THE PERFIDIOUS “FORMULA” OF ELECTION
Musing over the presidential election in Ukraine and the crisis the country plunged into in the wake of this election is conducive to making certain generalizations. It seems certain to us that Ukraine was again ascribed the role of the experimental pad for the novel technologies aiming to safeguard the political interests of Russia in this region. This is clearly confirmed by the stance of the official circles of Russia, and primarily President Vladimir Putin, the Russian Parliament as well as official politicians, numerous political technologists, entertainers and others whose participation in our elections is generally perceived as a blatant interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign country.
The scenario of the Ukrainian election was beyond any reasonable doubt orchestrated by the upper echelons of power of the Russian Federation. The prime aim of this recipe was an ostensibly ‘democratic’ election of a very specific presidential contender who will be responsible for alienating Ukraine from Europe and ensuring not only economical but also political control over the whole country on the part of its northern neighbour. If implemented, this scenario would lead to the loss of Ukrainian independence!
In reality
the election was deemed to be going along the Asiatic scheme of transferring
power to the chosen heir instead of the accepted European practice of a
genuinely free choice of their leader by the people. Any justified actions of
the Ukrainian democratic opposition found surprisingly prompt response on the
part of the Russian politicians. This reaction was well-concerted with other
developments in Ukraine. It never failed to go down to the grass-root level. Let
us recollect Yanukovich’ pronouncements concerning double citizenship and the
proposed national status for the Russian language. The prompt Russian reaction
amounted to revoking the previously binding registration of Ukrainian citizens
upon their arrival in Russia.
Another
source of our dismay is the attitude of the official Russian observers who
turned a blind eye on the obvious massive voting irregularities and hurriedly
recognized our elections as conforming to the democratic principles. All the
official Russian mass media revealed a surprising unanimity of opinion as
regards the Ukrainian authorities’ favourite Viktor Yanukovich.
A similar situation was quite visible in the official Ukrainian mass media. Pretending that they were allowing some democracy in the course of the pre-election campaign the authorities did not cut short the oppositional 5th news TV channel. However, they gave consent to relaying the signal only locally and virtually barred it from vast areas of the country. Fortunately, this insignificant concession to impartial journalism proved of paramount significance for Ukrainian democracy.
In the course of the last months the authorities resorted to quite versatile ways of discrediting the national-democratic forces. Only a blind person would have failed to see their cynical vilifying of the democratic presidential rival Viktor Yushchenko. An attempt was made even to poison him.
Still some time before the elections the official Russian mass media did their utmost to forge a myth about the divide between East and West of the country. They even resorted to gluing nazi labels to the opposition. With the aim of discrediting Yushchenko the authorities made use of the services of the so-called technical contenders for Ukrainian presidency.
A monstrous propaganda machine set in motion by the official Ukrainian and Russian mass media fed itself on the recommendations of such political crooks as G. Pavlovsky and M. Helman whose actions were aiming at the rift of the Ukrainian society, at ensuring electoral fraud to the benefit of their favourite Viktor Yanukovich. As they anticipated that tensions could rise quite high a well-known pro-Yanukovich Russian singer Iossiph Kobson was even warning of a “civil war” from his especially concocted musical clips. Such Russian TV talk show hosts as Dmitri Kiselev kept attacking Yushchenko in a base offensive manner even at a time when his life was in real danger after he had been poisoned. Some of the Russian politicians never failed to understand that the prospective national-democratic changes in Ukraine might have a knock-on effect in their own country. That is the reason why Boris Grizlov declared that Yanukovich’s victory should not call for any comment whatsoever. In the words of a more cynical Gleb Pavlovsky ”when we let Ukraine go (and you haven’t misheard it) we will have a similar problem on our hands in a year’s time”.
It is not at all surprising that the events in Ukraine found themselves under a close personal scrutiny of the Russian President. Vladimir Putin visited Ukraine twice on the very eve of the election on an assumed pretext of attending commemorative festivities, demonstrating his personal support for the authorities’ presidential hopeful Yanukovich. Quite surprisingly form the view point of the generally accepted international behaviour the Russian President was quick to congratulate Yanukovich on his counterfeit victory hoping that his example would be followed by other world leaders.
It is quite certain that the Russian political machine was put in motion in order to undermine the strength of the national-democratic forces in Ukraine. This dangerous situation had another major contributor: the incumbent President Leonid Kuchma. As an active perpetrator of the Russian scenario he undoubtedly gave his blessing to the monstrous rigging of the polls by vetoing the law aimed at putting an end to fake ballots
through absentee voting certificates, a considerable share of which was even printed in Russia. Without this really wide-scale fraud even this narrow ‘victory’ for Yanukovich would have been impossible. This is a despicable disrespect of the Ukrainian people! This is trampling over our very soul with dirty boots!
However, the support of the Ukrainian democratic forces that luckily came from the international community and even from the UN Secretary General forced the authorities ‘slow down’ and suspend their drive. Millions of Ukrainians who took to the streets as well as the world wide international recognition of this sacred popular movement cut short the shameful precedents of recognition of this exemplary lie of all times by a meager handful of unpopular regimes. The authorities’ response was predictable: according to the previously adopted scenario they instigated the succession of the eastern regions of the country declaring their willingness to come over to the supremacy of the Russian state. The perpetrators of this scenario are chiefs of the regional administrations of Kharkiv, Donetsk and Luhansk.
With the original scenario failing those responsible are revamping it as they go along.
Russian politicians have again failed to live up to the expectation that they might be good neighbours of the Ukrainian people. The breakaway scenario gained an additional impetus on the part of Moscow’s mayor Yuri Luzhkov visiting Luhansk. This leader is quite notorious for his record of flaring up ethnic tensions outside Russia.
History will give its own assessment to what is happening now. But even our cursory analysis exposes both Russian and our own Ukrainian “champions” of fraud who are now known in all quarters of the globe. Therefore in view of the disruptive actions of Russian politicians and their Svengalis out to undermine the integrity of Ukraine and compromise the sovereign rights of its people, we demand that Yuri Luzhkov, Gleb Pavlovsky, Dmitri Kiselev and other masterminds and perpetrators of this dirty scenario be declared personae non grata.
The latest developments in Ukraine prove that the Ukrainian people have evolved into a single political entity, a nation keenly aware of its national interests.
United we stand – and we’ll fight to the end!
On behalf of the academic community of the Ivan Franko National University in Lviv
Rector
Ivan Vakarchuk