Nov 2 news from Boston Globe regarding Ukraine election
GLOBE EDITORIAL
The choice in Ukraine
November 2, 2004
AMERICANS anticipating a close presidential election and anxious about the legitimacy of the outcome might consider Sunday's inconclusive presidential vote in Ukraine, a nation of 48 million people whose geopolitical perch between Europe and Russia makes it the ultimate battleground state.
All the perils of an unfair election process were on display in Ukraine. The corrupt, authoritarian regime of the outgoing president, Leonid Kuchma, intervened flagrantly in favor of Kuchma's protege, Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich. The state-controlled media tilted against the reformist challenger, Viktor Yushchenko, in a way that Fox News could only envy. And Russia's President Vladimir Putin backed Yanukovich blatantly.
On Thursday, newscasts on state-guided television repeatedly showed Yanukovich on a reviewing stand alongside Putin and Kuchma, observing a military parade of 8,000 troops in Kiev who were supposed to be commemorating the day 60 years ago when the last soldier of the Third Reich was driven out of Ukraine. Ukrainian voters were expected to forget that in previous years the commemorative holiday they celebrated was for the liberation of Kiev from the Nazis, and it fell on Nov. 6.
As for the vote itself, a spokesman for the 600-member electoral observer mission representing the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the European Union, the Council of Europe, and NATO lamented that the election "did not meet a considerable number" of its standards. Beyond the tilting of media coverage and the obstruction of opposition activities, the observers reported manipulation of voter lists to disqualify qualified voters and voter intimidation in some regions.
It is crucial that the election of a new president for Ukraine meet the standards of the established democracies, and not merely because clean elections are a virtue unto themselves. When Ukrainians go to the polls for a Nov. 21 runoff election between Yanukovich and Yushchenko, they will have a chance to choose between a European-leaning reform program and perpetuation of a crony capitalism modeled on Putin's Russia.
A free and fair second round of voting in three weeks would likely mean that a majority of Ukrainians will opt for Yushchenko's promise of ending Kuchma's corruption and rejecting the Putin prescription for an authoritarian state that remains anchored in Russia's sphere of influence. The Kremlin has meddled blatantly in Ukraine's politics because of fears that a victory for Yushchenko's European option in Ukraine might have a domino effect on other reformist movements in other former Soviet republics. Ukrainians will be better off -- and so, eventually, will Russians -- if a free and fair election allows them to ally their destiny with the European community of democracies.
© Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company.
