UKRAINIAN ELECTIONS: A NEW ORANGE COALITION COULD

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 KYIV 002501

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/01/2017
TAGS: PREL PGOV PHUM UP
SUBJECT: UKRAINIAN ELECTIONS: A NEW ORANGE COALITION COULD
FORM THE NEXT GOVERNMENT

Classified By: Political Counselor Kent Logsdon for reasons 1.4(a,b,d).


1. (C) Summary: A renewed "orange coalition" could
potentially capture enough Rada seats to form the new
government, according to several nationwide exit polls. As
of noon October 1, counting continues and the Central
Election Commission (CEC) has posted about 54% of the
results, although there is some concern about the slow pace
of returns from several key districts, mainly in the East.
Statements from international observers including OSCE/ODIHR
on the conduct of the election are expected in the afternoon
of October 1; the International Republican Institute issued a
statement concluding that the elections generally met
international standards and the head of the European
Parliament delegation pronounced the elections conducted in
line with "European standards." Based on our observer
reports from around the country and press updates, there was
little evidence of massive fraud, although all agree that the
voting lists around the country were in poor shape, leaving
open the possibility for falsification of the vote, and that
the new law tasking the Border Guards with providing lists of
individuals outside of the country 72 hours before the vote
was poorly implemented and a source of confusion for polling
stations everywhere.


2. (C) Comment: With the counting underway, the dance of
coalition building has begun. Buoyed by positive exit poll
results and exuding confidence, Yuliya Tymoshenko told
supporters that she would go to President Yushchenko October
1 with a proposal to begin forming a coalition and a new
government, that could feature an Our Ukraine Rada speaker.
OU-PSD leaders told the press that they were ready to support
Tymoshenko as PM. Prime Minister Yanukovych told supporters
that Regions had won the election and that the party was
ready to open negotiations on forming a government. The
streets are quiet in Kyiv, although Regions has constructed a
large stage on the Maidan and called for a rally at 4 pm on
October 1. OU-PSD has set up its stage on European Square, a
short distance away. Thus far, no party has filed court
challenges to any election results as they await the final
preliminary numbers from the CEC. End Summary and Comment.

The Results Looking Orange
--------------

3, (SBU) CEC began posting preliminary results on its
website soon after the polls closed. At 12 noon, Ukrainska
Pravda, citing the CEC, reported that with 54.53 percent of
the vote counted, BYuT had 33.23% of the vote; Regions 30.76
percent; OU-PSD 15.55 percent; Communists 5.08 percent;
Lytvyn 4.17 percent and the Socialists at 3.13 percent.
However, these are only preliminary results rather than a
scientific sampling and all polls agree that the Regions
party will end up winning a plurality of the vote and the
Socialist party will not make it over the 3 percent
threshold. Speaking to the press, CEC Commissioner Mikhail
Okendovskiy predicted that the CEC preliminary results will
be complete by the end of the day on October 1.

4, (C) Throughout the night, CEC results have slowly come
in, and have been especially slow from eastern and southern
regions, Mid-way through the evening, BYuT alleged that this
was an attempt initiated by Party of Regions to falsify vote
counts, a problem that occurred in the second round of the
2004 presidential election, and appealed to law enforcement
authorities to ensure that polling commissions resume
counting votes. CEC Chairman Shapoval, talking to the press
at 10 am on October 1 said that four territorial election
commissions (TEC) -- two in Donetsk, one in Dnipropetrovsk
and one in Cherkasiy -- are refusing to provide results to
the CEC. According to Shapoval, the TEC's in question have
told the CEC that they need to receive protocols from all of
their polling places because there were problems in several
polling places that may require a recounting of some votes.
Shapoval said that he hoped the situation would be cleared up
soon, but that this was something that was "not under the
CEC's control." According to the law, the CEC has 15 days to
publish the final results of the election. Voter turnout was
high; the CEC, announced a turnout of 62.93 percent based on
reporting from 181 of 225 territorial commissions, although
there were oblasts throughout the country that reported 70 to
80 percent turnout including Ternopil, Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk
and Volyn -- all in the west. Interestingly, Zakarpattiya
oblast, also in the far west, was at the bottom of the list
with only a 51,99 percent turnout. The election was declared
valid at 8:30 pm on September 30, once voter turnout
surpassed the 50 percent mark, another requirement of the new
election law as amended on June 1.


5. (SBU) The results of the National Exit Poll, initially

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released at 10:01 pm September 30, immediately after the
polls closed, and then updated in the early morning hours to
reflect the final hours of voting, caused a sensation among
orange supporters. The exit poll results showed Regions with
35.5 percent (179 seats); BYuT with 31.5 percent (159 seats);
Our Ukraine-People's Self Defense with 13.4 percent (67
seats); the Communist Party with 5.1 percent (26 seats) and
Lytvyn People's Party with 3.7 percent (19 seats),giving a
combined "orange" BYuT and OU a bare minimum majority (226
seats required). The poll, conducted by well-respected
Democratic Initiatives Fund in collaboration with the
Razumkov Center and KIIS, was partly USG-funded.


6. (SBU) The majority of other exit polls released soon
after voting ended, offered remarkably consistent results;
all showed the same five parties making it past the 3 percent
threshold to get into the Rada and gave the "orange" team a
slim majority. The Regions' exit poll, paid for by Region's
financier Rinat Akhmetov using the well-respected marketing
firm "Research and Branding," produced similar results to the
other polls, although denied orange its majority by
projecting a combined 224 seats for BYuT and Our Ukraine, two
short of a majority.

Conduct of the Election - More Confusion than Fraud
-------------- --------------


7. (C) In the field, USG and other international observers
saw no evidence of efforts to conduct massive fraud, although
there were reports from all over the country that the poor
quality of voter lists were a challenge for polling stations
and a potential conduit for falsifying the vote. Observers
reported that many commissions acted professionally,
attempting to make pragmatic decisions in response to
problems raised at the polling places. In most cases, they
made diligent efforts to cross off duplicate voters from the
list and to correct minor errors with regard to names and
addresses. In our judgment, many more voters were not able
to vote because of errors in the voter lists, rather than
problems with the law that did not allow individuals outside
the territory of Ukraine within 72 hours to participate in
the vote (see paragraph 10 below). Although not permitted
under the current election law, it appears that many voters
who found themselves off the voter lists simply went to court
and obtained orders permitting them to vote -- a practice
that was widely and legally used during the March 2006
elections. USG observers also reported disorganization
during the vote count and long delays in filling out
protocols and filing results with the Territorial Election
Commissions, but no apparent problems with the counting or
the completion of the protocols themselves.


8. (C) There were regular reports from all the political
parties during election day about reports of fraud and
falsifications of the vote. A USG team witnessed one such
effort in Zakarpattiya oblast (home of Presidential
Administration and OU-PSD campaign head Baloha) when over
four days, a voter list at a hospital ballooned from 127 to
more than 700 registered voters. In Mariupol in Donetsk
oblast, another USG team watched a rayon administration go to
extraordinary efforts to rally the vote in the final hours of
election day, as poll workers knocked on doors and encouraged
voters to board buses provided by the local administration.
And in Poltava, another USG team witnessed an oblast
administration official taking information off a voter list.
There were reports of extra ballots ordered in Donetsk at the
last minute and the press reported incidents of vote-buying
and efforts to vote multiple times from around the country.


9. (C) The use of the mobile ballot box, administratively
made easier to request due to changes in the election law
this time, appeared to have been generally used responsibly
as a way for the elderly and infirm to vote. Most USG
observers reported reasonable numbers of requests for the
mobile ballot box at each polling station, with corresponding
hand-written requests as required by law on file. However,
observers also saw individual polling stations with
larger-than-usual numbers of mobile ballot requests and
documented irregularities with the way the voting urn was
transported to at-home voters. According to the CEC website,
the results from mobile ballot boxes are up to 10 percent of
the vote in some territorial election commissions scattered
throughout the country. Although this may not have been a
conduit for massive fraud, it appears clear that the
loosening of restrictions on the use of the mobile ballot
box, for example, a doctor's letter is no longer required,
meant that it was improperly used to increase vote totals in
some districts.


10. (C) A more serious issue on election day was the

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complicated process of implementing the election law's new
provisions denying the right to vote to anyone outside of the
territory of Ukraine within 72 hours of the opening of the
polls. According to the law, the State Border Guard Service
was given the responsibility of collecting the data on
entry/exit into the country (a procedure which caused huge
lines at immigration at Kyiv's Borispyl Airport for the weeks
leading up to the election) and then providing information to
the 34,000 polling stations around the country to enable them
to strike ineligible voters from their lists. This led to
mass confusion at polling stations around the country and the
disenfranchisement of voters, estimated by the NGO Committee
of Voters of Ukraine to number about 570,000 or one percent
of the total vote. In reality, according to USG observers,
only about half of all polling stations received lists from
Border Guards, and in some places, like Sumy oblast, it
appears that no lists were ever provided to individual
polling stations. Of those polling stations who did receive
lists, only some chose to strike voters from their lists. In
one amusing anecdote retold in the press, the mayor of
Donetsk and his wife were denied the right to vote - an error
made by the Border Guards after the mayor returned from a
trip abroad on September 3 -- well outside the 72-hour window
for being present in the country (Note. At the end of the
day, as happened with many voters who were struck off the
lists in many parts of the country, the mayor was permitted
to vote. End note.)

International Observers Say Mostly Free and Fair
-------------- ---


11. (C) The first international observers have described the
September 30 election as generally up to international
standards. One of the first to comment was the head of the
European Parliament's observation delegation, Adrian Severin,
who said that the elections in Ukraine were in accordance
with European standards in spite of "a number of violations,
in spite of definite steps backward (with regard to past
elections)." However, "the results could not be doubted,
could not be contested." The U.S. International Republican
Institute (IRI),issued a statement at 10 am Kyiv time with
the headline "Ukraine's Elections Generally Meet
International Standards: Steps Need to be Taken to Improve
Voter Confidence." IRI assessed the election as "broadly
meeting international standards," but highlighted problems
that Ukraine needed to resolve prior to its next national
election. On the positive side, IRI credited election
officials with doing a professional job in a confusing
environment and political parties with participating fully as
commissioners and observers. IRI also gave the campaign high
marks for its openness and access of candidates to media. On
the negative side, IRI mentioned the serious problems with
the voter lists and the last-minute CEC changes in policy
that confused the electorate, which according to IRI staff,
was a way of obliquely referring to the difficulties involved
in Border Guard list issue.


12. (C) According to IRI staff, the statement was
coordinated with the OSCE team from ODIHR which is scheduled
to release its preliminary assessment at 1330 Kyiv time
October 1. The National Democratic Institute (NDI) is
expected to issue its statement at 1430 Kyiv time. We expect
that other western governments will follow suit and release
similar statements once the ODIHR report has been published.


13. (C) Statements of Russian political commentators carried
in the press generally promoted the idea of a broad
coalition, especially in the context of the upcoming Duma
elections and presidential elections in both countries. One
commentator likened BYuT's good showing in the polls as the
emergence of a "third force" in response to conflict between
President and Prime Minister. Long-time Russian commentator
Gleb Pavlovskiy told the press that he believed that the
results of the pre-term elections would not bring stability
to Ukraine, but the opposite -- it would lead to crisis.
According to Pavlovskiy, President Yushchenko needs to "take
control of the process" and create a broad coalition
involving all three major parties, Regions, BYuT and Our
Ukraine," as a government of national unity that would be
attractive for the Ukrainian people.

The Next Coalition - Let the Games Begin!
--------------


14. (SBU) At mid-day on October 1, all of the parties are
beginning to emerge and talk about next steps. Yuliya
Tymoshenko has already announced her intention to meet with
the President and talk about the possibility of forming a
coalition and a new government within days of the CEC's
announcement of the final election results. She told the

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press that she is prepared for Our Ukraine to take the
Speaker's post in a new orange government. OU-PSD leader
Yuriy Lutsenko told the press that his bloc is prepared to
support Tymoshenko as the next Prime Minister. Lutsenko's
colleague OU leader Kyrylenko told the press that the new
orange coalition is eager to quickly form a government and to
introduce new legislation, including a new budget draft.


15. (SBU) On the blue side, PM Yanukovych told the press
that Regions won the election (and they are expected to win a
plurality according to every exit poll) and that they will
begin the process of negotiating with all of the parties that
cross the 3 percent threshold regarding the possibility of
forming a coalition and a new government. Regions' faction
leader Raisa Bohatyreva went a step further and told the
press that Regions was eager to talk to other parties about
forming a broad coalition. DPM Tabachnyk went the other
direction, telling the press that he was praying for the
establishment of an orange coalition since that would ensure
a Regions' victory in the presidential election in 2009 or

2010.


16. (C) While we all watch the CEC returns posted TEC by
TEC, the parties have thus far refrained from launching the
court challenges to the results of the elections that many
have feared could tie up the country in knots for weeks to
come. Regions has constructed a stage at the Maidan and is
calling for a rally at 4 pm October 1. Thus far, there is no
evidence of the 50,000 people descending upon Kyiv predicted
by CVU head Ihor Popov at the end of the election. In nearby
European square, a large OU-PSD stage has also been set up in
front of Ukrainian house, although OU leaders tell us that it
is intended for a celebration rather than a mass protest.
Although there is plenty of political maneuvering behind the
scenes, it is likely that all the major political players
will wait for the rest of the CEC's preliminary results,
expected by day's end October 1, before making their next
moves in response to this extraordinarily close race.


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