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Back from America...
March 24, 2006 05:41 AM
...and credentialed to serve as an international observer for this Sunday's parliamentary elections in Ukraine. It's a daunting business, in part because the concepts of process and accountability are rather new to these parts. (Witness the vote in Belarus last weekend.) In the training that took place yesterday we were told to be attentive to the prospect that many local officials who will be managing the actual polling sites may be unfamiliar with the particulars of the election law and have only a limited notion of how proper balloting ought to be conducted. So we observers were advised to offer guidance and recommendations if things seem to be getting off-track, provided we don't disrupt the voting.
Of greater interest to me, at least, was the political briefing we were given at the beginning of the workshop by an analyst from the Democratic Initiatives Foundation. He mostly showed us some recent polls taken by his organization, and the results were surprising. Most surprising was the finding that voters who said they plan to vote for Yushchenko's party, Our Ukraine, were actually the most motivated. This rubs against conventional wisdom, which is that Yushchenko has been such an all-round let-down that he would have a very difficult time turning out his base, which is young and upwardly mobile. Still, while his backers may be the most motivated, they are also now a far smaller segment of the overall electorate than might have been the case a year ago. Our Ukraine is hovering around 15 percent right now, only slightly ahead of the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc. And both trail far behind the Party of the Regions, led by Viktor Yanukovich, the one-time goat of the Orange Revolution who has enjoyed a political renaissance because of Yushchenko's troubles. Regions has about 30.4 percent in the latest poll, which is just about where it's been for months. If those numbers hold, they would translate into about 186 deputies -- give or take 10 -- in the next Verkhovna Rada, according to the pollster.
The level of voter interest is striking. According to the polls we were shown, 91 percent of Ukrainian voters said they plan to cast a ballot, and 79 percent said they would do so "definitely." Meanwhile, only 10 percent of the electorate claimed to be either undecided or disinclined to support any of the choices available. Since there are 45 parties on the ballot, one is left to wonder what kind of political platform the "none of the above" types are holding out for. In any case, the analyst suggested that turnout in Kiev, where I'll be stationed, will probably be around 65 percent. And while that's not quite at the level projected for the rest of the country, it is still high enough to create the prospect of long lines and long waits, which could themselves become a factor in the outcome. Fewer than 50 percent of the likely voters indicated they would stay on line "as long as it takes" -- but again, it was Yushchenko's base that indicated the greatest willingness to see things through. As for myself, seeing matters through may turn out to be a 24-hour process, according to others with whom I've discussed "observer" status. We will have to be at the polls by 6:15 in the morning, and the balloting technically ends at 10:00 that evening. Officially, however, voters who are on the premises at closing time are entitled to cast a ballot. There's no telling how long that might drag things out. And then there's the tabulation of the votes, which will continue on into the morning -- even without any hitches. Here's hoping I don't wind up as one of the observers who then has to accompany the ballots as they are delivered to the central election headquarters in Kiev....
P.S. Asked for his opinion, the political analyst who briefed us predicted that an "Orange" coalition -- led by Yushchenko's and Tymoshenko's parties -- would emerge from the parliamentary vote, but would soon fall apart. No one here would be surprised to see that happen. But the analyst suggested the succeeding arrangement would involve some combination of Our Ukraine and Regions, and to me that's fairly implausible. Such a coalition could be formed only if Yanukovich is to be appointed prime minister. And while there have been murmurs around Kiev about a creeping rapprochement between Yushchenko and Yanukovich forces, it is almost inconceivable that Yushchenko would assent to this. Even Tymoshenko has forsworn any alliance with Yanukovich, and the arrangement would almost certainly scuttle Yushchenko's principal policy goals, beginning with membership in NATO and the WTO. (The latter is critical if Ukraine is to compete economically with Russia.) More likely, in the event an Orange coalition collapses, is that parliamentarians would be unable to agree on a new government and would then be dissolved, with new elections called for the fall.
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