of those who did vote, 90 percent told the CVU exit pollers that they believed their vote could make a difference in how Poltava was governed. Chernihiv: Political Comeback -------------- ¶10. (SBU) The story in Chernihiv was much the same. The initial March winner of the mayor's seat, Socialist Mykola Rudkovskiy, left for Kyiv to take his Rada seat, subsequently becoming Transportation Minister. Rudkovskiy had been dynamic and charismatic in his campaign in March, but when he left, he installed SPU people in city positions and tried to run things through a proxy, which engendered hostility towards the SPU (note: the Socialists experienced a dramatic drop in support levels nationwide after their July "flip" from supporting a governing coalition with BYuT and OU to the current Regions-led coalition including the Communists). As a result, former mayor (2002-06) and Regions candidate Oleksandr Sokolov, who had had lost to Rudkovskiy in March, easily won in November by an overwhelming margin. Voting in Chernihiv was very quiet and orderly. Embassy observers did KYIV 00004383 003 OF 003 not sense the same feeling of apathy as in other cities, although voter turnout was still a low 25 percent. Cherkasy: Finally, a Mayor -------------- ¶11. (SBU) The November 5 Cherkasy election (described reftel) was relatively quiet after political machinations canceled the results in March and prevented a revote in June. There was low voter turnout of 20 percent with high levels of voter disgust. Former mayor Oliynik, who is now a BYuT MP in the Rada, controlled a lot of the technical candidates and the press attention, but still couldn't get his preferred candidate into office. (Note: he came in fourth). Instead, young businessman and second BYuT candidate Serhiy Odarych won. Voters Dislike Politicians who Can't Shake Old Habits -------------- -------------- ¶12. (SBU) Comment: Taken together, the four mayoral elections demonstrate positive elements of Ukraine's post-Orange Revolution political scene. What we observed were contested elections by different parties and perspectives, with local dynamics and personalities decisive in the final result, rather than attempts of long-time provincial godfathers trying to continue to run their home cities from Kyiv. The results in Poltava in particular showed that competent municipal governance can make a quick impact, with Poltavan voters handing a decisive mandate to someone whom few had heard of six months prior. Nevertheless, the continued use by some of old campaign tactics--using the TECs and the courts to try to disqualify competitors and "black PR" to discredit them--suggests that some old habits die hard. ¶13. (U) Visit Embassy Kyiv's classified website: www.state.sgov.gov/p/eur/kiev. Taylor