With the parliamentary elections just around the corner, we can only confirm the prophetic words of Leonid Kuchma, who said that the 2004 presidential campaign would be the dirtiest one in the entire history of contemporary Ukraine. Our vocabulary has been enriched with such disparaging words and notions as “tampered lists,” “bribing and intimidation of voters,” “rigging,” “merry-go-round” (busing of absentee voters), “skinheads,” “black PR,” etc. It is rather difficult to track down the masterminds and financiers of dirty practices, but it is very easy to come across rank-and-file perpetrators: they live and work next door. One such “undercover agent” agreed to be interviewed anonymously. He hopes that his “expertise” will be useful in future elections, and no one needs exposed agents.
“So, how did you become a falsifier?”
“I’ve been working on elections for a long time. This is a nice opportunity to make money without great effort. I earned enough to buy a house during one campaign and enough to buy a car during another. I was hired by some highly placed officials. They said, ‘You’re sitting around anyway, but here you will earn a pretty penny.’ They had me meet some people. I only work for pro-governmental forces and the henchman of shadow oligarchs: this reduces the risk of being exposed and charged. In the 2002 parliamentary elections, too, there were reams of fake ballots thrown into boxes and buses carrying absentee voters from station to station, but tight secrecy prevented any information leaks about rigging.”
“Do you work for money or out of conviction?”
“Money is the main ideology. Kyiv and the affluent regions are crawling with provincials who promote themselves as self-styled spin masters. These are genuine crooks, who know how to approach criminal and political bosses, financial and industrial bigwigs. I always wonder at their ability to sweet-talk such giants and convince them that they will manage to draw them into politics. The main argument is: I’ve got everything tied up there; I have a tight grip on the local government. They also exploit the economic backwardness of an area as an additional trump card. They say: look, the industry has ground to a halt; farming has touched rock bottom; the population is unemployed. So people will vote for anybody in return for twenty hryvnias or so, modest gifts or concerts featuring third-rate ‘stars.’ In some cases, they fleece the potential candidate well before the elections to such a degree that he sells the shady spin master to somebody else. The more neglected a constituency is, the more ‘heavyweights’ run for a seat there.”
“Don’t you sympathize at all with your candidates?”
“Do you know who hates a well-heeled contender the most? His own campaign managers! If you want to hear the latest joke about a candidate or some spicy details about his life, just ask his associates. They’ll sling as much mud as they can!”
“How did the general public react to your activities?”
“People utterly despised us. Whenever we collected a crowd for a concert or a TV call-in, the ‘Orange people’ would successfully recruit observers and district commission members from this gathering. Sometimes the one on stage would be hyping Yanukovych, while the audience was chanting ‘Yush-chen-ko!’ People defended their views. If we’d had at least one sincere supporter, as Yushchenko’s team had, the results could have been a bit different. But all they did was grab money.
“Public opinion polls showed that everybody was sure that the elections would be rigged. I also thought that the administrative resource would have the final say. No matter whom you canvass or vote for, the bosses will put on the heat, and the ‘right’ candidate will obtain the required result. This was common knowledge, so the promotion campaign was aimed at laundering money, not attracting votes.”
“What was your job then?”
“If there had been a writer with us, he would have accumulated enough material to write several adventure novels! When I collected signatures for a candidate, I had to say that I represent the opposition candidate — otherwise, nobody would agree to sign. Then I had to tell barefaced lies and intimidate people, telling them that if they voted for Yushchenko, they would be left without electricity and gas, that nobody would give them a tractor to plow the vegetable garden. I promised that the pro-governmental candidate would pave the roads and equip their houses with gas-stoves, and everybody would be rolling in clover.
“I also played on religious feelings. I went from door to door and plaintively asked people to vote for ‘God’s-chosen,’ Yanukovych. This made a special impression and even inspired awe in old country women, who are already thinking about eternity.
“As for young people, I used material stimuli. I printed out so-called certificates of trust stating that if Yanukovych won, you could go to the bank and receive 1,000 hryvnias. How many certificates were there? I didn’t count. I kept about a hundred as a souvenir.
“But the result was dismal, of course. The pro-governmental candidate polled 18% in the oblast — enough to make a cat laugh.
“We couldn’t even find anyone to paint Yushchenko’s campaign posters black and had to turn to Mykolayiv for help. As for those from eastern Ukraine, it was very upsetting to see that many of them were people of characteristic criminal appearance, who would hang around swigging vodka in bars and waiting for instructions. Surprisingly, they spoke contemptuously about our common boss.”
“Why was there almost no rigging in the rerun?”
“It was obvious to everyone that Yushchenko was winning. Besides, voters were more resolute. Word has it that at every polling station there were strong men armed with awls to puncture the tires of the ‘touring buses.’ They also had knives, axes, air pistols, gas sprayers, and plain old sticks to defend themselves with; they had flashlights in case of a power outage. They also provided reliable escorts to district electoral commissions. Maybe we were too scared, but we preferred to lie low. The official campaign managers ran away: nobody wanted to be held responsible. I don’t consider Yanukovych’s debacle as my personal defeat. I carried out concrete orders and received a fee. I also showed that I was a good executor and a skilled organizer. There’s nothing personal about this kind of business. I didn’t even vote — too many other things to do.”
