DEMOCRACY IN UKRAINE

Don't touch the ballots!

3/23/06

Concluding a long day of briefings in the capital city of Kyiv, I feel like I'm ready to get out into the streets and villages of Ukraine, talk to candidates, election official and voters and start monitoring another election.

Our team spent a long day today in briefings covering all aspects of our election monitoring mission. The IRI has been conducting election-observation missions around the world for years. They've got a very good permanent team on the ground here in Ukraine and they clearly have this monitoring process down to a science.

IRI's Eurasian Division director Stephen Nix, Esq., walked us through many legal complexities of Ukraine's election statutes, but one message screamed out above every other detail when he emphasized, "Whatever you do, don't touch the ballots!"

This is an important directive that succinctly underscores the principle objective of an election monitoring operation. We are here to observe, record and document and nothing else. We are not here to participate, choose sides, advocate or in any way meddle in the national and local decisions Ukrainian citizens will be making for themselves during Sunday's election.

If we only stay alert, ask the right questions and observe, we will help Ukraine achieve its national goals for durable democracy.

For our first hour of our day-long briefing, we got a rundown of the most significant political parties whose party lists will be on the ballot. There are 46 parties vying to get their candidates into Ukraine's Parliament (the Verkhovna Rada). A party needs to get three percent of votes cast to get a member into the Rada.

We next heard from our US Ambassador to Ukraine John Herbst. He commented on some concerns and issues that help prioritize the things we'll be watching for this weekend. I can't go into the specifics of potential issues associated with the balloting process because it is absolutely essential my reports back home don't in any way prejudice or pre-judge IRI's final report. That report must be comprehensive, objective and reflective of the totality of Ukraine's election.

IRI will release a preliminary report sometime next week. A final report will be issued later.

Our team heard from leaders of many of Ukraine's political parties and from a parliamentarian who was the principle author of Ukraine's election law. The law clearly outlines the rights of foreign election observers. For example, we have the right to enter any polling station, the right to ask questions, the right to take photos, video footage and inspect lists and certain documents.

There are Ukrainian election monitoring teams, too. These are commonly activists from the various political parties all keeping an eye on each other and on the process — and even on us outsiders. Under Ukrainian law, they have more rights than foreign observers do. For example, if they raise a complaint, there are response procedures that must be immediately followed to resolve the matter.

We received more details about our small teams into which we will break up tomorrow and begin fanning out throughout the country. My IRI monitoring partner is Mike Getto who runs IRI's operations in Moldova. It turns out he holds a Bachelor's degree in Journalism from CU Boulder. I was introduced to our interpreter, Irena.

Tomorrow, my group heads to the train station. We're taking a train to our monitoring destination Dnipropetrovsk which is eight hours southeast of Kyiv.

Our overall leader of the entire delegation is The Honorable Michael Trend, former Member of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. At dinner tonight, he offered a wonderful toast to the USA, to the IRI team and to everyone working toward the goal of accurate elections in Ukraine.

Fully armed with briefing papers, maps, pre-election polling results, Ukrainian news clips, a notebook full of notes and a train ticket to Dnipropetrovsk, I'm just about ready to turn in for the night. It's 1:25AM here in Kyiv — 4:25 PM in Colorado. Good night.

Former U.S. Congressman Bob Schaffer, a member of the Colorado State Board of Education, is an election observer for the Parliamentary elections in Ukraine. The election is coming up this Sunday, March 26.