UKRAINE: ALL SIDES WAIT WHILE ELECTIONS SLOWLY

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 KYIV 002508

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/02/2017
TAGS: PGOV PREL UP
SUBJECT: UKRAINE: ALL SIDES WAIT WHILE ELECTIONS SLOWLY
TALLIED

REF: KYIV 2501

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Classified By: Ambassador for reasons 1.4(b,d).


1. (C) Summary. As votes continued to trickle into the
Central Election Commission on October 2, parties remained
for the most part constrained, holding off on both court
challenges and coalition negotiations until the final count
is announced. With more than 97 percent of the vote counted
by 5:30 pm Kyiv time, the two orange parties -- Our
Ukraine-People's Self Defense (OU-PSD) and Bloc Yuliya
Tymoshenko (BYuT) -- still had a four vote majority and the
Socialists had dropped below the three-percent threshold,
probably for good. Ten District Election Commissions (DECs)
had still not sent their results to the CEC, six of them in
eastern and southern Ukraine and two in Kyiv. The CEC
announced that it would reach 100 percent results on October
3, but the delays in the counting are starting to raise
concerns. Yushchenko called on law enforcement bodies to
investigate the hold-up and members of BYuT and OU claimed it
was an effort by some political forces to get the Socialists
into the Rada, which would significantly change the outcome
of seat allocations. Despite the delays and concerns,
international evaluations of the elections have been that the
campaign was free and the vote competitive, although the OSCE
was critical of the poorly put-together voter lists as
disenfranchising voters. The Embassy issued a short press
statement October 1 echoing the OSCE's observations and
proposes a Washington statement congratulating Ukraine on a
mostly fair and competitive election once the complete
preliminary results are tallied. End summary.

Slow Count
--------------


2. (SBU) There are still delays in a number of DECs -- the
worst offenders are in Odesa and Simferopol in Crimea, where
reporting is still under 50 percent. In total, 9 DECs are
still under 80 percent reporting, most of them in the east
and south and two in Kyiv city. The afternoon of October 1,
as incoming results slowed to a trickle, President Yushchenko
appealed to the Prosecutor General's Office (PGO) and law
enforcement agencies to investigate why some DECs in Donetsk,
Luhansk, Crimea, and Odesa were so slow to report.
Tymoshenko also made a public appeal to the CEC and law
enforcement to ensure that those four oblasts did not falsify
results. Head of the Lytvyn Bloc's campaign, Viktor
Pylypyshyn, complained at a press conference that Kyiv city
was taking too long to count. Number 3 on the BYuT list
Mykola Tomenko said at a press conference that BYuT was
concerned that the hold-ups were due to attempts to alter the
missing results in favor of the Socialists (SPU) to get them
over the three-percent threshold. He said SPU was short
60,000 votes. OU-PSD legal eagle Onishchuk held a press
conference October 2 and echoed Tomenko's complaint.


3. (C) Comment. If the SPU got into the Rada, BYuT and
OU-PSD alone would not be able to form a coalition. However,
SPU may have trouble getting enough votes to get back over
the threshold. The delays may have been an effort by both
Regions and BYuT to sit on final vote tallies in stronghold
areas, while they waited to see what the final outcome looks
like. End comment.

Few Court Challenges So Far
--------------


4. (SBU) Political parties have been restrained so far in
contesting election results in court -- we had expected that
a slew of court cases filed by one party could cause major
delays in announcing the results -- although some cases were
filed on election day. The Donetsk oblast administration
announced on October 1 that 27 election-related lawsuits have
been filed in the Donetsk local courts, and the PGO said it
was investigating 85 election-related claims filed since
September 29; as a result, the PGO has opened four criminal
cases thus far. (Note. Due to poor funding and lack of
attention, many local courts do not post online or make
public a list of ongoing court cases, making it difficult to
determine the actual number of election-related cases that
have been filed. End note.) BYuT deputy leader Turchynov
said at an October 1 press conference that BYuT will appeal
the election results in some polling stations in Luhansk and
Donetsk. (Note. Due to a change in the election law,
parties can only have declared invalid the results of
individual polling stations. In past elections, whole DECs
could be challenged. End note.)


5. (SBU) In the first court ruling to be announced, the
Luhansk administrative court upheld OU-PSD's complaint, filed

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September 30, that DEC 109 (Severodonetsk) had allowed 6,000
people to vote illegally by not removing them from voter
lists in compliance with the Border Guard rule. However,
there was no indication as to whether the court decision
meant those 6,000 votes would be thrown out.

First Forays into Coalition Talks
--------------


6. (C) While waiting for the CEC to finish the vote count,
all parties have also been restrained in discussing possible
coalitions, although they are sending out feelers. Regions
faction leader Bohatyreva said at an October 1 rally that she
hoped Yushchenko would turn to Regions as the top vote-getter
to form a coalition. Lutsenko and Tymoshenko gave a press
conference on Channel 5 on October 1, during which Lutsenko
said OU-PSD would support Tymoshenko as PM. Tymoshenko said
she planned to meet Yushchenko to discuss forming a
coalition. OU leader Kyrylenko has been tapped by Yushchenko
to lead negotiations with Tymoshenko.


7. (C) Deputy Head of the Presidential Secretariat Chaliy
told the Ambassador October 2 that the OU-PSD team is
planning its next move. He said that with 226 seats for
Orange a distinct possibility, OU was reaching out to
Lytvyn's party. Lytvyn met with Baloha on October 1 and
might meet with Yushchenko soon. Chaliy also mentioned that
the Presidential Administration team was still thinking about
finding a way to bring Regions in, and that they were talking
to Regions' campaign head Kolesnikov. According to Chaliy,
President Yushchenko had hosted a party for OU-PSD leadership
the day after the election. It was clear that some,
including Lutsenko, FM Yatsenyuk and Defense Minister
Hrytsenko were open to some form of broad coalition, but
Kyrylenko and Katerynchuk were adamantly opposed.

Meeting on the Maidan
--------------


8. (SBU) Regions held a rally on the Maidan on the evening of
October 1. It seemed to have been organized to be the basis
of a protest if the elections had gone badly (or presumably a
celebration if they had gone better for Regions). However,
with the preliminary results not yet complete with Regions
leading but orange likely to get a majority, the event was
low-key. PM Yanukovych, after going back and forth on
whether he would attend, did show up and gave a speech to
5,000-6,000 supporters. He said that Regions, as the
first-past-the-post party, should have the first shot at
forming a coalition, as was the norm, he argued, in other
democratic countries. He also said that there would not be
another Rada election for five years, as everyone was sick of
voting. Other party leaders, including Bohatyreva, Mykhaylo
Chechetov, Inna Bohoslovska, Nestor Shufrych, and Vasyl
Kysylev also attended.

International Opinion: Elections Were Competitive
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9. (SBU) While avoiding the use of the term "free and fair",
a joint statement from OSCE/ODIHR, PACE, OSCE PA, NATO PA,
and the European Parliament called the elections "open and
competitive." They noted, much as U.S. observers have, that
the campaign was open, the media operated freely, and that
problems on voting day were more due to disorganization than
systematic attempts at fraud. They also said the elections
were in line with OSCE and COE commitments and other
international standards for democratic elections. They did,
however, note their concerns with the voter lists and the
requirement for the Border Guards to eliminate voters out of
the country 72 hours before the election from the voter lists
as possible disenfranchisement. The international
organizations, however, withheld final evaluation pending
possible court challenges and final vote counts.


10. (SBU) In addition, EU foreign policy czar Javier Solana
made a positive statement about the conduct of the elections;
the German FM said the elections were generally fair and
transparent and met international standards. Russian Foreign
Minister Lavrov said the elections allowed for the free
expression of will. Adrian Severin, head of the EP's
observation mission, said the election results could not be
questioned because they were generally held in line with
European standards. Once the preliminary results are
published by the CEC, we believe that it would be useful for
Washington to weigh in with a similar statement in order to
positively note Ukraine's continued progress in democratic
development.


11. (U) Visit Embassy Kyiv's classified website:

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www.state.sgov.gov/p/eur/kiev.
Taylor