UKRAINE: KIROVOHRAD: IT'S A TWO PARTY RACE,

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 KYIV 002402

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/10/2016
TAGS: PGOV PINR PREL UP
SUBJECT: UKRAINE: KIROVOHRAD: IT'S A TWO PARTY RACE,
ELECTIONS WILL BE CLEAN, A SIDE TRIP BACK IN TIME

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Classified By: Deputy Chief of Mission James Pettit for reasons 1.4 (b,
d).


1. (SBU) Summary: In conversations with Kirovohrad's
Communist mayor, Our Ukraine Governor, and various campaign
workers regarding preparations for the September 30
elections, opinion across the spectrum was that Regions and
BYuT will be the top two vote getters with about 25-30
percent each, with Our Ukraine-People's Self Defense (OU-PSD)
coming in a strong third with 15 percent, and that by and
large, the elections would be clean. The other widespread
consensus was that NATO and the Russian language question
have little resonance in the region, where bread and butter
economic issues dominate the local debate. Even the local
Regions representatives acknowledged these issues were an
electoral ploy aimed at retaining votes in the East that
might otherwise go to the Communists. All agreed that the
Socialist Party of Ukraine (SPU) was in serious electoral
trouble, voter turnout would be high in spite of voter
disillusion, and a large number of local voters were still
undecided.


2. (C) Comment. If local political players are to be
believed, Kirovohrad will have free and fair elections, but
this will be a very competitive election in a hotly contested
central swing oblast. Muddled local politics and a past
history of voter fraud still make Kirovohrad a prime target
for election abuses. Because of the implosion of the SPU and
local dissatisfaction with a BYuT Rada member, Regions and
OU-PSD stand to improve on their 2006 election totals, but 20
percent of voters remain undecided and are up for grabs. All
major parties in the oblast have opted to focus their
campaigns on convincing voters that they will best provide
solutions to local problems, ignoring their parties'
national-level issues, such as Russian language, NATO, and
parliamentary immunity. With virtually no discernible
difference in platforms, whoever can convince voters they
will tackle unemployment, build up infrastructure, improve
housing, and increase salaries/pensions stands to win the
large number of undecideds. This may put OU-PSD at a
disadvantage because unlike Regions' "Stability and
Well-being" or BYuT's "Ukrainian Breakthrough", the OU-PSD
campaign is constrained by a lack of message or overarching
theme that can be used as a framework to discuss local
issues. End Summary and Comment.

Kirovohrad: Checkered Election History
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3. (SBU) Kirovohrad is a largely agricultural, poor oblast in
central Ukraine and a former stronghold for BYuT and SPU.
Parliamentary results in 2006 were BYuT - 30 percent, Regions
- 20 percent, SPU - 10 percent, OU - 9 percent, Communists -
6 percent, Lytvyn bloc - 5 percent. Kirovohrad is the home
of the notorious TEC 100 electoral region in which widespread
fraud took place in the 2004 presidential election.
Throughout the oblast, support for Yushchenko grew from 48
percent to 63 percent between the second and third rounds of
the election. The Communist Mayor, Volodymr Puzakov, won a
hotly contested mayoral by-election in November 2006. The
repeat election took place after the winner of the March 2006
mayoral race, popular local BYuT leader Valeriy Kalchenko,
was elected both as mayor and to the Rada, and chose to take
his Rada seat -- a decision that angered many local BYuT
supporters and threw the mayoral race into chaos. Puzakov
prevailed after backroom dealing with the Party of Regions
(PR) and local businessmen gave him a slim victory over young
up-and-coming Our Ukraine candidate Oleksandr Danuta. Before
2004, local politics was dominated by the now defunct Labor
Ukraine party which was associated closely with former
President Kuchma's son-in-law Viktor Pinchuk.

Disorganized Headquarters and Muddled Campaign Messages
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4. (C) DCM and POLOFF visited OU-PSD, BYuT, and Regions
headquarters, September 10-11. BYuT headquarters appeared
the most organized internally and externally; the OU-PSD and
Regions headquarters directors did not bother to show up for
our meetings. The local BYuT campaign manager expected to
win the oblast with about 40 percent, compared to 20 percent
for OU-PSD and Regions a close third. (Note: This estimate
is way out of line with even OU-PSD internal numbers and
likely amounts to wishful thinking. End note.) BYuT
indicated it suspected large-scale fraud in the oblast, but
could not substantiate the claim. BYuT's representative
suspected collusion between the mayor, Regions campaign, and
administrators of schools, medical facilities, and other
public institutions to block BYuT from campaigning in certain
public entities while allowing Regions representatives

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access. (Note: A Peace Corps volunteer indicated to Poloff
during the visit that Regions representatives held a
political meeting in the school in which he works. The local
staff was required to attend so this claim appears to have
some legitimacy. End note) The BYuT representative thought
voters strongly supported NATO and were against giving
Russian the status of an official language, but did not think
such "election tricks" would play much of a role in the
upcoming elections.


5. (C) After the OU-PSD local campaign chief skipped the
meeting, we met with two campaign workers instead. According
to them, BYuT and Regions would finish first and second and
were polling at 20 percent, OU - PSD third with 13 percent,
and 23 percent still undecided. They said Regions and OU-PSD
would get a higher percentage than in 2006 and BYuT and the
Socialists would drop, the former because of the mayoral
issue and the latter due to a lack of money and
disillusionment with Socialist leader and Rada Speaker
Moroz's decision to join a Regions-led goverment. Local
infrastructure, employment, and communal payments dominated
local politics while NATO and Russian language were
non-issues in the election. The OU-PSD workers appreciated
election help from KYIV, but lamented that its use was
limited due to a top down structure that was not responsive
to local issues. The local campaign has tried to morph the
major OU-PSD message of abolishing parliamentary immunity
into a more broad, "we stand for fairness and no privileges
message," (i.e., if you pay your bills, you will get service,
if the mayor has hot water, you should have hot water!). The
workers expected free and fair elections, the only problems
were technical in nature.


6. (C) Regions was also disorganized, canceling one meeting,
then not having their contact there for the second. However,
we eventually met with Rada MP Stepan Tsapiuk as a
representative of Regions. Tsapiuk observed that
preparations for the election were going smoothly; relations
between parties were not great but cordial and proper because
all understood the need for clean elections. He believed
that Regions and BYuT would each get around 30 percent of the
vote and OU-PSD 15 percent, with unemployment and
infrastructure the main local issues. Interestingly enough,
Tsapiuk openly admitted that the NATO and Russian language

SIPDIS
issues were a dead end in the oblast. He said the maneuver
was a political trick to keep votes in the East that might go
to the Communists. Additionally, Tsapiuk said Regions was
not against NATO, it was simply not ready to join yet.

OU Governor Feels Cut off from KYIV
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7. (C) On his own initiative, Chernysh invited the press to
the beginning of the meeting and answered questions about
relations with the mayor and the elections as one might
expect of a polished politician. Afterwards in private,
Chernysh indicated that he felt the election results would be
roughly the same as in 2006, with BYuT and Regions coming in
first and second, and OU - PSD third. According to him, BYuT
will fare worse in the city because of Kalchenko's decision
to take a Rada Seat, but this would not influence voting in
the rest of the oblast. Chernysh lamented the centralization
of the OU-PSD campaign in KYIV, which he said isn't listening
to what oblast voters really care about. Chernysh said NATO
and the Russian language questions were getting no traction
whatsoever in the region. Chernysh noted that local issues
like unemployment, poor infrastructure, rising community
tariffs, and low salaries are far and away the most important
to the electorate. Chernysh was encouraged by local
cooperation among parties and expects clean elections, but
somberly noted Kirovohrad had a dubious election history. He
expected fairly extensive post-election litigation, depending
on the results. Although the electorate is fatigued, he
expected a good turnout of over 60 percent. He could not
really speculate as to the make-up of the national coalition,
but spoke of fissures in both OU-PSD and Regions. He noted
business leaders in both parties preferred to work together
in a Regions/OU-PSD coalition but that both parties have
large elements that do not want a Regions/OU-PSD coalition
under any circumstance. Chernysh said very little
distinguishes the parties; future electoral success for
OU-PSD will be based on providing good governance at a local
level to attract future voters.

Meeting with Communist Mayor - A Walk Back in Time
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8. (C) The meeting started cordially. Puzakov opined that
Regions would come in first, BYuT second, and OU-PSD third.
Puzakov said that Kalchenko's decision to take a Rada seat

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instead of remaining as mayor soured a large number of BYuT
supporters and that BYuT supporters no longer believed that
BYuT cared about the little people. Puzakov pointed to a
recent Tymoshenko rally where only 2,500 people attended as
evidence of her decreasing popularity. He said the majority
of the crowd was bussed in from the villages, and he compared
it, unfavorably, to a 2006 Tymoshenko visit where she had
10,000 people come out and support her. (Note: This version
of events was also brought up independently by OU-PSD, who
agreed that Tymoshenko has lost support in the city. End
note.) The mayor indicated the Communists, SPU, and Lytvyn
Bloc would get over the 3 percent threshold in the oblast,
but noted that SPU support had waned. The mayor acknowledged
tough relations with governor Chernysh, but said relations
were correct. Both were trying to solve problems and the
friction consisted of who should get credit. The mayor said
NATO and the Russian language issues were not driving the
election and had little resonance, although he mentioned that
by his calculations 90 percent of voters were anti-NATO and
supported giving Russian language an official status.
Infrastructure, repair of communal property, and lack of
decent employment were the main issues for the electorate.
He indicated that voter fatigue was real, but turnout would
be over 60 percent.


9. (C) After 15 minutes of sounding reasonable and astute,
like a moth to a flame, the mayor launched into a long tirade
about how the United States destroyed the Soviet economy, an
economy which was much more developed than that of the United
States. He lamented that many factories in Kirovohrad had
closed, leaving the oblast poor with lots of unemployment.
Notably, he singled out the famous typewriter factory that
had provided the whole Soviet Union with typewriters,
seemingly oblivious to the fact that typewriters are now
virtually obsolete. He wistfully recalled tractor brigades
harvesting the bounty of the land, free abundant food,
universal health care, and the general paradise that was the
former Soviet Union. Curiously, the mayor stated that vast
majorities of Westerners are clamoring to live today like
Ukrainians used to live in Soviet times. The DCM expressed
disagreement with the mayor's factually challenged
assertions, informing the mayor that he lived in the Soviet
Union both as a student and diplomat and saw what life was
like with his own eyes. The mayor, taken aback but
undaunted, countered that he had been to Italy. (Note: Apart
from BYuT, the unanimous consensus among local politicians
and election workers is that the mayor is a cartoonish
buffoon, however they noted that he was not interfering with
elections in any way and largely agreed with his readout on
the political scene in Kirovohrad. End note.)

Young Politicians See Upcoming Elections as Free and Fair
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10. (C) During lunch with a group of local council members,
Oleksandr Danutsa (OU),Andriy Drobin (SPU),Roman
Kolisnichenko (BYuT),and Andriy Kuryan (Regions),all stated
that their parties would be monitoring elections closely but
agreed the election would be free and fair. The consensus
was that the top two parties in the oblast would be Regions
and BYuT followed by OU-PSD. All scoffed at the idea of
Ukraine breaking apart into east and west regardless of
election results. Most notably, the Regions council member
stated he personally was against Russian having official
language status and that NATO and the Russian language issue
were base politics. All agree that the NATO/Russian language
issues had no resonance in the oblast.


11. (U) Visit Embassy KYIV's classified website:
www.state.sgov.gov/p/eur/kiev.
Taylor