On the eve of elections, the view from Luhansk (03/19/06)

On the eve of elections, the view from Luhansk

by Zenon Zawada
Kyiv Press Bureau

LUHANSK, Ukraine - Viktor Yanukovych didn't falsify the vote. If he did, then Viktor Yushchenko falsified them, too.

And besides, the European Union doesn't want Ukraine to join. And even if it did, Ukrainians are too different to become Europeans.

More than a year after the Orange Revolution, such are the sentiments of residents of Luhansk, Ukraine's easternmost outpost, which will give the Party of the Regions the overwhelming majority of its votes on March 26, when the nation will elect its Parliament.

In a February 26 poll conducted by the citizens activist organization Molod - Nadiya Ukrayiny (Youth - Hope of Ukraine), 69 percent of Luhansk voters will support the Party of the Regions.

"I trust Yanukovych like I trust my father," said Yulia Chaplyna, 20, who added that she doesn't follow politics much. "He wants to build a better future for Ukraine. (Yushchenko's) not doing anything good for Ukraine."

Of 15 Luhansk residents approached by The Weekly's Kyiv bureau, nine said they would vote for the Party of the Regions. Another voter was undecided, but said he was leaning toward the Party of the Regions.

Since the Orange Revolution, Mr. Yanukovych and the Party of the Regions further fortified their position among Luhansk voters, earning their admiration and trust.

Party of the Regions supporters said they fully trust Mr. Yanukovych, believe that he cares about Ukraine's future and, in fact, "it was Mr. Yushchenko and his supporters who falsified the vote," Ms. Chaplyna said.

Anna Honcharenko, 75, echoed that sentiment.

"It was the Orangists who falsified the vote, not Yanukovych," said Ms. Honcharenko, who belongs to an organization of 3,000 pensioners from her factory who, she said, "all want a Yanukovych victory."

She's voting for the Party of the Regions also as a protest against President Yushchenko, whom she blamed for failing to improve the economy.

Both her daughter and granddaughter can't find any work, she said, and they're all living together in one apartment on her pension check.

The Party of the Regions is free of corruption and entanglements in business schemes, which is why 45-year-old Maria Vaschenko said she's supporting them for Parliament.

On top of that, Ms. Vaschenko said she dislikes Mr. Yushchenko's "accent on nationalism." The Donbas region can't accept that, considering that more than 100 nationalities came to Donbas during the Soviet era to work in its mines and factories, she said.

Luhansk voters cannot accept the notion that the Party of the Regions engaged in widespread voting fraud because they genuinely don't believe it to be true, explained Oles Donii, chair of the Kyiv-based Center for Political Values Research and 96th on the Socialist Party's electoral list.

They were faced with a situation in which all their family members and friends unanimously voted for Mr. Yanukovych during the 2004 presidential elections. Therefore, the high vote percentages reported for Mr. Yanukovych made perfect sense to me, Mr. Donii said.

At the same time, the Kyiv-based mass media and government establishment was telling them that they falsified and exaggerated the vote, Mr. Donii said.

Therefore, many Luhansk voters can only conclude that it's the Kyiv authorities and the Orange forces that are the actual liars and vote falsifiers, he said. As a result, a troubling psychological resistance has emerged in the Donbas region against Kyiv, Mr. Donii said.

"In their view, the government didn't need to take part in falsification in Donbas because they all voted for their own guy," he said. "Now there's this problem: even if there's true information coming from Kyiv, they won't believe it because in their view, the news of falsification wasn't true."

Iryna Tsurkan, 47, is a perfect example. She said it was Mr. Yushchenko, not Mr. Yanukovych, who engaged in falsifications.

"Considering the wide circle of acquaintances and co-workers I have, I believe there's no way," she said of the possibility that the Party of the Regions falsified the vote. "That's based on the community I interact in."

When it came to tangible political and economic positions to back their choice to support the Party of the Regions, Luhansk voters were able to name only a handful.

Most often, the subject of pensions, wages, relations with Russia and the Russian language came up.

Some Luhansk voters said the Yushchenko government has failed to increase pensions and salaries, while others said the increases weren't enough to keep up with inflation.

In fact, the Yushchenko government has raised payments to such a degree that even Mr. Yanukovych derided such measures as "populist," blaming the steep increases for causing inflation.

Party of the Regions supporter Tania Igoshena, 19, said she wants all government documents printed in the Russian language, in addition to Ukrainian.

The Russian-Ukrainian language divide is always exploited by Ukrainian politicians during elections, said Vadym Hladchuk, chair of the Molod - Nadiya Ukrainy youth association.

It's one of those inflammatory issues that will mobilize people to vote, he said.

Granting the Russian language official status nationwide simply doesn't have enough support in Ukraine's Parliament, so the issue is exploited for mere political gains, Ukrainian political experts concur.

Ukraine should re-unite with Russia, said Ms. Tsurkan.

She has three brothers and numerous cousins there and, although Ukrainians can freely travel to Russia without a visa, she said the border procedure is too inconvenient. "We wait so long at the border and then we go through all the checks," Ms. Tsurkan said. "It's very unpleasant."

Party of the Regions supporter Maria Rakhmaliov, 29, spent several years working in Spain, but thinks Ukraine is better off keeping its close relations with Russia.

Ukraine's needs are different than Europe's, she said. "At the moment, we're closer to Russia than the West," Ms. Rakhmaliov said. "Our standards are entirely different. How they live won't work for us. We're a northern country and it's colder here. We're very dependent on energy. Look what's going on in this world in terms of energy supply. England has five years left and the U.S. has 25 years."

But Luhansk isn't unanimously for the Party of the Regions.

Anatolii Romanov, 51, said he's supporting Natalia Vitrenko's People's Opposition because she supports closer relations with Russia and government status for the Russian language.

Ms. Vitrenko enjoys relatively strong support in the Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts, bastions of pro-Russian politics.

One Luhansk resident said he was supporting Lytvyn's People's Bloc.

Vitalii Maltsev, 37, said he was supporting the Party of Ecological Rescue because at least they're trying to improve the ecology and protect nature. Mr. Yushchenko's government has not done anything positive in the past year, he said.

Ultimately, however, support for other parties paled in comparison to the immense popularity of the Party of the Regions.

Ms. Tsurkan may have best summed up the reason why Mr. Yanukovych remains so popular in eastern Ukraine, despite being disgraced throughout Ukraine and the rest of the world.

"We trust Yanukovych and we really wanted him to be our president," she said.

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