REFLECTIONS OF ELECTION OBSERVERS: This was only the beginning (02/13/05)

REFLECTIONS OF ELECTION OBSERVERS

This was only the beginning

by Stefan Kaczaraj

As our plane flew over the Atlantic, I visualized the cities of Ukraine, now in the heat of the presidential election, and Kyiv's orange-bedecked Independence Square. I had been deeply moved by the accounts of the Orange Revolution that I had read in Svoboda and The Ukrainian Weekly, and now I was preparing to become a part of this human wave. But I wondered: How would they look upon me, a foreigner, a Ukrainian from the United States, who would be serving as an election monitor?

At the Kyiv office of the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America I learned that I had been assigned to Kirovohrad. During the campaign and in the first two rounds of the presidential election, it had not been peaceful in this city. The local authorities supported the current prime minister, Viktor Yanukovych, and had gone as far as to suppress the opposition press. ...

Upon arrival in Kirovohrad, I went to the bazaar to purchase some bread, kovbasa, cheese and water. I was immediately recognized as a foreigner and this elicited great interest on the part of the people I met. My interlocutors spoke with me in Ukrainian. And what was notable was that the people around me easily switched from Russian to Ukrainian, depending on whom they were speaking with. From conversations at the bazaar I learned that the territory here was supportive of Viktor Yushchenko. The people were tired of corruption and cheating; they wanted to live like the people do in the rest of Europe.

In Kirovohrad my co-monitor, Helena Schultz, and I spent most of our time at Precinct No. 12, but we also visited Precinct Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 10. We were among the more than 30 election observers who were assigned to Kirovohrad.

[You can read more about our experiences at the polling places in Ms. Schultz's account on the preceding page.]

... We finished our work as monitors at almost 4 a.m. and headed for the hotel. Being in a strange city, we lost our way and decided to ask a trio of young men who were walking down the street. We barely finished asking directions to our hotel on Karl Marx Street when the young men started chanting: "Yush-chen-ko!" Then they showed us the way. ...

After returning to Kyiv I went to the now famous tent city and spent some time in the tents. I remembered how Kyivans had taken care of the tent city and its inhabitants. In the tents it was warm, there was food. We heard Ukrainian carols everywhere. Although the results of the election were not yet known, on the maidan there was a calm expectation of victory. ...

On the last night of 2004 I was invited to spend the evening with a couple from Kyiv whom my wife and I have known for many years. After dinner we headed for the maidan, which was so full of people that it was not possible to even come near the main stage. So we stood back, but we saw everything on the huge screen: speeches were delivered by Viktor Yushchenko, Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, Oleksander Moroz, Yulia Tymoshenko. Everyone around us was in a good mood; everyone was sharing treats and champagne.

It was not my first time in Kyiv, but it was the first time that I felt that I was among my people in my dear Ukraine. Until then I had known Kyiv only as a Ukrainian city, but had not felt at home there. Now everything had changed. We sang, we talked with so many people. At about 2 a.m. I walked down the Khreschatyk toward the Bessarabka to Lesia Ukrainka Boulevard, where my hotel was located. Everywhere there were groups of people who were inviting others to join them in a toast, in caroling. The atmosphere was of one united Ukrainian family - although everyone understood that this was just the beginning and that much work lay ahead.

Stefan Kaczaraj is president of the Ukrainian National Association. He traveled to Ukraine as an election observer with the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America.

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