"THE ACTION UKRAINE REPORT"
An International Newsletter
In-Depth Ukrainian News, Analysis, and Commentary
"The Art of Ukrainian History, Culture, Arts, Business, Religion,
Sports, Government, and Politics, in Ukraine and Around the World"
"THE ACTION UKRAINE REPORT" Year 04, Number 224
The Action Ukraine Coalition (AUC), Washington, D.C.
Ukrainian Federation of America (UFA), Huntingdon Valley, PA
morganw@patriot.net, ArtUkraine.com@starpower.net (ARTUIS)
Washington, D.C., Kyiv, Ukraine, SATURDAY, November 20, 2004
-----INDEX OF ARTICLES-----
"Major International News Headlines and Articles"
1. FUNDING OF ELECTION MONITORS A CONCERN
Issue Raised After Ukraine Voting
By David B. Ottaway, Washington Post Staff Writer
The Washington Post, Washington, D.C
Saturday, November 20, 2004, Front Page
2. DELEGATION WITH TIES TO PRIME MINISTER RETURNS
Observer mission headed by former U.S. congressman to
come back to Ukraine; declared Oct. 31 voting fair
By Vlad Lavrov, Kyiv Post Staff Writer
Kyiv Post, Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, Nov 18, 2004
3. FORMER US MEMBERS OF CONGRESS FIND UKRAINIAN
PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION FAIR AND TRANSPARENT
Former Member of Congress Bob Carr: "Election Within the Framework of Law"
NEWS ALERT-Ukrainian Presidential Election 2004
From: Darren Spinck [mail to: Darren@dbcpr.com ]
Sent: Monday, November 01, 2004 1:26 PM
4. PRESS CONFERENCE HELD BY SEVEN FORMER MEMBERS
OF THE U.S. CONGRESS IN KYIV, UKRAINE, NOV 1, 2004
Transcript of Press Conference held at
Ukrainian Independent Information Agency (UNIAN)
UNIAN Headquarters Press Room, 5:45 p.m.
Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, November 1, 2004
5. UKRAINIAN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION MONITORING REPORT
FROM THE ALLIANCE FOR DEMOCRACY AND TRANSPARENCY
----- Original Message -----
NEWS ALERT- Ukrainian Presidential Election 2004
From: Darren Spinck, [mail to: Darren@dbcpr.com]
Sent: Monday, November 08, 2004 5:14 PM
6. "'VOTELESS' SITUATION. THE AUTHORITIES HAVE CHEATED
VOTERS IN THE FIRST ROUND OF THE ELECTIONS.
WILL IT BE (DIS) CONTINUED?"
Lesya Voloshka, Ukrayina Moloda, Kiev, in Ukrainian 10 Nov 04
BBC Monitoring Service,UK, in English, Thu, Nov 11, 2004
7. OBSERVING THE UKRAINE ELECTIONS
Letters to the Editor: The Washington Times
From: Former Members of Congress and the European Parliament
The Washington Times, Washington, D.C., Sun, Nov 14, 2004
8. "POLITICIANS ARE NOT CHEAP"
The American delegation, consisting of the ex-Congressmen
and five political campaign consultants
By Vladimir Kravchenko, Zerkalo Nedeli On The WEB, Mirror-Weekly
Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, 13-19 November 2004
9. PROMOTING YANUKOVYCH IN WASHINGTON, DC:
OOPS, HE DID IT AGAIN!
By Luba Shara in Washington, Ukrayinska Pravda (UP)
Kyiv, Ukraine, Sunday, November 14, 2004
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ACTION UKRAINE REPORT-04, No. 224: ARTICLE NUMBER ONE
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1. FUNDING OF ELECTION MONITORS A CONCERN
Issue Raised After Ukraine Voting
By David B. Ottaway, Washington Post Staff Writer
The Washington Post, Washington, D.C
Saturday, November 20, 2004; Page A01
WASHINGTON - The first round of Ukraine's presidential election a
few weeks ago, a group of Democratic former congressmen observing
the vote declared that it was basically free and fair and "geared toward
the finest methods of ensuring fairness and accuracy."
Their positive assessment ran counter to those of most other observers,
including the State Department, a group affiliated with the Republican
Party and a coalition of European monitors, who all cited widespread
irregularities and called it "a step backwards."
What the congressional group did not say was that its members were
recruited and paid $500 a day by a Washington-based lobbyist who
is a registered representative of the pro-Russian candidate in the race,
Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych. The prime minister and the chief
opposition candidate, former prime minister Viktor Yushchenko, each
received 39 percent of the vote on Oct. 31 and will face each other in
a runoff tomorrow.
Yanukovych is the clear favorite in Moscow, and Yushchenko is the
favorite of European capitals and Washington. The outcome is widely
expected to determine whether the strategically located former Soviet
bloc nation tilts back toward Russia or turns more toward Western
Europe and the United States.
Election monitors are normally unpaid volunteers who get only their
expenses paid. Some longtime participants in such delegations are
concerned that the Ukraine case and a recent incident involving
Cameroon could taint the process of promoting democracy.
The delegation of former lawmakers was led by Robert M. Carr, an
18-year Democratic House veteran from Michigan who is returning
with another delegation to observe the runoff.
In the first round, Carr brought former Wisconsin congressmen Peter
Barca, Jay Johnson and Jim Moody, as well as Norman D'Amours
of New Hampshire, Ronald Coleman of Texas and Mike Ward of
Kentucky. Also part of the delegation were Washington political
consultants Michael Arno, Bernie Campbell, Richard Pollack and
Bernard Whitman, whose company, Whitman Insight Strategies,
conducted pre-election polls for a Ukrainian think tank, Carr said.
Carr said members of his delegation were told once they arrived in
Kiev that a Ukrainian American was financing the trip, which cost
$125,000. He said that, aside from Whitman, none of its 12 members
had a business interest in Ukraine or went intending "to develop an
interest." Unlike other U.S. election monitors, Carr said, "we didn't go
there with our minds made up, and we didn't expect to see it [the first
round] run as well as it was."
Moody, the former Wisconsin congressman who now works at the
investment-management firm Morgan Stanley, said he did not care who
had funded his trip. "The funding did not affect anything I saw," he said.
"It seemed to be fair."
The delegation's report was issued in the name of the Alliance for
Democracy and Transparency, a Washington-based group set up by
Aleksei Kiselev, who is a registered foreign agent representing
Yanukovych. Kiselev confirmed during an interview that he had paid
for expenses and a stipend of $500 a day for each member.
But he said none of the funds came from the prime minister or the
Ukrainian government. He and two other Ukrainian Americans, whom
he declined to identify, provided the money, he said.
Kiselev also confirmed Ukrainian news reports that he has spent about
$1 million in contracts for five Washington media consultants and public
relations firms on behalf of Yanukovych or the Ukrainian government.
He said that money also came from himself and the two other Ukrainian
Americans.
The contracts went to Venable, Jefferson Waterman International (JWI),
DB Communications, White and Case, and Potomac Communications
Strategies. Carr said JWI, which is being paid $120,000, handled the
delegation's expenses on Kiselev's behalf and chose the political
consultants.
Kiselev's filing under the Foreign Agents Registration Act states that he
has "an oral contract" to represent the current prime minister and indicates
that he himself is not being paid for his services. -30-
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A63732-2004Nov19.html
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ACTION UKRAINE REPORT-04, No.224: ARTICLE NUMBER TWO
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2. DELEGATION WITH TIES TO PRIME MINISTER RETURNS
Observer mission headed by former U.S. congressman to
come back to Ukraine; declared Oct. 31 voting fair
By Vlad Lavrov, Kyiv Post Staff Writer
Kyiv Post, Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, Nov 18, 2004
KYIV - A delegation of observers financed by a U.S. ally of presidential
candidate Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych is expected to pay a return
visit to Ukraine for the second round of presidential elections.
One member of the delegation that visited Ukraine to monitor the first round
of presidential elections on Oct. 31, Bernard Whitman, president of New
York-based market research firm Whitman Insight Strategies, said on Nov.
16 that the delegation was scheduled to leave for Ukraine on Nov. 17.
Whitman came to observe the Oct. 31 poll with a 12-person delegation
headed by Bob Carr, a former Democratic member of the U.S. House of
Representatives from Michigan. On Nov. 1 Carr announced his group's
conclusion that the elections passed within the framework of international
norms and Ukraine's own laws and were transparent, and that election
violations they had observed did not affect the outcome.
The report by Carr was harshly criticized and its objectivity was questioned
by many Western observers, including a group of 25 former legislators from
the United States, Spain, Britain and other EU countries.
Whitman, whose company was also involved in election polling in Ukraine,
said he likely won't be a part of the second delegation due to "family
reasons."
A Nov. 10 letter sent by Carr to several former congressmen says the
observers will be covered for all their expenses, including "business class
airline tickets, [the] best possible hotel accommodation, and a $500 daily
stipend."
Earlier, Alex Kiselev, an American strategy advisor to Prime Minister and
presidential candidate Viktor Yanukovych, admitted financing half of the
$170,000 cost of the first trip, and told the Post on Nov. 10 that the
observers received no extra remuneration besides payment for their
expenses.
Carr told the Post earlier that Kiselev made it clear to his delegation that
his preference in the election is Viktor Yanukovych, but he insisted that
his group's judgments were independent and honest.
In his letter, Carr names three former congressmen who will again
participate in the delegation. They include himself, Norm D'Amours
(D-NY) and Jim Moody (D-WI). -30-
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ACTION UKRAINE REPORT-04, No.224: ARTICLE NUMBER THREE
=======================================================
3. FORMER US MEMBERS OF CONGRESS FIND UKRAINIAN
PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION FAIR AND TRANSPARENT
Former Member of Congress Bob Carr: "Election Within the Framework of Law"
NEWS ALERT-Ukrainian Presidential Election, 2004
From: Darren Spinck [mailto:Darren@dbcpr.com]
Sent: Monday, November 01, 2004 1:26 PM
Subject: Former US Members of Congress Find Ukrainian
Presidential Election Fair and Transparent
NOVEMBER 1, 2004 - A delegation of former United States Members of
Congress monitored the Ukrainian presidential elections yesterday and found
they were "fair and transparent." The monitoring team found that mistakes
and problems did occur, but that these incidents were not different from any
other country that holds democratic elections.
"The elections passed within the framework of the law, were transparent, and
any infringements which were revealed did not put doubt upon the results of
the election," said Hon. Bob Carr, former member of the United States House
of Representatives (MI), during a press conference in Kiev.
Besides Hon. Carr, the election monitoring team included former Members of
Congress Peter Barca (WI), Ronald Coleman (TX), Norman D'Amours (NH),
Jay Johnson (WI), Jim Moody (WI), and Michael Ward (KY). The election
monitoring team observed 75 polling districts in Ukraine's Odessa and
Donetsk regions and in Kiev. -30-
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
FOOTNOTE: This was no further information with the above e-mail sent
from Washington, D.C. on November 1, 2004. Another "NEWS ALERT-
Ukrainian Presidential Election 2004" e-mail sent by the same firm in
Washington, D.C. on Thursday, November 18, 2004 included the following,
"This material is distributed by DBC Public Relations Experts on behalf of
Viktor F. Yanukovych, candidate for the office of President of Ukraine.
Additional information is on file with the Department of Justice,
Washington, District of Columbia." -30-
========================================================
ACTION UKRAINE REPORT-04, No.224: ARTICLE NUMBER FOUR
Your comments about the Report are always welcome
========================================================
4. PRESS CONFERENCE HELD BY SEVEN FORMER MEMBERS OF
THE U.S. CONGRESS IN KYIV, UKRAINE, NOV 1, 2004
Transcript of Press Conference held at
Ukrainian Independent Information Agency (UNIAN)
UNIAN Headquarters Press Room, 5:45 p.m.
Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, November 1, 2004
Press conference by a delegation of seven former members of the
U.S. Congress who served as international election observers at
the Ukrainian presidential election on Sunday, October 31, 2004.
Bob Carr (MI), Spokesman
Peter Barca (WI)
Ronald Coleman (TX)
Norman D'Amours (NY)
Jay Johnson (WI)
Jim Moody (WI)
Michael Ward (KY)
BOB CARR - My name is Bob Carr and I want to introduce our
delegation. I am here with six of my former colleagues in the United
States Congress. Combined we represent well over 50 years of
elected experience. I think if we added up all the campaigns there
would probably be about 40 elections among us.
In addition our delegation included four political campaign election
professionals. We were privileged to be accredited international
observers to your election yesterday.
We split up into different groups to witness the election in Odesa, and
Donetsk and in Kyiv...here in Kyiv. We've come together and we
have compared notes on what we have observed. And there is a
consensus among us that the election was, that we observed, in the
places that we observed it, was held according to the law, vigorously
and professionally administered and we could find no evidence that
there was any but ordinary kinds of problems that you would expect
in the conduct of any election anywhere in the world.
I will ask each of colleagues to offer their own observation and
comment along with telling you where they observed the election and
then we will be available for your questions.
I would like to start with former member of Congress from the state
of Wisconsin, Jim Moody.
JIM MOODY - Our group was composed of seven people, of which
two of us were former members of Congress, myself and the gentleman
to my left, Mike Ward. We visited twelve precincts, polling places.
Every place we visited there were observers from the other candidates.
We questioned them extensively, in each place we spent at least an hour
and in some places we spent a great deal longer. We conferred with the
leader of the organization, of each polling place, asking her or him who
they represented, asked the others who they represented. We confirmed
that each group had been trained, had extensive training.
We chose these polling places at random, no one knew we were coming,
they were not pre-selected, we decided ourselves were to go, we had
our own interpreter. In two places we watched the final vote count, we
watched the count votes in the place where I was for example, we
watched every vote being counted twice, by different candidates
representatives so there was [interpreter broke in].
Finally, at the end of the counting a protocol was issued, was filled out,
everybody in the room signed it, it stated exactly how many votes
were cast, how many for each candidate, we were given a copy
ourselves so that could be confirmed, and that is public information in
each case, we understand. So there is a way to confirm that those votes
were cast. So at least where we were, at least where I was, I can say
that it was very vigorously administered and we saw no evidence
of any fraud.
BOB CARR - And I like to, at least introduce former member of
Congress from the state of Kentucky, Mike Ward.
MIKE WARD, And I was in the same community and the same
polling places, and concur with what Congressman Moody has said.
BOB CARR - And for a few remarks I would like to introduce to
you, former member of Congress from Wisconsin, Jim Barca, oh
Peter Barca.....Peter.
PETER BARCA - I was part of the group in Odesa, we spit up into
two different groups. I was with two election professionals. A couple
of my colleagues will talk about their experiences as well. We went
to six different polling places, and we also went to one of the territorial
offices as well, where often times when people have any concerns
they bring them those forward there.
We talked with citizens, we talked with the election officials and we
talked with the party representatives and to a person they indicated
that they felt that the election was fair, they felt the election was free,
and they were very proud of their efforts.
Even in the territorial office where people had been turned away initially
because they did not have their addresses of all the citizens that we
talked to they did in fact get redressed. They were able to go back to
their polling places and cast their vote, which we found to be very
important. I guess one other personal note [interpreter broke in].
One thing that impressed our team enormously was that when we
talked to the election representatives and we asked them if they
expected free and fair elections at their polling place they indicated
that one thing we could be certain of, they were 100% sure that at
their polling place there would be free and fair elections.
One last personal note I would make is that before I ever ran for
office my mother was an election worker for some 15 different
elections in the United States and I grew up as a young child going
to those polling places in my home town of Summers, Wisconsin.
And the pride and the conscientiousness of the polling workers here
certain rivaled and matched those of the polling places in the United
States where my mother worked. I just want to personally salute
those workers.
BOB CARR - I would like to introduce to you, on my far left, to
former member of Congress, also from the state of Wisconsin, Jay
Johnson.
JAY JOHNSON - I think the one thing we all agreed on the elections
were very fair. We also agreed any American coming here observing
the election process, the counting, the voter participation, the actions
by the people who are running the elections, was as democratic a
agency, as democratic an election as we have seen in all of the United
States. It is a great testament to the Ukrainian people for an excellently
run election.
BOB CARR - Now I would like to introduce, former member of
Congress from the state of New Hampshire, Norm D'Amours.
NORMAN D'AMOURS - Thank you [speaks a couple of words
in Ukrainian]. I was in Odesa. We witnessed the voting in seven
precincts, and the vote tabulation.
There are many people in the United States and citizens of the world
who are extremely interested in the process here, in your country, and
I would like to go back and tell those people in the United States that
what I witnessed was one of the best forms of democracy in practice
and in action and that I hope that your system will be replicated
throughout the world including the United States.
I am proud to have been part of this process and I look forward to
bragging to my grandchildren, if I ever I have any, that I was here
on this day, at this time.
BOB CARR - I would like to introduce to you former member of
Congress from the state of Texas, Ron Coleman, who along with
myself visited precincts and polling places in Kyiv. He will give our
Kyiv report.
RONALD COLEMAN - First of all thank all of you for being here.
I know you have had many other requirements placed on you during
this very important time. I also know there have been suggestions or
reports from other observers that not everything went well and that
perhaps there were some illegalities or fraud conducted at precincts
here in Kyiv.
Our observers here in Kyiv questioned many of the precinct workers,
many of the commissioners and deputy commissioners at twenty-five
different precincts here in the city and we found no suggestion of
fraud or illegality whatsoever.
We found problems and mistakes that we found not unusual at all in
any election.The beauty of the system here in Kyiv was that people
could actually go to a district office and fix the problem of their
registration on the same day as the election. My plans are to take
this idea back to my colleagues from Texas so that we can maximize
the number of people that are allowed to vote in a democracy.
We are also, the group here in Kyiv, very proud of the fact that we
witnessed at the end of evening, the plans in one precinct to count the
votes, yet after an hour and a half they were still voting about whether
or not to count five unsigned, or what they thought may have been
inappropriate ballots.
It was slow, and I know for those had worked all day, very tiring. Yet
all of the citizens in that precinct stayed in order to see to it that the
will of a democracy was carried out. [question in the background]
Exactly, no, this was the commissioners at the precinct.
So many of us I think that observed at least the precincts here in Kyiv
would say that not only here in the city and in the villages outside Kyiv
which we also visited, would tell you that we felt that democracy in
action was seen by us and we were very proud of the fact that the,
the Ukraine has adopted this particular form of government. Thank
you.
BOB CARR - Thank you all. We're available for your questions.
QUESTION - TV channel - Why specifically you went to the
regions south of Kyiv and Donetsk, and not the north and the west
where supposedly most the violations were observed and what were
the total number of precincts you visited.
BOB CARR - I think that we wanted to get to the population centers.
We didn't target our efforts to where we would have expected to see
irregularities because we came as neutral observers, we didn't have a
map or suggestion by anybody as to where we ought to go. It seemed
to make sense to us to go where the population centers were so that
we could maximize our view of the largest number of voting, polling
places.
And I have just asked my colleagues for a quick calculation of the
number of polling places and in my head it adds up to around seventy
-five.
QUESTION - Channel 5 - Their assumption was that there was
clear and obvious violations in Kirovograd Region and Sumy Region
where the assumption is that people walked in and could not vote
and other things of that nature. Do you consider your statement
as an elimination (?) of things like that?
BOB CARR - No we can only testify as to what we saw and where
we saw it. And we have not been, other than occasionally rubbing
shoulders with other monitors from other places in restaurants and
maybe a little chatter about what they have seen we can't testify
to anything beyond what we saw.
QUESTION - Ukrainform - In your opinion what is the degree of
readiness of the U.S. Congress and the U.S. government to work
with Mr.Yanukovych if he wins? If he wins.
BOB CARR - Well I think you really ought to ask reprehensive of
our state department. I think unless someone disagrees, as former
members of Congress, we would hope that our government would
be ready and willing to work constructively with whoever wins this
election. Does anyone disagree with that?
We don't have a horse in this race to speak of. We were here to
look to see if the democratic process was a good one, and that it
was being effectively and professional managed and enforced.
[some talk in the background]
I would only add that due to the fine work of Congressman Jim
Moody, immediately after leaving this meeting with you, we will be
presenting our findings to the U.S. Ambassador to the Ukraine.
QUESTION - How would you comment on the Rohrabacher bill?
Rohrabacher proposed bill that would arrest accounts, bank accounts,
assets of Ukrainians, in the US, in case they lost favor and do you
consider it interrupting the actual getting involved in the actual
Ukrainian internal politics?
BOB CARR - Anybody want to... I will take a crack at that....[not
sure who is talking now] Well it is a truism of American politics that
hundreds and hundreds of bills get introduced every year for domestic
political reasons to drive support from local consistencies. I do not
that if that is the case of Mr. Rohrabacher's case, I do not know that.
I am not charging that.....but it is very common for bills like that to be
introduced on many different countries, involving many different
groups, as you know for sure of the hundreds and hundreds of bills
that are introduced very, very few become law.
NORMAN D'AMOURS - Just to echo to remarks of my colleague.
There are four hundred and thirty-five members of the House of
Representatives. Mr. Rohrabacher is one of four hundred and thirty-
five. That is not...the fact that the bill is introduced does not
necessarily mean that it has the support of any more than one member.
BOB CARR - I might make a brief umbrella type of a comment.
Members of Congress frequently try to drive our countries foreign
policy. But under our constitution the primary power for foreign policy
is in the executive branch. And it is the legislative branch that tries to
either limit or channel or corral the exercise of that foreign policy...I
wouldn't be too concerned about it. -30-
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ACTION UKRAINE REPORT-04, No.224: ARTICLE NUMBER FIVE
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5. UKRAINIAN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION MONITORING REPORT
FROM THE ALLIANCE FOR DEMOCRACY AND TRANSPARENCY
----- Original Message -----
NEWS ALERT- Ukrainian Presidential Election 2004
From: Darren Spinck, Darren@dbcpr.com
Sent: Monday, November 08, 2004 5:14 PM
Subject: Ukrainian Presidential Election Monitoring Report from the
Alliance for Democracy and Transparency
Attached is the statement of the Alliance for Democracy and Transparency
delegation to the October 31, 2004 Ukrainian presidential election. The
election monitoring delegation included seven former members of the U.S.
House of Representatives.
Statement of the Alliance for Democracy and Transparency Delegation to
the October 31, 2004 Presidential Election in Ukraine
November 2, 2004
SUMMARY CONCLUSION
A delegation of seven former members of the U.S. House of Representatives
and five political campaign professionals witnessed what all 12 members
concluded were proper, legal, and professional election administration
procedures in all of the polling stations visited. The delegates certainly
did not witness systemic problems with the administration of this election
at the polling sites observed.
Some relatively routine and understandable problems were noted at several
polling stations, but they were of the nature and type that were readily
resolvable by prescribed administrative procedures that could be applied at
either the polling site (PEC) or the Territorial Election Commission (TEC).
These problems, considered individually or collectively, did not, in the
judgment of the delegates, have material affect on the fairness,
transparency, or security of the balloting process.
THE DELEGATES
The delegates, both former elected officials and campaign experts, have a
total of more than 60 years of electoral experience and have personally gone
through over 40 elections. The members of the group have all had extensive
electoral experience, not only in the U.S. but also in number of countries.
Within the group, direct electoral experience in the region included Russia,
Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia, Bosnia, Albania,
Estonia, and Latvia.
The delegation split into three teams and were deployed to three regions of
the country anchored by the cities of Kiev, Odessa and Donetsk. The
regional teams then broke up into smaller teams to visit individual polling
stations. On October 30, the delegates visited numerous stations as final
preparations were being made for election day, and then again on election
day, to observe the voting process, and, in many stations, the actual
counting of the votes once the polls had closed. The following day, November
1, the delegates reconvened in Kiev to compare our first-hand observations.
The delegates, in alphabetical order, were:
Michael Arno, Peter Barca, Bernie Campbell, Bob Carr,
Ron Coleman, Norm D'Amours, Jay Johnson, Mark Meissner
Jim Moody, Richard Pollock, Mike Ward, Bernard Whitman
SITUATION ANALYSIS
As we left Ukraine on the morning of November 2, the results of the first
round of the 2004 presidential election were not yet final, but early
returns showed a close race between the two top vote getters with the
next two candidates tied in distant third and fourth places.
Yanukovych 39.88%; Yushchenko 39.22%;
Moroz 5.83%; Symonenko 5.03%
With most of the votes counted and reported, preparations are now
underway for the runoff election scheduled for November 21, 2004.
Although widely predicted both inside and outside Ukraine, and even
reported by the media, the delegation witnessed absolutely no incidents
of election-related mass demonstrations leading to violence, civil strife,
and police action.
In addition, most reporting of the election results by the national and
international media, regional experts, and observer missions included
prominent references to significant and widespread electoral fraud, voter
intimidation and disenfranchisement, and procedural irregularities.
FOCUS OF MISSION
The delegation focused on three regions of Ukraine anchored by the cities
of Kiev, Donetsk, and Odessa. With the prevalent conventional wisdom
anticipating most, if not all, of likely fraud being perpetrated by
administrative abuse on behalf of, or to the benefit of candidate
Yanukovich, the observation mission chose these locations based on a
combination of two criteria: population and high potential for predicted
fraud.
As the delegation did not have the opportunity to visit Ukraine during the
pre-election campaign period, observers were realistically only able to
focus on and make judgments about the quality, fairness, and accuracy of
the administration of the election process itself.
Thus, the work of this mission was structured to attempt to meet two
objectives:
* Determine whether the balloting process was conducted in a free
and fair manner as prescribed by Ukrainian law and regulation, and by
comparable international standards;
* Determine whether the results of the election reflected the will of
the electorate, considering all observable evidence, factors, and
impressions.
OBSERVATIONS
The delegation used a set of objective and observable criteria to assess
the fairness and transparency of the balloting process that included the
following:
* Free and open access to the polling site, including on-time openings
and closings;
* Organization and security at the site for protection of the integrity
of the balloting process, as well as for the protection of the voters;
* Properly staffed and trained election commissions to ensure that the
work of the commission could be completed in the manner envisioned by
the law on elections;
* Presence of multi-candidate representation on election commissions to
ensure that candidates' interests were protected;
* Absence of partisan campaign material or electioneering in or around
the polling place;
* Thorough verification of voter identity by commission officials;
* Control and management of ballots and boxes
* Availability of remedies for errors and omissions at either the PEC or
TEC;
* Strict adherence to counting and reporting procedures.
The Ukrainian system of conducting the election and tabulating the vote was
geared toward the finest methods of ensuring fairness and accuracy. There
were several sections of the election code that required extraordinary
checks and balances of dealing with minor, and sometimes major, problems.
>From what we saw, each election supervisor followed legal guidelines for
settling disputes to the satisfaction of all observers. In some cases,
elections supervisors went out of their way to appease minority view points
and conducted certain processes at their request.
THE DELEGATION DID OBSERVE PROBLEMS, HOWEVER .
There were difficulties with voter lists at a number of polling locations
ranging from misspelled names and improper addresses to the complete
absence of a voter's name from the voter list. In many instances, the
election workers at the polling locations we visited proactively addressed
these difficulties at the polling place and if that was not possible
referred those voters to the TEC. Our delegation was impressed that the
Ukrainian elections system was flexible enough to correct voter list
problems the day of the election, something the US has not yet implemented.
Voters who discovered themselves not on the voter list could, with some
effort, receive certification from the TEC to have their name added to the
voter role so as to vote that day.
We spoke with several people who were required to verify their address at
the Territorial Election Commission. While frustrated with long waits, there
was no suspicion of anyone we talked with that they were left off the list
or sent to the TEC because of their voting intentions. In fact, all seemed
quite surprised to be asked such a question. It was our team's belief that
it would have been inconceivable to create a system that would determine
voting intentions and then keep these names off of voting lists. Instead,
voters whose names did not appear on voting lists were omitted due to an
abundance of caution, and in response to charges of double voting that had
occurred in previous elections. While it is true that most voters (and some
election staff) were unaware of the new procedures, it should be said that
the fact that names were not on lists is not indicative of coordinated voter
fraud and was instead yet more proof of a system that aimed to keep with
a one person, one vote principle.
This process, no doubt, did reduce the votes cast at such polling sites as
some prospective voters surely did not travel to the TEC or bother to
return to the polling site.
It is important to note that individual members of our delegation have
separately visited hundreds of election day polling places in the United
States over several election cycles both as candidates for high elective
office and as election day workers for candidates. Given that experience,
delegation members are quite familiar with the fact that few if any election
day processes are perfectly conducted, but we are also familiar with what
the United States considers an acceptable standard of transparency and
fairness in the election day process.
Therefore, the delegation does not consider that these problems,
considering the relatively few instances observed, had a material affect on
the balloting or counting process.
REPORTING
The members of the delegation who served as members of congress meet
with Ambassador Herbst to report the delegation's findings, observations,
and impressions on Monday, November 1, 2004.
CONCLUSION
To reiterate, outside of common election day difficulties, this delegation
did not witness or discover any systemic fraud that would lead to any
conclusion other than that these elections were fair and free, and reflected
the will of the electorate.
APPENDIX A:
OBSERVATIONS ABOUT THE ROLE OF INTERNATIONAL
ELECTION OBSERVERS
While the delegation's primary responsibility was to monitor the election
day activities in the Ukrainian election, it is important to put it into a
context and by implication come to some assessments of the role of
monitors themselves.
The delegation was aware that other international observers observed the
campaign period and the election day activities as a whole. We did not. We
took notice of what others had said about the campaign period, but it in no
way affected our objectivity in reporting our observations of the election
day itself. We think this is a better approach.
The reason is that we believe that the campaign period and the election day
activities are so fundamentally distinct and different as to not allow the
conduct of one to impeach or discredit the other. We believe that it is much
harder to have internationally agreed upon standards for the campaign period
than it is for the election machinery itself. The later is governed almost
exclusively by the law and its administration. It is assumed that the
parties will operate to "game" the system to their best advantage, but their
options in doing so are rather limited.
In the campaign period there are laws to be sure, but this period is more
free to the discretion of competing parties in how they make strategies and
"game" the conduct of their campaigns. In this period it is likely that the
parties will have major asymmetries that will impact on their approach to
not only the voter, but to their message and it's delivery. The law in this
period is not as tight and controlling of every aspect as it is on election
day. Frankly we believe that it is harder to be as objective in this period
as well.
Further, the international monitors come to the task with heavy biases in
the campaign period analysis. Europe uses a different standard for political
campaigning than does the US, for example. Parliamentary democracies are
constructed and run on different premises than Presidential systems. The
campaigns for each are governed and run much differently. Yet, in both
systems the election day activities are much closer in governance and
operation.
The international observers from one system are looking at the campaign
period through the prism of their own experience, more than would be the
case on the election day. And observers that monitor both phases are
vulnerable to their opinions of one phase influencing their objectivity of
the other.
We saw all of this happening in the Ukraine on October 31, 2004 and the
statements made by various international monitors in the days afterwards.
And, it is no surprise that the result of the statements and the coverage of
those statements seemed to lack the desired balance of good and bad
comments about the election. This in our view had the unfortunate effect of
potentially discouraging the thousands of election commission members who
worked long hours and ran an election by the book and tallied the votes in a
fair way only to have their efforts deprecated.
The delegation was dismayed by what seemed to be the predisposition of the
vast majority of some international election observers that were encountered
during our mission. Our incidental meetings and conversations with these
observers suggested that the operative assumptions of their missions were:
* Massive fraud was assumed and expected;
* The failure of a certain favored candidate to prevail would, ipso
facto, be proof unto itself that fraud was perpetrated by the other
candidate or forces acting on his behalf.
Exchanges with some of these observers elicited pronouncements of fraud
in the pre-election period. These observers also leveled charges of
"vote-buying," unfair campaign tactics and practices, and even claims of the
use of untruthful campaign literature and materials. They asserted these
charges as proof that the balloting process would not meet international
standards of fairness.
It occurred to some of our delegates that the opposition viewed us and
other international observers as their allies who would blindly accept their
charges as fact. Some of our delegates were even given a few "thumbs up"
signs whenever one of the candidate observers received good news from
numerous cell phone calls as if they believed we naturally cared about
his/her candidate rather than serving as impartial observers.
Based on these charges, it appeared that these observers were issuing an
indictment of the voting process based on the linkage of their perceptions
of campaign-period activities with election day activities so that a
unfavorable assessment could be made of the latter in spite of the absence
of supporting evidence.
Therefore, our delegation reluctantly agreed that one of our first
observations was that other international observers brought with them a
highly biased and prejudiced orientation that may have severely limited
their ability to be impartial observers of election day activities and
processes.
We hope that not only will the Ukrainian government reflect upon the
quality of its campaigns and elections as it heads toward perfecting its
democracy, but also we urge upon the international monitors a better
standard of conduct in their own monitoring of elections in the future. If
all election monitors cannot do a better job than we saw, it will diminish
the credibility of the role that international election monitors can play in
the future. -30-
----------------------------------------------------------------------
FOOTNOTE: This was no further information with the above e-mail
sent from Washington, D.C. on November 8, 2004. Another "NEWS
ALERT-Ukrainian Presidential Election 2004" e-mail sent by the same
firm in Washington, D.C. on Thursday, November 18, 2004 included
the following, "This material is distributed by DBC Public Relations
Experts on behalf of Viktor F. Yanukovych, candidate for the office of
President of Ukraine. Additional information is on file with the
Department of Justice, Washington, District of Columbia." -30-
========================================================
ACTION UKRAINE REPORT-04, No.224: ARTICLE NUMBER SIX
Additional names for the distribution list are always welcome
========================================================
6. "'VOTELESS' SITUATION. THE AUTHORITIES HAVE CHEATED
VOTERS IN THE FIRST ROUND OF THE ELECTIONS.
WILL IT BE (DIS) CONTINUED?"
Lesya Voloshka, Ukrayina Moloda, Kiev, in Ukrainian 10 Nov 04; p 6
BBC Monitoring Service,UK, in English, Thu, Nov 11, 2004
KIEV - The Ukrainian pro-opposition paper Ukrayina Moloda describes
various methods of illegal voting and rigging allegedly used in the first
round of the Ukrainian presidential election on 31 October. These range
from voting by groups travelling around the regions and multiple voting to
pressure from lecturers on students to make sure they vote for the 'correct'
candidate.
The following is the text of the article by Lesya Voloshka entitled
"'Voteless' situation. The authorities have cheated voters in the first
round of the elections. Will it be (dis) continued?" published by the
Ukrayina Moloda paper on 10 November, p.6; original subheadings
retained:
Two-and-a-half years ago, during the 2002 parliamentary elections, I was
an observer at a constituency in Lviv Region. I remember my notepad full
of angry brief notes like: "Polling station number so-and-so. [Electoral
bloc] For United Ukraine!.. (this meant that a billboard advertising the
"united" block was standing in front of the polling station on election
day).
Or, as I wrote, "polling station in village N. Information on candidates..."
(in its turn this could be interpreted as an absence of information on the
participants in the race). At that moment, things of this kind generated
indignation as a typical example of neglect for the letter of the law. All
this now seems to have happened in a different life or at least in a
different country...
The thing is that the signs of the present period are not campaigning
materials unintentionally 'forgotten' in front of a voter, but, for example,
a pack of protocols signed by all members of the local commission which
had been demonstrated by [opposition presidential candidate] Viktor
Yushchenko at a post-electoral rally: anybody's victory can be inserted
there ("even an orangutan", as people used to joke in the times of
[president Leonid] Kuchma and [head of the Central Electoral
Commission Mykhaylo] Ryabets).
The signs of the present period are also almost a kilometre-long queues
to courts to which masses of voters apply to assert their records in the
lists. Actually, the signs of the present period are things which we could
not even have dreamed of in 2002 and which will be described below,
though the detailed register of all unfair and dirty election techniques
applied on 31 [October] is presented here not for the self-consolation
of those cheated by the authorities, but for preparing ourselves for the
new round of the elections. This means a new round of falsifications.
Anyway, Ukrainians are not goats [as stated in public by the prime
minister Viktor Yanukovich], and their leaders are not orangutans.
THIS IS THE WAY THE LISTS WERE TAMPERED WITH
ALONG WITH MISTAKES
The first round of the presidential elections has already produced a
brand-new system of terminology system. Besides 'temnyky' [media
overage instructions allegedly issued by the presidential administration]
which have already lost their gloss of novelty, 'dead souls', 'tourists',
'migrants' have emerged - the words in their new 'situational electoral'
meanings.
The FIRST of them, 'dead souls', is related to the plot which is unlikely to
have been twirled by the late Nikolay Gogol [19th century Russian writer
of Ukrainian origin, author of the novel "Dead Souls"]. This is another
modernist technique of these elections, and in order to understand it
better, let us first focus on the 'eternal' characteristic of the 2004
elections - distorted voters' lists.
The lists contained THREE kinds of irregularities: (1) inclusion of 'dead
souls' into the lists; (2) failure to include the individuals residing on
the territory of this constituency and having the voting right, who for
unknown reason had not been included on the lists; (3) spelling mistakes
in names and surnames which have rendered voting impossible. As the
result of manipulation with the lists, up to 10 per cent of voters have
not managed to vote.
However, there was a certain number of people who managed to make
corrections at the polling stations before the elections or had their names
included on the lists through courts (as we know, courts have considered
42 thousand complaints altogether), but this is a very small number in
comparison to those who had not managed to vote.
Who is responsible for the preparation of voters' lists? The lists are
prepared by the local authorities, to be more precise, by the executive
committees of local councils, and they are the ones who sign voters' lists
and then convey them to territorial electoral commissions. Then the lists
are further conveyed to local commissions, where they should be made
more accurate. The law does not specify the way to make them more
accurate. It is clear that, besides this, commissions have a lot of other
things to do.
Thus, the first global falsification has happened because of the local
authorities. In this case, the source of their information - passport
offices, local housing departments, or elsewhere - is of no importance.
(By the way, local housing departments used to comply quite correct
lists, because the information on municipal utilities payers is received
there, and local officials are consequently aware of all names and
surnames).
"DEAD SOULS"
However, responsibility for the preparation of voters' lists is lifted from
the local authorities before the second round of the elections. All voters'
lists are currently kept packed at the territorial electoral commissions. As
soon as the second round of the elections is announced by the Central
Electoral Commission, territorial electoral commissions immediately take
these lists out and prepare them for the second round taking into account
all the complaints they had received. Those included on the lists through a
decision by a territorial electoral commission or court, automatically
'flow' into new lists.
Of course, those who voted on the basis of off-list coupons are not taken
into account, as no one knows where they will vote for the second time.
This is why the territorial commissions convey the lists to local
commissions again, and they make them more accurate once more. It is
desirable for voters to come there and to see whether they have been
included on the lists and whether their 'clones', or 'dead souls' according
to our new terminology, have been excluded.
Where do the latter originate from? The thing is that when a voter (whose
name was misspelt) was included on the list after the relevant court
decision, his name was written down at the bottom of the list (or was not
written down at all, if a person simply decided to return home and not fight
for his voting right). In any case, another name with mistakes remained in
the list - and this is the way of 'multiplying' the 'dead souls'. Pencil
notes were made in many commissions in cases when a certain name had
been indicated incorrectly, but then it was quite easy to erase such note.
Some time later commission members issued off-list coupons to 'dead
souls'... Experts asked by UM say that pulling bulletins in packs is not an
issue of today any more, 'dead souls' work better. The main point
emphasized by them with regard to this is that new voters' lists will be
available at the commissions on 13 November, and it is necessary to
check them.
THE CANDIDATE IS OUT....THE BULLETIN IS OUT TOO
After the mess with the lists, invalidating ballots has the 'honorary second
position' among violations. There have also been two 'types' of this. For
example, the situation in Volyn, Ivano-Frankivsk and Odessa regions was
like this: certain officials had phoned commissions and said that some
candidates had withdrawn their candidacies. Let us note that the
administrative authorities, but not territorial electoral commissions, were
the ones who communicated this, and in most cases 'misinformation'
concerned [minor presidential candidates Mykhaylo] Brodskyy, [Ihor]
Dushyn and [Mykola] Rohozhynskyy.
Of course, the questions concerning the reasons for the failure to check
the information at the territorial electoral commissions and the immediate
invalidation of almost half of the ballots by putting the stamp "Candidate
is out", should be addressed to commissions. Some polling stations have
managed to invalidate almost all ballots by the morning of 31 [October].
Voters are coming at eight to vote, but there is shortage of 'right'
ballots, and the local commission urgently contacts the Central Electoral
Commission, the Central Electoral Commission starts printing additional
ballots and sends them by air... However, there were certain polling
stations where some voters received uninvalidated ballots, others - the
ones from which Brodskyy and Dushyn had been excluded - got nothing
because no more ballots had remained...
The situation was different when commission members refused to sign
ballots. According to the law, each commission member should sign in the
ballot, but in some cases commission members did not do this. Voters
were unaware of these details, they took ballots without signatures, voted
with them, and then it turned out that such ballots were invalid. There was
2 per cent of unsigned ballots at one polling station in Kiev, and due to
this the proposal was made to recognize the elections as invalid, but we
still do not know whether this initiative was further pursued.
'TOURISTS' AND 'MIGRANTS'
'Tourists' and 'migrants' make a great difference. Those who voted with
off-list coupons and did nothing else during election day, were referred to
in these elections as 'migrants' (there were a lot of 'migrants' in Eastern
and Central Ukraine, especially in Donetsk and Kirovohrad regions).
Meanwhile, 'tourists' are observers, and a lot of them were transported
from the east to the west, allegedly to ensure more transparent elections
in the Western region which supports Yushchenko.
In particular, UM has been told by the Ukrainian Voters' Committee
that it is very difficult to count the total number of 'tourists'. Those who
financed these raids are unknown, but it obviously would have been
impossible to organize them without the consent of [state railway
transportation department] Ukrzaliznytsya.
Large sums of money have been spent for this, but formally this is not a
violation of the law, in this case one can speak only of the excessive
expenditure of Yanukovych's headquarters. There are reports that
'tourists'-observers are now besieging the headquarters of the candidate
backed by the authorities demanding money: timely payments have not
been made to all the observers. Experts note that this action was
unjustified from Yanukovych's side, because immense funds had been
spent, while the effect has turned out to be minimal.
A PEN IN A SLEEVE IS AN OLD TRICK
UM has asked the Voters' Committee about violations of the election
process considered by its observers to be the most exotic ones. For
example, the one with a pen hidden in a sleeve of the commission head,
who used it for making some marks on a ballot, thus invalidating it.
Committee members say: "This is an outdated trick. We are aware of it,
but we have not registered it in these elections. There were numerous
violations of different kind. In this case, it is also necessary to speak
about the cases which happened before voting day. Let us recall the
exclusion of opposition representatives from the commissions.
This phenomenon was very widespread in Kirovohrad, Odessa and
other regions. Decisions of this kind were often adopted without
motivation, there was no quorum, and the majority of them have
already been recognized by the courts as unlawful. But there were
also cases when commission members were excluded just before
the polling stations opened, thus causing delays in the beginning of
their work.
When the polling stations were already closed, problems with counting
votes began. We mean the situation when commission members refuse
to announce the result of the voting. This happened on the grandest scale
in Central Ukraine. There were 'directives' on the number of people
supposed to vote for this or that candidate.
These regions used to be characterized by leftist sympathies; this is why a
low level of support for Viktor Yushchenko was forecast there. But when
commission members saw the number of people there who had actually
voted for Yushchenko, they intentionally began to slow down the count.
Commissions simply sabotaged the count or went away, and there was
no quorum. Actually, this is criminal negligence, barring individuals from
expressing their will, punishable in accordance with the Criminal Code
of Ukraine.
We have also recorded violations of secrecy of voting, the same way as
large-scale pressure on different groups of people. Let us take students.
Those of them who lived in hostels were forced to travel home and take
absentee ballots in order to vote in the sight of the rectors, but not at
home where they cannot be controlled.
The Sumy State Agricultural University is a vivid example: students who
have voted did not fold the ballot papers in half, but showed them unfolded
to their lecturers who were members of local commissions at the same time,
a video recording of which has been made. The same thing happened at
some rural polling stations: heads of village councils controlled the way
people voted. We know of cases of withdrawing voters' passports at village
councils on the eve of the voting - this happened in Cherkassy and other
regions".
OBSERVERS COMPLAIN, THE "CARAVAN" GOES ON
In principle, the violations in the elections (moreover, on an unprecedented
scale) were known long before the closure of the last polling station in
Ukraine at 2000 on 31 October. The whole logic (to be more exact,
'anti-logic') of the election campaign proved that the 2004 race would be
the most miraculous of criminal miracles. For example, let us take students
from Sumy.
Why was their large-scale and public 'rape' with unfolded ballots (from
which civilized foreign observers' hair simply stood on end) recorded on
video, distributed on the Internet, but was not used to recognize the
elections at Sumy polling stations as invalid? And what about cases when the
commission members representing the opposition were simply 'thrown out'
without any legal grounds and local electoral commissions actually became
controlled?
Due to a great number of auxiliary candidates, it was easy for the people
representing the authorities to become commission members in the first
round. The Ukrainian Voters' Committee comments: "The situation in Sumy
was also followed by observers, but the elections there have been conducted
the way they have been conducted. This is why we are now initiating a
`blacklist' of local commission members who violated the law. In instances
in which these violations were insignificant, we shall at least insist on
their expulsion from the commissions, and in other cases we shall insist on
their criminal responsibility.
Unfortunately, the Voters' Committee is not a subject of the electoral
process, which is why we may not address our complaints anywhere. But we
shall mobilize people to check the list to the maximum extent. There will be
TV spots, there will be advertising actions aimed at making voters conduct
mass checks whether they and their relatives are included on the lists. We
are also looking out for voters who had been prevented from voting and who
are now ready to appeal to the courts.
We publish our information, and we are waiting for response... In principle,
the news media must react to media reports, and they must open criminal
cases. Two or three public 'beatings' which we are willing to conduct, will
be quite useful now."
SELECTIVENESS OF THE GENERAL PROSECUTOR'S OFFICE.
NOT FOR THE FIRST TIME
Prosecutor's office remains deaf, blind and mute
The opinion that our [law-enforcement] 'authorities' are obliged to react to
any report about a committed crime is absolutely reasonable, but in reality
this does not get the response which can be expected by the Ukrainian
voters with full rights. As usual, everything depends on the source from
which this information originates. Despite numerous alarm signals from
Yushchenko's headquarters with demands to the General Prosecutor's
Office to open a number of criminal cases on the basis of things which
had happened during the elections, despite numerous cases of drawing
its attention to the situation, particularly in Kirovohrad Region, the
Prosecutor's Office remains deaf, blind and mute. Moreover, it is also
immobile, as if all prosecuting personnel were in a coma or anabiosis.
Instead, the prosecuting authorities are equally actively 'stamping'
criminal cases in the regions which had actively supported Viktor
Yushchenko. According to the press service of the General Prosecutor's
Office, "the Cherkassy regional prosecutor's office has opened a criminal
case containing the traces of the crimes of vote-rigging and bribery, based
on criminal actions by a representative of Yushchenko's headquarters in
Uman district, Cherkassy Region.
The Prosecutor's Office accuses him of giving a bribe to six commission
members at the polling stations of the mentioned constituency aimed at
inclining them to elect Viktor Yushchenko as president. Almost 1,500
hryvnyas was given to 19 commission members. Another case has been
opened against officials and members of electoral commissions 87 and 88
in Ivano-Frankivsk region with regard to counterfeiting electoral documents.
Electoral documents have been counterfeited there by way of reducing the
number of votes in favour of candidate Yanukovych by 100."
Quoting a press release published by Riznytska [street where General
Prosecutor's Office is located] is likely to have no sense. We would like to
conclude with a reminder of the procession organized on 30 October by
priests in Lviv region who visited the heads of all polling stations in
their constituency and asked them to swear on the Bible that they would
not rig the voting results.
I wonder, what would be the reaction of [head of the Central Electoral
Commission] Serhiy Kivalov if he were approached with the similar
request? Or what would the reaction be of [Prosecutor General] Hennadiy
Vasylyev?
And how ready would they be to fulfil the 11th commandment which,
however, is not included in the Holy Writ: Do not cheat thy voter?
However, time will show: less than two weeks are left till the second round
of the elections. -30- [Action Ukraine Report Monitoring Service]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ukrayina Moloda is grateful for the information provided to Oleksandr
Chenenko, the spokesman for the Ukrainian Voters' Committee, along with
Ostap Skrypnyk, executive director of the Ukrainians' Congress in Canada
and coordinator of the foreign observers' group.
The material has been prepared within the framework of the project 'Civic
Society Organizations on the Way to Openness: Joint Strategy' with the
assistance of the News Media Development Fund of the US Embassy in
Ukraine. -30-
=======================================================
ACTION UKRAINE REPORT-04, No.224: ARTICLE NUMBER SEVEN
Suggested articles for publication in the Report are always welcome
========================================================
7. OBSERVING THE UKRAINE ELECTIONS
Letters to the Editor: The Washington Times
From: Former Members of Congress and the European Parliament
The Washington Times, Washington, D.C., Sun, Nov 14, 2004
MIKE KOPETSKI (Oregon Democrat)
ANDREW MAGUIRE (New Jersey Democrat)
JIM SLATTERY (Kansas Democrat)
JOHN CONLAN (Arizona Republican)
LARRY DENARDIS (Connecticut Republican)
JOHN J. RHODES(Arizona Republican)
DON RITTER (Pennsylvania Republican)
DAN MILLER (Florida Republican)
RICHARD BALFE (European Parliament, United Kingdom)
JOSE POSADA (European Parliament, Spain)
MAARTJE VAN PUTTEN (European Parliament, Netherlands)
NOTE: To read the article click on the following link:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20041113-102454-7648r.htm.
The article can also be found in The Action Ukraine Report, No.222,
for Thursday, November 18, 2004, article number nine.
=====================================================
FOOTNOTE: The Ukraine presidential election monitoring program
hosted by the U.S.-Ukraine Foundation [USUF] and the U.S.
Association of Former Members of Congress and funded by the
United States Agency for International Development [USAID] is
bringing a fifth non-partisan delegation to Ukraine to monitor the final
vote in round two on Sunday, November 21, 2004.
The former members of the U.S. Congress include: Congressman
Dennis M. Hertel (D-MI), Congressman Daniel Mica (M-FL),
Senator Larry Pressler (R-SD), Congressman John J. Rhodes
(R-AZ), Congressman Robert Schaffer (R-CO), and Senator
Joseph Tydings (D-MD).
The delegation is not linked to any campaign, candidate or party.
As officially registered election observers, their sole mission is to
promote free, fair and transparent elections in Ukraine.
Any reports issued by the delegation headed up by Congressman
Bob Carr mentioned in several of the articles above or by the
delegation from the U.S. Association of Former Members of
Congress will be published in future editions of The Action
Ukraine Report. [Editor] -30-
======================================================
ACTION UKRAINE REPORT-04, No.224: ARTICLE NUMBER NINE
Suggested articles for publication in the Report are always welcome
======================================================
8. "POLITICIANS ARE NOT CHEAP"
The American delegation, consisting of the ex-Congressmen
and five political campaign consultants
By Vladimir Kravchenko, Zerkalo Nedeli On The WEB, Mirror-Weekly
Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, 13-19 November 2004
NOTE: To read the article click on the following link:
http://www.mirror-weekly.com/ie/show/521/48358/
The article can also be found in The Action Ukraine Report, No.219,
for Wednesday, November 17, 2004, article number nine.
=========================================================
ACTION UKRAINE REPORT-04, No.224: ARTICLE NUMBER NINE
Suggested articles for publication in the Report are always welcome
=========================================================
9. PROMOTING YANUKOVYCH IN WASHINGTON, DC:
OOPS, HE DID IT AGAIN!
By Luba Shara in Washington, Ukrayinska Pravda (UP)
Kyiv, Ukraine, Sunday, November 14, 2004
NOTE: To read the article click on the following link:
http://www2.pravda.com.ua/en/archive/2004/november/10/1.shtml
The article can also be found in The Action Ukraine Report, No.220,
for Wednesday, November 17, 2004, article number ten.
========================================================
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PUBLISHER AND EDITOR
Mr. E. Morgan Williams, Executive Director, Ukrainian Federation of America
(UFA); Coordinator, The Action Ukraine Coalition (AUC);
Senior Advisor, Government Relations, U.S.-Ukraine Foundation (USUF);
Advisor, Ukraine-U.S. Business Council, Washington, D.C.;
Publisher and Editor, www.ArtUkraine.com Information Service (ARTUIS),
P.O. Box 2607, Washington, D.C. 20013,
Tel: 202 437 4707, E-mail: morganw@patriot.net
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