NOVEMBER 16, 2004

Briefing of the

Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe

WASHINGTON : 2006

108th CONGRESS Printed for the use of the

2nd Session Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe

UKRAINE’S

PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION:

THE TURNING POINT?
ii

COMMISSION ON SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE

234 FORD HOUSE OFFICE BUILDING

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LEGISLATIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS

HOUSE

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey

Chairman

FRANK R. WOLF, Virginia

JOSEPH R. PITTS, Pennsylvania

ROBERT B. ADERHOLT, Alabama

ANNE M. NORTHUP, Kentucky

BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland

LOUISE McINTOSH SLAUGHTER, New York

ALCEE L. HASTINGS, Florida

MIKE McINTYRE, North Carolina

SENATE

BEN NIGHTHORSE CAMPBELL, Colorado

Co-Chairman

SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas

GORDON H. SMITH, Oregon

KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON, Texas

SAXBY CHAMBLISS, Georgia

CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, Connecticut

BOB GRAHAM, Florida

RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin

HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON, New York

EXECUTIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS

VACANT, Department of State

VACANT, Department of Defense

WILLIAM HENRY LASH III, Department of Commerce
iii

ABOUT THE ORGANIZATION FOR

SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE

The Helsinki process, formally titled the Conference on Security and Cooperation in

Europe, traces its origin to the signing of the Helsinki Final Act in Finland on August 1, 1975,

by the leaders of 33 European countries, the United States and Canada. As of January 1,

1995, the Helsinki process was renamed the Organization for Security and Cooperation in

Europe (OSCE). The membership of the OSCE has expanded to 55 participating States, reflecting the breakup of the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia.

The OSCE Secretariat is in Vienna, Austria, where weekly meetings of the participating

States’ permanent representatives are held. In addition, specialized seminars and meetings

are convened in various locations. Periodic consultations are held among Senior Officials,

Ministers and Heads of State or Government.

Although the OSCE continues to engage in standard setting in the fields of military

security, economic and environmental cooperation, and human rights and humanitarian concerns, the Organization is primarily focused on initiatives designed to prevent, manage and

resolve conflict within and among the participating States. The Organization deploys numerous missions and field activities located in Southeastern and Eastern Europe, the Caucasus,

and Central Asia. The website of the OSCE is: <www.osce.org>.

ABOUT THE COMMISSION ON SECURITY

AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE

The Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, also known as the Helsinki

Commission, is a U.S. Government agency created in 1976 to monitor and encourage compliance by the participating States with their OSCE commitments, with a particular emphasis

on human rights.

The Commission consists of nine members from the United States Senate, nine members from the House of Representatives, and one member each from the Departments of

State, Defense and Commerce. The positions of Chair and Co-Chair rotate between the Senate and House every two years, when a new Congress convenes. A professional staff assists

the Commissioners in their work.

In fulfilling its mandate, the Commission gathers and disseminates relevant information to the U.S. Congress and the public by convening hearings, issuing reports that reflect

the views of Members of the Commission and/or its staff, and providing details about the

activities of the Helsinki process and developments in OSCE participating States.

The Commission also contributes to the formulation and execution of U.S. policy

regarding the OSCE, including through Member and staff participation on U.S. Delegations to OSCE meetings. Members of the Commission have regular contact with parliamentarians, government officials, representatives of non-governmental organizations, and private individuals from participating States. The website of the Commission is:

<www.csce.gov>.
UKRAINE’S PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION:

THE TURNING POINT?

NOVEMBER 16, 2004

PARTICIPANTS

Page

Ronald J. McNamara, Deputy Chief of Staff, Commission on Security and

Cooperation in Europe ...........................................................................................................1

Jim Slattery, former Member of Congress from the State of Kansas, and Member,

Association of Former Members of Congress .......................................................................3

Anne Duncan, Program Officer, National Democratic Institute ............................................8

Taras Kuzio, Visiting Professor, Elliott School of International Affairs, the George Washington University .................................................................................................................10

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UKRAINE’S PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION:

THE TURNING POINT?

NOVEMBER 16, 2004

COMMISSION ON SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE

WASHINGTON, DC

The briefing was held at 10:09 a.m. in Room 2255, Rayburn House Office Building,

Washington, DC, Ron McNamara, Deputy Chief of Staff, Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, moderating.

Participants present: Ronald J. McNamara, Deputy Chief of Staff, Commission on

Security and Cooperation in Europe; Jim Slattery, former Member of Congress from the

State of Kansas, and Member, Former Members of Congress; Anne Duncan, Program Officer, National Democratic Institute; and Taras Kuzio, Visiting Professor, Elliott School of

International Affairs, the George Washington University.

Mr. MCNAMARA. Good morning.

My name is Ron McNamara. I am currently serving as the Deputy Chief of Staff of the

Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe.

Welcome to today’s briefing which is part of the Commission’s ongoing monitoring of

developments in Ukraine. And I would encourage you to visit the Commission’s Web site,

which is www.csce.gov, and you can click on to a page specifically on Ukraine, as with the

other OSCE participating States, and see the various initiatives of our Commission relating to Ukraine. Without question, the stakes are high in Ukraine’s Presidential election,

not only for Ukrainians, but also for those with interest in that strategically significant

country. Indeed, Ukraine’s fate will have implications well beyond its borders.

Visits by high-level officials and former officials from East and West, including President Putin’s unprecedented visit to Kyiv on the eve of the first round—and as we all know

he’s made a subsequent visit during this period between the first and second round—

attest to the keen interest in the outcome of these elections.

Certainly, the election is the most important event in Ukraine since independence,

prompting the Helsinki Commission’s leadership to introduce and pass bipartisan resolutions in Congress urging the Government of Ukraine to ensure a democratic, transparent,

and fair election process for the Presidential elections.

Regrettably, the pre-campaign period, as well as the campaign and actual balloting,

were marred by dirty tricks and numerous serious violations and abuses.

An added dimension has been the use of spin doctors and their surrogates who have,

wittingly or not, allowed themselves to become pawns in this high-stakes contest.
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Will Sunday’s election be a turning point for Ukraine? Will Ukraine fulfill its quest to

become a thriving democracy in which human rights are honored and the rule of law prevails? Or will it become an increasingly authoritarian state along the lines of Putin’s Russia or, worse, Lukashenka’s Belarus?

Without exaggeration, Ukraine is facing a critical election: a choice between EuroAtlanticintegration versus reintegration with Eurasia, with all of the implications for

Ukraine’s independence.

The OSCE election observation mission, with more than 600 observers from the OSCE

and the parliamentary assemblies of the OSCE, Council of Europe, NATO, and the European parliament, concluded that the first round did not meet a considerable number of

OSCE standards for democratic elections.

Placed in context, this represents a step backward from the 2002 elections.

Violations included, but by no means were limited to, overwhelming media bias against

Yushchenko; the abuse of administrative resources; obstruction of opposition campaign

events; and untoward pressures on state employees, students, and voters to support government candidates.

Voting day itself saw significant problems with voter lists, pressure on election commissions and even outright ballot stuffing. Indeed the wide range of abuses and violations

during the election campaign and on election day itself seriously calls into question

Ukraine’s freely undertaken commitment to OSCE principles regarding democratic elections.

The Ukrainian authorities, in their cynical attempts to hold onto power at all costs,

appear to have largely ignored calls by the United States and European governments and

institutions to conduct free and fair elections. Given the stakes involved, it appears that

the powers—that—be in Ukraine have calculated that they can take the flack for flawed

elections if they can ultimately prevail and maintain power.

Notwithstanding significant manipulation in the first round, Yushchenko ultimately

prevailed, suggesting that there are indeed limits to what the authorities can get away

with.

A potentially significant factor, one largely lacking elsewhere in the former Soviet

republics, will be the reaction of the population in the event of outright fraud to maintain

the status quo.

Ultimately, the consequences of a bad election process will be greatest for the Ukrainian people themselves. Therefore, it is vital that Sunday’s elections be conducted in a

manner consistent with Ukraine’s election law and international obligations, and that the

authorities ensure a transparent and democratic voting, accounting and tabulation process.

Throughout most of the 20th century, the Ukrainian people were the victims of unspeakable suffering, most notably the genocidal Ukrainian famine of the early 1930s, perpetrated by brutal dictatorships and various invaders.

Toward the end of that century, the promise of independence, for which so many had

sacrificed, at long last came to fruition.

But the promise of freedom is still a work in progress. The Ukrainian authorities

should allow the long-suffering Ukrainian people, who were so often and so relentlessly

denied choices in the past, the choice of freely and fairly deciding their future.

Before turning to our panelists, I would note that today’s proceedings, as is customary for the Commission’s briefings, will be fully transcribed, and within 24 hours there
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will be a rough transcript available on the Commission’s Web site, which again is

www.csce.gov.

How we’ll proceed will be we’ll hear from all of the panelists this morning, and at the

end, again as is customary for our practices at briefings of this nature, we’ll invite the

audience to come forward to use this mike on the table here and to ask any questions of

any of the panelists.

We would ask that you state your name and any affiliation you may have, and then

please be succinct in your questions.

Our first panelist this morning is former U.S. Congressman Jim Slattery. He served

in the U.S. House of Representatives from the State of Kansas from 1983 to 1995.

Mr. Slattery was a member of the recent Association of Former Members of Congress/

U.S.-Ukraine Foundation delegation to monitor the October 2004 Presidential election

campaign in Ukraine.

And I would note that his affiliation the Association of Former Members of Congress

because there has been some confusion of late given a multiplicity of former Members of

Congress being involved in various initiatives funded by various sources.

Mr. Slattery’s work in Ukraine is part of the AFMC’s longstanding efforts to promote

a free and fair election process and democratic government which meets OSCE standards

and reflects the will of the people of Ukraine.

Mr. Slattery currently works as a partner in the firm of Wiley, Rein & Fielding, specializing in governmental affairs and international trade.

Prior to being elected to Congress, he was a member in the Kansas State House of

Representatives and president of Brosius, Slattery & Meyer Inc., a realty firm.

In addition, Mr. Slattery served as the chairman of the Childhood Disability Commission, which worked to review assistance given to disabled children under the supplementary security income program.

I will now turn to Mr. Slattery, but would ask a gentle reminder for those who may

have cell phones, pagers, or other sophisticated electronic devices to please turn them

into a silent mode.

Mr. SLATTERY. I better do that myself, certainly.

[Laughter].

Thank you very much for that reminder. We’ve got to all go through that drill, don’t

we?

Listen, thank you very much, Ron, and it’s a pleasure to be with you all today.

And first let me say that, as a member of the Association of Former Members of Congress, it was a real honor for me to participate in this recent trip to Kyiv and to have the

opportunity to observe the events leading up to the election. We weren’t actually there for

the election day, but we were there for a week preceding it. And I have come to have a

very special interest in Ukraine for a number of reasons, but not the least of which is that

I’m from Kansas. And one of the most important and arguably the single most important

import that Kansas ever benefited from is red winter wheat and it came from the Ukraine.

And it’s so fascinating, because the region around Kyiv reminds me so much of central Kansas—it was absolutely amazing. And I would tell the Ukrainians though that there

was one significant difference, and that is I think their black, rich dirt is deeper than ours

in Kansas.

But anyway, it was a fascinating election process that we had the opportunity to

observe. And let me just begin by saying that those who participated in this trip that we
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were on between October 17th and October 23rd were former Congressman James Bilbray

and former Congressman Cooper Smith from Arizona and Congresswoman Marjorie

Margolies-Mezvinsky from Pennsylvania and Congressman Bob McEwen, who is also from

Pennsylvania, and I was the other former Member on this trip.

And we also had the pleasure of having Richard Balfe, who is a member of the European Parliament from the United Kingdom, participating in the trip also.

Our focus was really on the oblast of Kyiv, and also Chernihiv, which is very near

Kyiv. And we broke up into pairs and we traveled out to a number of cities in those two

oblasts, and generally speaking we were probably traveling no more than a couple of hours

out to the cities that we observed.

You know, I think it’s safe to say that all incumbent governments will do whatever

they can to preserve their power. We see it in our government. We see it with our own

administration. We see it with Members of Congress. And that’s, sort of, a given in any

democracy.

But I must also say that, in all candor, when you look at the situation in Ukraine

today and look at the advantages that the incumbent government enjoys and actually implements and takes advantage of, it’s pretty overwhelming. Not the least of which is that

clearly the control of the media, with the exception of one TV station, is in the hands of the

government. In fact, probably three of the largest TV stations in the country are owned

and operated by President Kuchma’s son-in-law.

So I think all participants and all observers would conclude that the media is not

what would be called fair and balanced. The media is really more in the role of advocates,

and I would say there are four or five on one side and one on the other side, and one being

with the opposition.

So from the standpoint of just the presentation of the information to the population

and the people of Ukraine, I would say that most of the people that we talked to—in fact,

everyone that we talked to would concede that the media was anything but balanced.

The other thing that I think is really intriguing—and it’s impossible to really fully

understand what’s going on in Ukraine without understanding the unique relationship

with Russia. And one of the things that I found fascinating was that we were told by a

number of experts and people that we visited with that Vladimir Putin is probably the

most popular politician in Ukraine and has significant influence, especially in the eastern

part of Ukraine.

But the unique relationship here between Kuchma and Yanukovych and Putin is very

open. Clearly Putin is actively involved in this election process. And it’s something I think

we all need to keep our eye on.

But, having said that, I thought it was also interesting, while we were in Ukraine,

Putin also made statements that some would construe as an endorsement of President

Bush too. So, I mean, Putin is playing an active role in global politics, I guess you might

conclude.

But clearly his presence in Ukraine is one that’s very active, and he’s using all the

influence he has to affect the outcome of this election.

In addition to that, we were advised by several people with whom we visited that

government agencies are certainly using their power to affect people’s participation in

the election process also.
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Specifically, we were told of a number of instances where various tax collectors were

treating supporters of Yanukovych one way and supporters of opposition candidates another way and using that sort of intimidation to affect their participation in the process.

We were also advised that teachers working at state schools and state universities

are encouraging and were, sort of, coerced to attract crowds. And they were told they

were expected to attract 30 or 40 students per teacher to participate and observe various

rallies by government candidates.

And even last night I got an e-mail from one of the people who I met in Kyiv, and he

was advising me that yesterday, apparently, at Kharkiv Veterinarian Academy, some of

the professors there announced yesterday that if students promised to support and participate in the election by attending rallies and doing volunteer work, what have you for

Mr. Yanukovych, that they would waive their final exams.

Mr. MCNAMARA. Sign me up.

Mr. SLATTERY. Sign me up. That’s right.

So, I mean, you know, we heard repeated examples of this sort of activity going on.

And the other thing that Yanukovych is doing that I think is—again, I’m reminded of

the days when Nixon and Wilbur Mills used to raise the cost of living adjustments on

Social Security right before election. But in the case of Mr. Yanukovych now, he is doubling the pension payments to the pensioners in Ukraine. And, I mean, this is very significant because we were advised that there are as many as 14 million, 15 million pensioners

in Ukraine, which seems like a staggering number given the population of approximately

47 million, 48 million.

So, again, another example of the government really exercising a tremendous amount

of influence in this process.

The other thing that I find very interesting is that Mr. Yanukovych and the incumbent government have enough resources to really retain consultants in the United States

and pay for, apparently, trips of observers—at least partially pay for—to participate and

observe this process too.

So there seems to be no lack of resources on the incumbent government’s side of this

election.

And I’m even advised that some American consultants have been retained to advise

the government on how to really conduct the election effectively and communicate with

the people in Ukraine.

The other thing that I just want to just draw to your attention is that, you know, the

U.S.-Ukraine Foundation, the Association of Former Members of Congress, USAID, and

other nonprofit organizations are doing everything they can to try and recruit observers

to go and watch this election.

We are not the only ones doing that. The Commonwealth of Independent States are

also recruiting their own observers for this election. So you’ll have CIS observers and

probably a number of observers in Western Ukraine that are coming from Eastern Ukraine.

So there’s going to be an awful lot of observers; there were at the first round, and

there’ll probably be even more this coming Sunday. So I hope that some of you in this room

will have the opportunity to participate as observers even.

In a conversation that we had with Anatoliy Kinakh, who was another Presidential

candidate, he advised us that workers in a number of locations had been told that if they

didn’t vote for the government that their jobs were in jeopardy, in, sort of, the clearly
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spoken threat that the job in a particular plant were tied to contracts with the government and that if the government wasn’t reelected, that these jobs would go away.

So another example of the kind of direct, very active sort of intimidation—call it what

you like—on the part of the incumbent government.

The other thing that we were told about was, sort of, a systematic attempt to interrupt various opposition party rallies. So, for example, there were examples of where students were trying to get to Kyiv by buses, and the buses would be stopped and turned

around. There were situations where roads would be mysteriously repaired shortly before rallies, situations where bridges would also have to be, sort of, immediately repaired,

and they would have a convenient way of disrupting the flow of traffic to various political

rallies.

So I cite all of this as examples of clearly the incumbent government using, not what

would not be called a legitimate advantage of that as an incumbent government, but in my

judgment and the judgment of those that participated in this observation team that I led

clearly went way beyond what would be normal practice in Western democracies.

And we think it’s very important for there to be full awareness of what is going on.

We believe it’s extremely important for us to have as many observers on the ground as

possible in Ukraine this coming Sunday.

And one of the things that I think we really need to focus on is what’s going on on

election day.

And wherever I travel there, I try to help the people, especially in the rural areas.

And I’ve found that in the rural areas there was a lot more sensitivity to the government’s

view than there were in the areas immediately around Kyiv. It just seemed like in Kyiv

there was, you know, less concern about maybe what the government officials thought.

But we found in the areas that we visited—for example, I think nearly all of the

mayors with the exception of one was an open, strong supporter of Mr. Yanukovych. And

there were others, though, that came to the meetings that we participated in who openly

expressed support for other candidates. So there was clearly—even in the rural communities, there was a change of ideas and some strong opinions expressed.

In fact, you might be amazed to know that there are some of the older folks that I ran

into, two in particular that I remember, that came to one of our meetings with all of their

World War II regalia and medals on.

And they pulled me aside after the end of one of the meetings. And I cite this as an

example to show you the spectrum of political thought in Ukraine today. But these older

veterans pulled me aside and they said to me in, sort of, broken English. They said, “What

we need today is Stalin.”

You know, and I was going, “I don’t think we want to go there.”

But, I mean, that is the kind of—you know, that thought is there. And, I mean, these

people came to the meeting and pulled me aside and expressed that thought of they want

a strong leader and they don’t see that in these candidates today.

But these are the World War II veterans that showed up. And it was interesting to

meet them.

And we also heard from people ranging, you know, to the Communist Party that’s in

the distinct minority there now, but they were there at the meetings also.

But anyway, I tried to get these people to focus on what election day was really going

to look like, because even in these rural communities they’ve had such little experience—

this is the 13th year of their independence—with elections. And, you know, they were all
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concerned about the events leading up to the election, but they hadn’t focused very much

on election day.

And I tried to persuade them that—“Really think about election day and be focused

on assuring that the ballots are, number one, secret and to do everything you can to persuade people that there aren’t going to be secret cameras in the voting places.” Because

there was some rumors floating around that that was going to be the case and, you know,

to do everything they could to want to prevent that from happening. And two, try to eliminate that fear so that people could be confident that they would go into the voting place

and know that they could cast a secret ballot.

The other thing that I thought was very important, and I think it’s crucially important as we head into the run-off, and that is that at each polling place the votes should be

counted there.

And they should not only be counted there, the outcome should be announced there

so that everybody in that room, all the observers, know that in that particular polling

place and in every polling place, all 33,000 of them or however many there are in Ukraine

in the final election, every one of them announces their returns at that local polling place.

And I think it’s a way of, sort of, building a record that will make it much more difficult for there to be games played with the count as they are handed up to the final count.

And I think it’s very important that that be done.

So in those voting places that we visited in those communities, they were all committed to that. They all agreed that, yes, they were going to do that. And I think that was, in

fact, done.

And if that is done in all these polling places, I think it’s going to make it a lot more

difficult for there to be games played with the final count.

And one of the things that’s most troubling to me as I look at this runoff is that there’s

going to be—what is it?—2 weeks, 3 weeks before they announce the final outcome of the

election. And that’s something that I’m just thinking we ought to all be keeping our eye on.

There’s room for rascality there unless there is a very clear record built of all of these

polling places along the way.

The last thing that I want to just mention, then I’ll turn the mike over to others here,

I am really interested in how the Ukrainians in Russia are going to vote in this upcoming

election. And while we were there, I was just amazed at the incredible discrepancy in the

numbers we were given on the issue of how many Ukrainians there were that were eligible to vote that were abroad and especially how many of them were in Russia and the

number of voting places in Russia.

There was just a vast discrepancy in the numbers that we were given. And at one

point I was told there was about 100, then I was told there was about 600. And another

time I was told there was, like, a million Ukrainians in Russia that could vote and then I

was told there was 7 million. So there was just a vast discrepancy in the numbers.

And I was also given a number that was even dramatically less than that, about 300,000

or 400,000 in Russia.

And I still don’t know.

I got out of Ukraine without really getting a grip around exactly or even an approximation of how many Ukrainians there were in Russia that were eligible to participate in

this election.

And I think that’s something that we really need to keep an eye on also is to just be

mindful of how those votes are counted and how many there are.
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So those are some of my quick observations. I’ll be happy to answer your questions

here in the next round.

Mr. MCNAMARA. Thank you very much, Jim.

It seems, at least, as though one person in Russia has already cast his vote, and perhaps with an apt illusion we’ll see hopefully soon after Sunday whether he has egg on his

face or not.

We’ve been informed that Ambassador Ledsky will not be able to be with us this

morning. However, he has asked the NDI program officer, Anne Duncan, to present his

statement on his behalf.

Ms. DUNCAN. I apologize, Ambassador Ledsky is not feeling well today. He does send

his apologies that he could not be here to speak with you. He’s asked that I enter his brief

statement, and I’m happy to answer any questions in the second half of this briefing.

On behalf of the National Democratic Institute, I’d like to thank the members of the

Helsinki Commission for arranging this briefing and inviting us to speak and present our

views.

As we all appreciate, Ukraine is at an historic moment in its 13 years of post-Soviet

independence. The high voter turnout—75 percent for the first round—demonstrates that

the citizens of Ukraine recognize the importance of this event.

The two candidates, Victor Yanukovych, the current prime minister, and Victor

Yushchenko, a democratic opposition leader, represent two paths that Ukraine can follow: continued and close integration to the East or a path toward the community of Western democracies and European integration.

The winner of this election will be in position to set the course of Ukraine’s political

development, as well as for the country’s economic and foreign policies for his coming 5-

year term and perhaps well beyond. This moment of decision for Ukraine therefore has

long-term consequences.

This is further accentuated by Russia exerting its economic and political presence

among its post-Soviet neighbors and by the arrival of the European Union and NATO at

Ukraine’s borders.

It’s widely recognized that the stakes in this election are high, and the electoral contest thus far has reinforced this point.

Despite a pre-election effort that was marred by serious violations of Ukrainian legislations, international standards for free and fair elections, the opposition candidate,

Viktor Yushchenko, won the first round of voting. He would have come close to winning a

majority of votes, the necessary threshold for victory, during the first round had all Ukrainians been allowed to vote and had their votes been counted.

As we enter the final week before the run-off election, the outcome depends largely

on the willingness of the government to allow the will of the Ukrainian people to be heard.

NDI will do everything to make this possible.

Two of NDI’s partner organizations, the Committee of Voters of Ukraine, also known

as CVU, and the European Network for Election Monitoring Organizations, also known as

ENEMO, are preparing significant monitoring campaigns for the second round.

In addition, NDI’s leading an international nonpartisan delegation to observe the

November 21st election.

I would like to call your attention to CVU and ENEMO’s findings from the pre-election campaign and the first-round elections by way of discussing what changes are neces-
9

sary to Ukraine’s presidential election in the second round to be a representation of the

people’s will.

NDI has supported CVU since the organization’s inception in 1994. CVU is a national

nongovernmental organization that has monitored elections in Ukraine for over 10 years.

CVU’s efforts during the election campaign period have been focused on conducting a

long-term monitoring program in the months leading up to the election, including deploying 94 long-term observers to monitor the pre-election process in the regions.

CVU conducted a parallel vote tabulation, or PVT, and deployed 10,000 trained election observers on October 31st. For the second round of voting, CVU plans to conduct a

PVT and again will deploy 10,000 observers across Ukraine.

ENEMO is a group of civic organizations from 16 countries of the former Soviet Union

and Eastern Europe. The civic organizations are the leading domestic election monitoring

group in their countries and have, in total, observed more than 110 national elections and

trained over 100,000 election observers.

ENEMO conducted a monitoring effort during the first round in over 300 polling

stations.

For the Presidential election’s second round, ENEMO will deploy 1,000 election observers in Ukraine. This is the largest international election monitoring effort that will be

available in the second round.

I would like to, in closing, mention some of the recommendations made by CVU and

ENEMO in the first round.

One, that the Central Election Commission should take immediate and transparent

steps to update voter lists. And on election day, the territorial election commissions and

courts should be provided with efficient staff and other resources to timely process all

complaints and enable all those wishing to vote to do so.

The government leaders should issue clear and public directives to subordinates that

state officials must act in an impartial manner and that state resources must not be used

for partisan political activity.

The prosecutor’s office should ensure that the legal provisions against pressuring

students and state employees are enforced. It should also enforce prohibitions concerning

the misuse of state resources aimed at influencing the outcome of elections.

The presence of domestic and international election missions will demonstrate to the

Ukrainian Government and electoral authorities and to the citizens of Ukraine that the

conduct and environment in a President election is important.

With Yanukovych and Yushchenko essentially tied, the second round promises to be

a closely contested race. There is no aura of inevitability for either candidate. Disillusioned voters who sat out the first round may decide that there is something at stake on

November 21st.

Whether this election will be a turning point in Ukraine’s development is unclear,

but it should be clear to citizens that citizens being permitted to vote freely and without

intimidation and, in turn, having their votes counted is a necessary first step in Ukraine’s

democratic development.

Mr. MCNAMARA. Thank you very much, Anne.

Our final panelist is Dr. Taras Kuzio. He is a visiting professor at the Elliott School of

International Affairs, George Washington University. Previously, he was a resident fellow at the Center for Russian and East European Studies.
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Dr. Kuzio was also head of the NATO Information Office in Kyiv. He was a long-term

observer for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe during the 1998

and 2002 parliamentary elections in Ukraine and short-term observer for the NDI in the

2004 elections.

Dr. Kuzio is a prolific writer on matters Ukrainian. He is the author, co-author or

editor of eight books and numerous articles that have appeared in academic and print

media, including Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reports, Oxford Analytica, Jane’s Information Group publications, and recently in the Jamestown Foundation’s Eurasia Daily

Monitor.

Dr. Kuzio?

Dr. KUZIO. Thank you. Thank you again for inviting me to speak of this important

occasion on the Ukrainian election campaign or Ukraine elections.

I’d like to start off by putting Ukraine’s elections within a broader context. In that

way we can see how Ukraine’s elections are very important and vital for the entire Eastern European and West Eurasian region.

Since the late 1990s, what we’ve had, in effect, is that we’ve had a growth of a gulf

between the two groups of former Communist countries, the Central East European and

Baltic states, who have successfully implemented reforms, democratization and moved

toward EU and NATO membership, and then we have had the CIS countries, which on the

whole have regressed in their democratization since the late 1990s, and Russia under

Vladimir Putin is one of those examples.

So if we look at the 12 CIS states, only 3 of them have really any democratic potential

left in the sense of they have not yet moved into an autocratic or consolidated autocratic

phase, and that’s Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova. Georgia, of course, had a successful

democratic revolution late last year.

And so in the case of Ukraine, Ukraine’s unique in the region, i.e., in the CIS, in that

what we have is a very popular pro-Western reformist leader, not corrupted, which is

very unusual in that country, in Ukraine and in that part of the world, who’s launching a

very successful challenge to an authoritarian, oligarchy political system.

So the choice really is in these elections between the consolidation of democracy as

we understand it or the consolidation of an autocratic regime.

If Viktor Yushchenko is to be elected in the second round, this would in effect be a

democratic revolution to complement Ukraine’s national revolution that took place in

1991.

And it is after all a combination of Boris Yeltsin in Moscow and the Ukrainian declaration of independence in August 1991 that laid to rest the former USSR.

And I think if Viktor Yushchenko were to win the election this year, the ramifications for the region and for the CIS would have similar very great, broad implications.

For one thing, there would potentially be a threat to the growth of autocracy in the

region, and there would be also the potential for the expansion eastward of democracy

and Euro-Atlantic integration.

Let’s look now at the 4-month election campaign, which began on July 4th.

Well, first, it was the dirtiest in Ukraine’s history. There’s absolutely no question of

that. Everybody who followed the campaign understood that, especially when they compared it to earlier elections.
11

Despite the fact that both President Leonid Kuchma and Prime Minister Viktor

Yanukovych both guaranteed—and I express that they both guaranteed—to hold free and

fair elections, this was purely deception on both of their parts.

There was never any intention to hold a free and fair election in the understanding of

what we—the OSCE, Western governments, the Council of Europe, and such like—understand to be a free and fair election. The reason being is that, regardless of whether this

would have happened or not, the fear on the part of the authorities would be that if they

did hold a free and fair election Viktor Yushchenko would have won in the first round.

And so, hence, there never was a level playing field from July 4th onwards. And so it

was already obvious to those following that campaign by September that this was not a

free and fair election. And this was confirmed, of course, on election day by the OSCE and

other international bodies and the U.S. Government.

The reason why I can argue this is just the range of the violations is so huge, the

dirtiness of the campaign was all pre-planned, the smear campaign of Viktor Yushchenko

is unprecedented, the range of fake or so-called technical candidates is something in the

region of 16 to 20. Ukraine in these elections has 24 Presidential candidates. That’s nearly

double what was registered for the 1999 elections.

And of course, as we’ve already heard, overwhelming control of the media with 80

percent of the media covering Yanukovych positively, 20 percent of the media covering

Yushchenko, but negatively.

And the most unwelcome and unpleasant aspect of the campaign was of course the

alleged poisoning in September of Viktor Yushchenko. U.S.-based experts in biological

and chemical warfare do believe that it’s something in the region of 70–30 likely that

Yushchenko was poisoned. They certainly don’t believe it was done by natural causes. The

timing is extremely suspicious. He became ill on September 6th. And this was, I think, a

reflection, a knee-jerk reaction of panic on the part of the authorities that by the third

month of the election campaign they had hoped that Yanukovych would be, because of the

dirty tactics used, in the lead. In fact, the gap in favor of Yushchenko was growing. And

hence, I think this was a panic on the part of the authorities.

The issue of the poisoning is important because Ukraine could have not done this by

itself. Russia had to have involvement if we are talking about biological, chemical issues.

An important aspect of the campaign in addition to the—what we see as a mass mobilization of civil society and young people. Young people traditionally are not part of the

world in the CIS and Russia, are very politically apathetic.

What we see in Ukraine is a mass mobilization of young people and civil society on a

level unprecedented since the late Soviet era, since the late 1980s, early 1990s.

And that’s one of the factors which has prevented the authorities from undertaking

the violations that maybe they would have liked to have undertaken.

We have also the importance of the Ukrainian Parliament. Because most regimes in

the CIS have superpresidential, autocratic systems where parliaments don’t really have

any meaning, Ukraine and Moldova are the exceptions to the rule.

And since the early 1990s, the countries which have had more parliamentary systems, of course Communist countries which have had mostly parliamentary systems rather

than superpresidential systems, have tended to do better in democratization.

And so Ukraine’s Parliament still plays an important role. Russia’s Parliament no

longer does, since 1993 when Boris Yeltsin reformed it to smithereens.
12

In September, the speaker of the Ukrainian Parliament, who was just in Washington

a few days ago, supported the creation of a parliamentary committee to monitor compliance with election legislation, an important step. And also he supported the creation of a

parliamentary committee to investigate the poisoning of Mr. Yushchenko.

Mr. Lytvyn has also been extremely important in preventing the closing down of parliament during the election campaign, which was the aim of the pro-presidential camp

because they didn’t want the opposition to have Parliament as a medium through which

they could give speeches which would then be broadcast in TV and radio.

Highly unwelcome aspects of the campaign, of the dirtiness of the election campaign,

is the growth of anti-Americanism, which is linked to anti-Yushchenko.

For your titillation and amusement, I brought examples of these posters with me.

One of my favorites is Taras Shevchenko’s, Ukraine poet, with the words, “Yankee, go

home,” on it. Others, such as this.

And these are not only insulting to Yushchenko, they’re insulting to President Bush

and U.S. national symbols, with Yushchenko as Uncle Sam talking about, “Are you ready

for a new civil war in Ukraine?”

We haven’t seen an anti-American campaign on such a level since the Brezhnev era.

Of course, the authorities claim it’s nothing to do with them. But somebody who’s a

Presidential candidate, this is Viktor Yanukovych, who molds himself on the same lines

as Vladimir Putin as a hard man, somebody who will bring order to Ukraine, surprising

how little he’s responsible for in the Ukraine election campaign.

But this anti-Americanism which is being blamed by the Yanukovych camp on these

other fake candidates, who of course are working for Yanukovych, reflects the very schizophrenic view of Ukrainian foreign policy.

On the one hand you have Yanukovych lobbying in Washington to the tune of over $1

million since March 2003, sending Ukrainian troops to Iraq, where they are fourth largest

contingent, and at the same time undertaking this highly unusual Brezhnev-era-style,

anti-American campaign, which, of course, is linked to the anti-Yushchenko campaign

because Yushchenko’s wife is an American citizen still.

This campaign has been brought into Ukraine by Russian dirty tricksters, what are

called Russian political technologists, who are linked to Vladimir Putin and have worked

alongside Yanukovych’s campaign.

So the claim that Yanukovych wants good relations with the USA has to be taken

with a big bucket of salt, to say the least.

Let’s look now at how the election results and the election campaign was reported in

round one. There was pretty much unanimity amongst Western organizations and observer missions and governments that the election campaign and the elections did not

meet numerous OSCE criteria.

The only two exceptions to this were the CIS election monitoring body, which seems

to think that every election of the CIS is held in a free and fair manner, including the one

in Belarus last month.

So I think it’s even wrong to call this an election monitoring body. And this body was

created by Vladimir Putin last year with the aim of countering the OSCE activities in the

CIS. It’s not really an election monitoring body.

And the second group is a group of former U.S. Congressmen financed by Yanukovich

lobbyists in the United States, who also issued a report very similar in tone to the CIS
13

election monitoring body. This body consists of seven former U.S. Congressmen, led by

former Michigan U.S. Congressman Carr.

The violations in round one, some of them we’ve already heard so I won’t really go

into any detail, but some of the worst were issues such as tampering with voter lists.

Why there should be a worsening of voter lists since 2002 when we had parliamentary elections is highly suspicious. There are claims and the CVU, the Committee of Voters of the Ukraine, talks in the region of something like 10 percent of voters were unable

to maybe vote in the elections.

Some names were removed. There’s suspicion that these may have been names who

signed up for Viktor Yushchenko when each candidate had to register the minimum of

500,000 signatures for the Central Election Commission in September.

And of course others were so-called dead souls who were added to the list.

We have also the issue of absentee ballots. Unprecedented, for the first time ever,

we’ve had in the region of 300,000, maybe more, individuals paid to go on special trains to

western and central Ukraine, with 5 to 10 absentee ballots each, and vote throughout

western and central Ukraine. These would be with coal miners, organized crime thugs or

cadets from military and police academies.

This is unprecedented. Somebody had to pay for this. Somebody had to organize this.

And it wasn’t just that they would vote five or 10 times, but also that maybe there would be

conflict between eastern Ukrainian Russian speakers and western and central Ukrainian

speakers. Thank God there wasn’t any conflict and it ended up peacefully. But somebody,

obviously, attempted to do that. The aim would have been that if conflict had taken place,

that individual regions—and remember, western and central Ukraine are dominated by

Yushchenko support—that these regions would then have the election results in those

regions annulled, and then, of course, Yushchenko’s total would decline.

The third way we’ve already heard, with the whole question of pre-election bribes,

with the increases of pensions, stipends and wages. We’ve had Ukraine’s gold reserves

reduced in September by a third.

Yanukovych has spent $600 million on the election campaign, half of which has come

from Russia. This is 1 percent of Ukraine’s GDP, the same as what President Bush spent

in the campaign this year, but of course Ukraine’s economy, GDP, is 100 times smaller

than America’s.

Another departure in these elections is the whole question of fear and intimidation.

Only 12 percent of Ukrainians believed it would be a free and fair election. That’s fewer

than the number of Belarussians who believed it would be a free and fair election in Belarus.

Fifty-seven percent believed there would be no secret ballot. People really believed

that there were cameras in booths and that, especially people who worked for the state,

medical, teachers, state officials, that their vote would be heard.

One observation mission which went to eastern Ukraine, to Sumy, saw, actually, academic professors standing in front of the ballot box with video cameras videoing as student came up and showed them what they voted and then they put them in. Obviously

they had to vote for Yanukovych.

Opposition members are being expelled and cleaned out from election commissions

since round one.

And a very, I think, unpleasant aspect has been the labeling of these youth groups,

these very active youth groups and election monitoring groups amongst young people, as
14

extremists and terrorists. The planting of explosives and others in their offices in Kyiv in

mid-October was a highly unpleasant event.

Another aspect has been the highly visible intrusion of the police, the interior ministry.

Again, we haven’t seen this on this level before, working against the opposition and

in favor of Yanukovych.

Finally, I’d just like to talk a bit about the results from round one. Again, we’ve heard,

and I think it’s correct to point out, that it’s highly suspicious that the round one results

were not released until the last legal day permissible, 10 days after the round one election.

The CVU, Committee of Voters of Ukraine, described the situation of this delayed

announcement of voting results as unprecedented, which makes it very suspicious that

Yushchenko only has, therefore, a 0.55 percent lead. This is far less than what the exit

polls showed Yushchenko’s lead was and even less than the parallel vote count undertaken by the Yushchenko camp.

In my view, Yushchenko’s final total during these 10 days was massaged downward—

I love this word, “massaged,” used this way—Yushchenko’s vote was massaged downward

and Yanukovych’s was massaged upward with the particular purpose to make round one

look as though it was a very close race.

The other purpose is to show to the outside world, “What do you mean? How are you

complaining about the elections in Ukraine? Round one was democratic. The opposition

won.”

The real result, I believe, is something in the region of 37, 38 percent for Yanukovych

and 44 to 45 percent for Yushchenko, which shows the degree to which, if there had been

a free and fair election, Yushchenko would have won in the first round, because he only

would have needed something like 5 or 6 or 7 percent more.

Yanukovych’s main base of 37 percent or 38 percent is from his own homebase of

Donbas, 15 percent which he took from the Communist Party—the Communist candidate

only obtained 4.5 percent in the end because of the pension raises—and then 7 to 10 percent of violations.

The second round will be important in the sense of particularly who’s voting for who.

At the current rate, Yanukovych has only been able to attract one candidate from

round one, Nataliya Vitrenko, the Progressive Socialist leader who obtained 1.55 percent

in round one—not a great catch.

Yushchenko, on the other hand, has attracted the socialist leader who came third in

the elections, and Anatoliy Kinakh, who we’ve already heard about, the head of the powerful union of industrialists and entrepreneurs; the mayor of Kyiv, Oleksandr Omelchenko,

highly popular; and also, the head of a small Christian liberal party.

So, in that sense, Yushchenko’s attracted something in the region of nearly 8 percent

from round one from other candidates who failed in round one, and Yanukovych has only

attracted 1.5 percent.

Again, that, I think, should make us highly suspicious if we see a Yanukovych victory

in round two.

Thank you.

Mr. MCNAMARA. Thank you very much.
15

As I indicated earlier, we’ll now open up to questions from the audience. Please approach the microphone on the table and indicate your name and any affiliation that you

may have, and direct your question to a specific—or the panelists in general.

So please come forward and pose your questions.

QUESTIONER. Good morning. I’m Richard Murphy. I’m a senior associate at the Center

for Strategic and International Studies and chairman of its working group on the Ukrainian Presidential elections.

To preface my question to all three of our distinguished panelists, I just wanted to say

that I had the privilege of accompanying Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinksi, who is counselor at

CSIS and a member of the board of trustees at CSIS, former presidential national security

advisor to Jimmy Carter, last May on a high-level visit, which included meetings with

President Kuchma, Prime Minister Yanukovych, Viktor Yushchenko, Oleksandr Moroz,

Yulia Tymoshenko, the representatives of about 30 NGOs, the former Ukrainian Ambassadors to the United States and other people.

And I hasten to add that the Brzezinksi visit was a part of a three-pronged effort by

CSIS, funded by two distinguished American foundations, the Smith Richardson Foundation and the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, and not funded in any way by any Ukrainian oligarch, as was widely reported in Ukraine.

The other visits were by Ambassador Robert Hunter, former ambassador to NATO,

U.S. ambassador to NATO, and Ambassador and former Undersecretary of State Tom

Pickering.

My question is this: There have been numerous high-level visits now to Ukraine by

prominent American personages, and we’re going to have another one coming up in the

form of Senator Dick Lugar, who is going as President Bush’s personal representative.

What, in your judgment, the judgment of the panelists, what kind of an impact have

these visits had, not only on the political leadership of Ukraine but others in Ukraine?

I’d be interested in your answer.

Mr. SLATTERY. Well, if I could lead off, it was my personal experience in the communities that we visited, number one, I would say the overwhelming majority of those that

came to the meetings, even those that were supporting Yanukovych, were glad that we

were there.

There was some resistance. You would occasionally pick up some expression of “You’re

sort of arrogant to be here.” That sort of, “How dare you come over and sort of look over

our shoulder as we conduct this election?”

But, again, I think that the overwhelming majority of people, in the rural areas especially, were very supporting of our participation and our observation efforts. I think that

was true also in Kyiv.

So I think that the incumbent government and Yushchenko’s team both recognize

that acceptance of this election by the Ukrainian people, by the world community is very,

very important to the future of Ukraine.

So I think that they both want this election blessed by the international community.

And it’s very clear to me that they all recognize that if it is not blessed, it forecloses a

bunch of options for Ukraine that they don’t want to see happen.

Let me just—I neglected to point out one experience that I had, also, in Kyiv that was

really very significant, I thought, and it was toward the end of our trip. And we were over

visiting with Yushchenko’s campaign team and campaign manager, and as we were leav-
16

ing we had received word that an NGO’s headquarters had been occupied by some mysterious characters.

And so we just decided we would just go over to the office of “Znayu!” “I know!” is

what it means. I’m mispronouncing that name probably.

But we got word that that headquarters had been occupied, so we decided we would

just go over and check it out for ourselves.

And we came and presented our observation credentials, and we were advised by

these two characters that refused to present any identity of their own that we were not

going to be permitted to enter the office of “Znayu!”

So we sort of challenged them, and one of my colleagues who was with me ended up

forcing his way into this room that we were being excluded from and was held, really, in

this room for about 2 or 3 hours while we were negotiating on the outside as to who these

people were.

And the police came, and the two characters there at the door presented their credentials and come to find out they were state security forces of Ukraine.

And we had a meeting scheduled with Mr. Havrysh, who was one of the parliamentary leaders and a very close ally of Kuchma and Yanukovych, and so that meeting was

scheduled. So we went over to this office, and he put on sort of a happy face and everything is wonderful.

And we advised him that at that precise moment one of our colleagues was being held

against his will by the security forces, and we thought this was rather Gestapo-like activity and not the kind of activity we would anticipate in the context of a free and open,

transparent election.

And it was obviously a very embarrassing moment for Mr. Havrysh. And he got on his

cell phone very quickly and contacted the attorney general, I believe, and in a matter of

about 15 minutes our colleague was sitting next to us.

So, you know, it was again, for me, corroboration of the fact that there was significant

activity going on by the security forces.

And this was another sort of intimidation tactic, in my judgment.

So we had that personal experience in Kyiv, and it tended to, like I say, support some

of the rumors that we had heard as we traveled around.

Mr. MCNAMARA. Dr. Kuzio?

Dr. KUZIO. Just to briefly comment on what we just heard, the “Znayu!” organization is

an election monitoring body. It’s not even a radical student or youth group. It’s sort of

educational.

And if we compare what happened on the same day when security services launched

raids on other youth groups, what they did is they raided the office and then told everyone

to leave the office and then planted explosives and then launched so-called terrorism

charges against these young people.

So I think the presence of the U.S. Congressmen, on this particular occasion, “Znayu!”

prevented that because I think that’s exactly what they were doing. It’s the only raid that

day where there wasn’t explosives found.

So I think this shows to what degree presence is important. And I think they were

just angry because they were caught in the act by you guys when they were about to do

that.

Mr. SLATTERY. What was interesting to me, in all fairness, I mean, my colleague was

not roughed up or anything inside, but it was a very embarrassing moment, because, clearly,
17

the security force, like the secret police, had gone and occupied this office of an NGO that

was really involved in just trying to help people understand the election process.

Dr. KUZIO. And an NGO funded by various U.S. organizations, including the U.S.-

Ukraine Foundation and Freedom House, and whose son—son of this colleague here actually works there and heads the office, but maybe he doesn’t want to comment on that.

On the question of the impact of the delegation—

QUESTIONER. Oleksandr Potiekhin, Ukrainian Embassy. He’s totally independent.

Dr. KUZIO. Yes, he’s independent of the Ukrainian Embassy. The impact of the delegations—I don’t think you’re going to find anybody saying that they shouldn’t be sent. I think

they are important.

But I think where the problem is made with these delegations has been possibly none

of us maybe expected the degree of the deception that the Ukraine authorities talked

about in the election campaign, because we were told throughout the year that President

Kuchma guarantees free and fair elections.

We were told that Prime Minister Yanukovych guarantees free and fair elections.

And of course we see that that’s not the case, that they were basically lying. I mean, this

was a deception all along.

So I think we should learn to think not in our understanding of the term—this is a

political cultural problem, that this is Soviet political culture at work here.

The second problem, I think, which was present with these allegations, not all of

them, but was there, was maybe the misjudgment that Ukraine’s leaders would agree to a

free and fair election with the carrot of Euro-Atlantic integration, with U.S. supporting a

speeding up of Ukraine’s Euro-Atlantic integration.

Ukraine’s leaders are not interested in election year Euro-Atlantic integration. They’re

interested in survival. They’re interested in surviving to the post-Kuchma era. NATO-EU

membership is not on their minds. And EU membership isn’t even being offered, so we’re

only talking about NATO membership. And if it’s a choice between survival and NATO

membership, you know very well what Kuchma, Yanukovych and others are going to support.

So I think we should have maybe taken the carrot from state national interests and

moved it more toward their own personal interests, which the U.S. Government, the Bush

administration, the State Department began only talking about in October, something

Madeleine Albright began talking about back in March in her opinion piece in The New

York Times.

What’s important to understand from the viewpoint of the Ukrainian ruling elites is

that they do not want to become a Belarus.

Becoming a Belarus, with the way that Russia looks upon Belarus and Ukraine as

basically not really separate ethnic groups, but as really younger Russians or little Russians, then if Ukraine’s internationally isolated, particularly from the United States, then

that would mean coming completely under Russia’s sphere of influence.

That’s not something that most of Ukraine’s oligarchs and ruling elites particularly

want.

That, in turn, is leverage on the part of the West and means that the Ukrainian authorities can’t do the whole range of violations, a la, shall we say, Turkmenistan or

Azerbaijan even, that maybe they would in principle like to do. So it constrains them. And

that international constraint is doubled by the mass mobilization domestically of civil

society.
18

So they’re caught. They can’t do the huge massaging that maybe they want to of the

results.

And that is proven by the fact that Yanukovych has this big lobbying operation in

Washington. I mean, why would he be spending $1 million in Washington since March of

last year if he’s not interested in U.S. public opinion?

Mr. MCNAMARA. Thank you.

QUESTIONER. Oleksandr Potiekhin, Embassy of Ukraine.

Very short about one point of Representative Slattery. I cannot speak on behalf of

Ukrainian veterans. I never was in war properly. I am veteran of cold war. But at least

two of decorated veterans I know very well, my stepfather and my father-in-law. They

didn’t vote for Hitler or Stalin.

And this is my question: According to very preliminary information, President Bush

is going now to Moscow. Do you think that Ukrainian elections will be the topic for discussion or not at all? If it will be the topic for discussion, what do you think that President

Bush has to make as the message?

Thank you.

Mr. SLATTERY. Well, first of all, when I made the comment about the two veterans that

I met, I was only attempting to report the vast spectrum of political thought that we were

exposed to, and I was just reporting what I saw.

Frankly, I am mindful of the fact that in 1920 the population of Ukraine was about 40

million, and by 1945 about 15 million Ukrainians had perished either in the famines and in

the collectivization efforts and in the war. And it’s unthinkable, the suffering that the

Ukrainian people have endured in the last century.

And it’s unbelievable to me that there would be a significant number of people that

would have any interest in a person of Stalin’s ilk. But I did run into those, too, you know,

and I’m just reporting what I saw.

As far as President Bush’s trip to Russia is concerned, I don’t know much about it, but

I would hope that he would certainly be emphasizing the importance of the Ukrainian

people having the opportunity to make a free and democratic choice as to the direction

they want their country to go. And I would hope that he would be rather forceful in presenting that point of view to his friend Putin.

Dr. KUZIO. Well, we don’t know whether President Bush is going to be seeing inside

Vladimir Putin’s soul again. I mean, God forbid what he’ll find there.

But I think that the—I’m sure that one of the issues which will come up is the massive

intrusion—again, unprecedented. I didn’t really talk about this in my presentation, but

you’ve had an unprecedentedly massive intervention of Russia in the election campaign,

not only Putin’s visit, but also the use of these Russian dirty-tricksters—Gleb Pavlovsky,

Marat Gelman and others.

Many of those have been behind these anti-American posters and such like, an antiYushchenko smear campaign, and, I think, even the suspicion that they were behind the

poisoning. After all, Ukraine never had, even in the cold war, in the Soviet era, biological

or chemical weapons.

So one would suspect that this issue would certainly come up. It has certainly been a

topic of the Washington media, complaints about the revival of Russian imperialism in the

CIS.
19

On the question of Stalin, a surprising 45 percent of Russians in Russia, not in Ukraine,

think of Stalin positively. They mainly do that by referring to World War II, because Stalin

built up Russia, or the Soviet Union, as a great power during that time.

I think those would be—the main issues would be Russia’s involvement.

Russia’s changed very sharply. Russia is no longer as confident of a Yanukovych victory in round two. Both ambassador of Russia to Ukraine, Viktor Chernomyrdin, and one

of the dirty-tricksters, Gleb Pavlovsky, have both stated that Russia can work with either

of the two candidates who wins the elections. And Pavlovsky has gone on record, in the

last few days, even saying that Yanukovych is going to lose. So there’s no longer the confidence that maybe they had in round one about this. But we’ll see.

QUESTIONER. George Sajewych, Voice of America.

How credible are the recent reports that the Central Elections Committee said that

it’s not ready for the second round of elections, and therefore the elections, the second

round, might have to be postponed?

To anybody on the panel.

Mr. SLATTERY. I’m not in a position to really respond to that. I mean, I’m making plans

to be in Kyiv on Sunday, and I hope there’s an election. As much as I enjoy Kyiv, there’s

other things I’d rather be doing this Sunday than traveling halfway around the world just

for the fun of it.

So, to make a long story short, I hope the election goes forward. And I don’t know

anything specifically that I could offer in response to your question.

Dr. KUZIO. I’d be surprised if the elections are going to be postponed. I mean, I think

the money will be provided unless there’s another pay increase for pensions or teachers

ahead of Sunday and the the whole—I mean, the hryvna rate to the U.S. dollar has gone up

from five to seven. And the inflation rate now is projected at 10 percent because of these

pay increases.

I think the money will be there. I’m sure this was just kind of bargaining going on

between the Central Election Commission.

Mr. SLATTERY. Where did you hear that? I’m just curious. Is this—

Mr. SAJEWYCH.Oh, I just heard it yesterday on some Internet site.

Mr. SLATTERY. Really. Well, that’s news to me, because every indication I have is that

the election is going forward.

Ms. DUNCAN. NDI, which of course is bringing an international delegation, is definitely planning to put people on the plane tonight.

[Laughter].

So we’re taking steps to make sure that if, indeed, there is an election, we’ll have

people there.

Mr. McNamara. Any further questions?

QUESTIONER. Alexiy Kuropyatnik, with the Embassy of Ukraine.

Would the distinguished panelists report about the possible scenarios the day after

the elections? What we see now from Washington is a bit—the supporters on both sides

are growing more agitated and less reluctant to accept the defeat.

So what do you see? Are there any threats to the stability of the country emerging at

the moment that might lead to some kind of turmoil and getting the situation out of control of the authorities?

Are there any threats—do you see—do you view them emerging?
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Mr. SLATTERY. Threats here in the United States toward—

Mr. KUROPYATNIK. No, no, no. Domestically in Ukraine.

To be more specific, the head of the ... [inaudible] was saying that the margin might

be slim, something around, in case Yanukovych wins, he is expecting around 35 percent.

Maybe same thing might happen with Yushchenko, in case he wins. So the margin is rather

slim, and the supporters are rather reluctant to accept the defeat.

Mr. SLATTERY. Well, I think the losers in an election are oftentimes reluctant to accept

the outcome of an election. And the closer the outcome, the tougher it is.

But again, what this does, in my judgment, is even make it more urgent for the government in Ukraine to be committed to, really, the operation of a transparent, free, fair,

open election, where people know that they can cast secret ballots and they have a confidence that those ballots are going to be counted fairly and accurately.

And if that is, in fact, what happens and if the multitude of international observers

come to that conclusion—and granted, there will probably be some disagreement among

the observers as to whether the election was conducted fairly or not—then that is the

greatest protection that I think the people of Ukraine have and the government that is

selected will have.

And so, I mean, I just want to do everything I can do to encourage the incumbent

government that is responsible, really, in large part, for the administration of the election

to do so in a fair way and be committed to that and be prepared to lose if, in fact, that’s

what happens.

Ms. DUNCAN. I would absolutely agree with everything Representative Slattery has

said, but also emphasize that in the post-election period, the 15 days by which the Ukrainian Government has said that they will announce the election results, I think on December 6th, that period as well, along with election day, has to be transparent and information has to be fed, so the people don’t believe there was massaging of the election results

in one direction or another.

Mr. SLATTERY. And, you know, let me just emphasize another very basic point, and that

is—and you know, this comes from my own, sort of, election experience, in the sense that

I always knew what was going on in the precincts in my district that were swing precincts

or important precincts.

So I will just emphasize again that, in all of the polling places, if the results are announced as soon as they are counted, then it’s not easy to add up the 33,000 different

polling station results and falsify the final count.

Now, the question will be on what happens with the foreign participants in the election. How many voters are there in Russia? How many of them are there abroad? I don’t

know yet, OK, but there should be some fixed universe on that and some general idea of

how many potential voters there are out there.

But if the election results are announced on election night in each of those polling

places, I think that’s going to be a very important step toward transparency. And all the

election observers in that voting place, you know, will understand that candidate A won

or candidate B won, and they’ll know what the count was.

Dr. KUZIO. There’s a number of ways which massaging will be made difficult, and that’s

true of the first round as well.

Exit polls will be conducted again by reputable Ukrainian sociological organizations.

These exit polls have been funded by mainly Western embassies, including the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv.
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The Yushchenko camp will be undertaking, again, a parallel vote count, which it successfully did in the first round.

And, of course, you have the international—a huge array of different international

observers.

So all of that will, to some degree, prevent kind of blatant fraud, I think.

The authorities, I suspect, will try to drag out the announcing of the final results for

two reasons: A, for potential need, maybe, to massage, like in round one; but second, as

well—and this relates to your question—to prevent civic disturbances.

Because the thing that provoked massive civic disturbances in Serbia and Georgia in

2000 and 2003 was that the authorities very quickly announced fraudulent results. And

this, of course, provoked anger on the streets, and then it led to massive civic disturbances and then democratic revolutions in both countries.

So in order to prevent that, you drag it out, and that makes it difficult for the opposition to organize massive civic protests.

But if fraud is blatant and, for example, if the official result is very difficult from

parallel vote count results and exit polling, then of course the population have a right to

nonviolent civic protest. I mean, that’s guaranteed in the Ukrainian constitution and other

legislation.

Mr. MCNAMARA. One thought that comes to mind—and I don’t know if you’ve looked

into this, Dr. Kuzio, or not—but not knowing what the profile of Ukrainians resident in

the Russian Federation would be, but it would be interesting to know whether they experienced the types of difficulties in terms of voter lists and things of that nature as their

compatriots in Ukraine proper did.

Dr. KUZIO. The election campaign in Russia was strange, to say the least. You had the

whole of Moscow filled with billboards supporting Yanukovych, no Yushchenko billboards.

And you had a newly created organization quickly created—something called the Union of

Ukrainians in Russia, which declared its support to Yanukovych. The traditional Ukrainian organizations in Russia said that we were never consulted about this.

And so this was part and parcel of Putin organizing support in Russia for Yanukovych.

And hence, while the opposition was very strongly opposed to the creation of additional polling stations in Russia, the authorities in Ukraine wanted to create something in

the region of 500 additional polling stations in Russia in October.

That was squashed by the intervention of the opposition. In the end, the Central

Election Commission agreed to create only 40. The opposition protested that in the supreme court of Ukraine, and then the supreme court overturned even that.

So, in the end, there weren’t additional polling stations created, and only as far as I

understand, there’s in the region of 200,000 registered voters in Russia in the Ukrainian

elections. There are upwards of 10 million Ukrainians, or people from Ukraine, living in

Russia, the second largest minority after Tatars in Russia, but only 200,000 of them are

registered voters.

I suspect that what’s very noticeable is when you look at voting outside Ukraine is

that voting in Russia by the Ukraine diaspora tend to be for Yanukovych, voting everywhere else was for Yushchenko.

Mr. MCNAMARA. Any further questions?

If not, I want to express on behalf of our Commission leadership our appreciation for

your being here today.
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And again, a full transcription of today’s proceedings will be available on the

Commission’s Web site by the close of business tomorrow.

Thank you very much.

[Whereupon, the briefing concluded at 11:32 a.m.]
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