UCCA's "Voice Your Vote" program focuses on Ukrainian voter's concerns (04/02/06)

UCCA's "Voice Your Vote" program focuses on Ukrainian voter's concerns

by Khristina Lew

KYIV - They may have been slightly older in age in the industrial heartland of the country, but their concerns for the future were the same whether they hailed from Zaporizhia or Lviv. Voters across Ukraine told representatives of political parties and blocs at town hall meetings organized by the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America (UCCA) in the weeks leading up the March 26 parliamentary elections that they worry about social security benefits, housing, medical care and unemployment.

They were also wary of the new parliamentarians' immunity from criminal charges, claiming that Ukraine's new Parliament will be "filled with bandits." "How do you propose fighting corruption when deputies have immunity?" asked one voter in Lviv. "What kind of accountability can there be?" asked another in Zaporizhia.

The rising rates of cancer and heart disease also concerned voters in both cities. Zaporizhians live in one of the most industrialized cities in Ukraine, and Lviv's former "green zones," in which many sanatoriums are located, are now polluted.

The town hall meetings in Zaporizhia on March 16 and in Lviv on March 18 were part of the 10-city "Voice Your Vote" election program funded by the National Endowment for Democracy. Additional town halls were held in Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv and Odesa on March 10; Ternopil on March 12; Poltava on March 16; Kirovohrad on March 17; and Kyiv on March 23.

The UCCA popularized the town hall concept in Ukraine, having run similar election programs during the 1998 parliamentary elections and the 2004 presidential elections. Since its first town hall meeting, the UCCA has reached over 20,000 voters.

The UCCA's town hall format gives each political party and bloc equal time before the electorate in any given city, and encourages an exchange of ideas and responsibilities between voters and representatives of parties and blocs. Voters are given an opportunity to address representatives directly with their questions, and the most interesting questions are awarded a prize donated by the UCCA.

For the 2006 parliamentary elections, the UCCA invited all 45 registered political parties and blocs to participate in "Voice Your Vote." Thirty-nine parties and blocs took part in the program nationwide, including the larger Our Ukraine bloc, the Party of the Regions and the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc, as well as the smaller Pora Reforms and Order Party citizens' bloc, Lytvyn's People's Bloc and the Politics of Putin Party.

Voters in Lviv were particularly incensed by the Not So! (Ne Tak!) bloc's position on granting the Russian language official status in Ukraine. At that town hall meeting, voters challenged Not So! representative Andrii Karpinskyi's assertion that a Ukraine with two languages was similar to Switzerland with three official languages or Belgium with two. "We are one nation and do not need to speak two languages," said one voter.

The UCCA is an international community-based organization registered as a not for profit, 501 (c) (3) entity. It has been conducting civic education programs in Ukraine since 1994.

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