CHERNIVTSI AND THE 2010 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS:

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 KYIV 002127

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/09/2019
TAGS: PGOV PREL UP RO
SUBJECT: CHERNIVTSI AND THE 2010 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS:
THE BLUEING OF AN ORANGE OBLAST?

REF: KYIV 2115

Classified By: DCM James Pettit for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d).

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SUMMARY
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1. (C) The presidential race in Chernivtsi Oblast, as in
Ukraine as a whole, is boiling down to a contest between PM
Yuliya Tymoshenko and front-runner Viktor Yanokovych of the
Party of Regions (PoR). Despite the oblast's traditional
"orange" orientation, the main concerns of voters -- the
state of the economy, and revulsion at corruption and
political sniping in the central government -- weigh against
the Prime Minister, and her local campaign appears to be on
the defensive. For its part, the PoR has carefully built
support among the oblast's Romanian-speaking minority; if the
PoR can mobilize this base on election day January 17,
Yanukovych could conceivably finish first in the oblast in
the first round of voting. He need not carry Chernivtsi
Oblast in the second round in order to triumph nationally; he
need only cut into Tymoshenko's margin of victory across the
"orange" heartland. The PoR's strategy in Chernivtsi Oblast
is a microcosm of how the "blue" team might succeed in doing
so.

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Bukovina
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2. (U) We met with various campaign officials, the
Committee of Ukrainian Voters, and representatives of the
Romanian Consulate General during a December 7-8 trip to
Chernivtsi. Chernivtsi Oblast (region),the smallest of
Ukraine's oblasts by area, is located just north of Romania
and Moldova, and comprises territory taken by the Soviet
Union from Romania in 1940 and again in 1944. According to
the 2001 census, Ukrainians comprised about 75% of the
population of 919,000, while ethnic Romanians and Moldovans
numbered about 182,000 (19.7%). Most of Chernivtsi Oblast is
comprised of the northern portion of the old Austrian
province of Bukovina. The city of Chernivtsi was largely
built under Emperor Franz Josef and still has a distinctly
"Mitteleuropa" look. Our interlocutors maintained that the
oblast has a tradition of tolerance that continues to the
present day. Chernivtsi Oblast voted heavily for President
Yushchenko in 2004 and gave roughly two-thirds of its votes
to "orange" parties in the 2007 parliamentary elections, vice
just 13% for the Party of Regions (PoR).

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Plenty of Campaigns, but Only a Two-Way Race
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3. (SBU) During our visit, the pubic squares of Chernivtsi
were bejeweled with the different-colored tents of various
campaigns (blue for PoR front-runner Yanukovych, white for PM
Tymoshenko, orange for incumbent President Yushchenko, combat
camouflage colors for former FM Yatsenyuk, yellow for
parliamentary speaker Lytvyn, and red -- what else? -- for
Communist Symonenko),with campaign workers handing out
literature and chatting up voters. Lytvyn was campaigning in
town personally during our visit and other candidates had
swung through town earlier this year. Nevertheless, most of
our interlocutors said that the race in the oblast, as in the
country as a whole, boils down to Yanukovych and Tymoshenko.
Yatsenyuk was born and raised in Chernivtsi, and his local
campaign staff boldly predicted a strong first-place finish
for him in the oblast. Most of our contacts, however,
maintained that Yatsenyuk's campaign has imploded locally
just as it has nationally (reftel),and that he would not be
a major factor.


4. (SBU) Our interlocutors were unanimous that the major
issues were a) the economy and b) disgust with corruption and
political infighting in Kyiv. Disillusionment over the
squandered promise of the Orange Revolution was universal.
Issues such as NATO, the EU, Russia, or the status of the
Russian language are playing a negligible role in the
campaign.


5. (C) The head of the Tymoshenko campaign, Petro Gasyuk, an
MP who has been in politics for 17 years and helped found the
local branch of Tymoshenko's Batkivshchyna Party, was clearly
nervous about her prospects. Gasyuk was convinced that -- as
national pundits have speculated -- Yushchenko's unrelenting
criticism of PM Tymoshenko is the result of a deal with
Yanukovych to deny Tymoshenko the presidency at any cost.
Gasyuk fretted about the difficulty of energizing "orange"
voters in this campaign and gave the impression of struggling

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just to maintain previous levels of support for the PM and
her party.


6. (C) By contrast, Heorhiy Khodorovskiy, a former Ukrainian
ambassador to India and head of the local Yanukovych
campaign, believed that a splintered "orange" vote could give
his candidate a first-place finish in the oblast in the first
round of the election with 25-30% of the vote. Khodorkovskiy
declined to predict that Yanukovych would win locally in the
second round, but indicated they expect to give Tymoshenko a
run for her money.

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Yanukovych's Ace in the Hole
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7. (C) An interesting local wrinkle in the presidential race
is the fact that the PoR has assiduously courted the ethnic
Romanian/Moldovan vote, a factor mentioned by all our
interlocutors except, curiously, the PoR's Khodorovskiy:

-- The Orange Revolution of 2004 was perceived by the local
Romanian population as a nationalistic Ukrainian movement,
which they viewed with detachment or even a certain mistrust.

-- The local branch of the PoR has made an effort to place
ethnic Romanians in the city and oblast party leadership.
Other parties have only token Romanian representation in
their local leadership. The only ethnic Romanian in the
Ukrainian Rada belongs to the PoR; he comes from Chernivtsi
Oblast.

-- The Banchenskiy Holy Ascension Orthodox Monastery, located
in a heavily Romanian district of the oblast, is very active
in charitable work, and our interlocutors singled out the
monastery's orphanage for particular praise. The PoR, and
Yanukovych personally, have donated very publicly to the
monastery's charitable activities, earning the gratitude of
the local people who benefit from the monastery's work.

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Parenthetical: A Closed Window on Europe
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8. (SBU) Notwithstanding the oblast's proximity to Romania
and other EU member states and local pride over Bukovina's
history as an Austrian province, our interlocutors pointed
out several factors that work against the sort of EU
gravitational pull that one might expect in a western
Ukrainian border region like Chernivtsi:

-- The neighboring parts of Romania are not significantly
better off economically than Chernivtsi Oblast, so there is
no obvious correlation in the popular mind between joining
the EU and enjoying any perceptible increase in prosperity;
"it would be different if we bordered the U.S.," quipped one
of our contacts. Large numbers of people from Romania now
cross the border to buy goods more cheaply in Chernivsti,
which has created the perverse perception that joining the
EU, at least for Romania, has resulted in higher prices
rather than higher living standards.

-- Many residents of the oblast have gone as guest workers to
places like Portugal, Spain and Italy; by contrast, almost no
one from Chernivtsi seeks work in Russia (a destination of
many Ukrainians from other regions). However, people seem
focused less on the economic benefits of these opportunities,
and more on resultant social problems -- particularly the
plight of "virtual orphans" being raised by grandparents
while both parents are off working in foreign lands.

-- We would add that Chernivtsi's ethnic Romanian population,
which ordinarily might be expected to act as a bridge to EU
member Romania, is politically aligned with the PoR, which at
a national level is interested more in Ukraine's integration
with the CIS than with the EU. The PoR reportedly supports
measures to facilitate family and economic contacts across
the border with Romania, and Chernivtsi's ethnic Romanians
might well be satisfied with that. They are, in any event,
too few in number to influence PoR policy nationally.

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Comment: A Bluer Shade of Orange?
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9. (C) Chernivtsi Oblast remains a part of Ukraine's
"orange" heartland, and it is almost inconceivable that
Yanukovych could beat Tymoshenko here in the second round.
However, if the PoR gets Romanian-speaking voters to support
Yanukovych en bloc, and gets them to turn out in higher
numbers than disillusioned ethnic Ukrainians, it is entirely

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possible (with some support from ethnic Ukrainians) that
Yanukovych could place first in the first round with 25-30%
of the vote, ahead of six or so candidates splintering the
"orange" electorate. That outcome alone would represent a
big psychological victory for the "blue" camp. Quite apart
from any morale boost, however, Yanukovych does not need to
win in oblasts like Chernivtsi in order to triumph
nationally; he merely needs to chip away at Tymoshenko's
margin of victory. The PoR's wooing of Romanian-language
voters in Chernivtsi Oblast offers one vignette of how they
might succeed.
TEFFT