IT ISN'T EASY BEING FREE
by
Gayle E. Guthrie

Presented to the Chicago Literary Club
January 20, 2003

Copyright © Gayle E. Guthrie, 2003

In 1842 Ukrainian author Nikolai Gogol wrote Dead Souls, a satirical novel about an unscrupulous scoundrel, Pavel Chichikov, who travels Ukraine buying up the death certificates of serfs whose names had appeared in the last census lists. Serfs had monetary value; proof of ownership of enough of them could be mortgaged into large tracts of land. After a series of adventures Chichikov is caught and jailed, but ultimately escapes to settle down as a country gentleman.

Twenty-five years before Gogol, in the territory of Illinois, ambitious trappers and statehood zealots fulfilled the population requirements by gathering the signatures of travelers passing through to Green Bay on residency petitions to turn the Illinois territory into the twenty-first state. In a final coup-de-grace the settlement of Chicago, which up until then had been assumed to be a part of the Wisconsin territory, was arbitrarily added to the Illinois State map by Nathaniel Pope, the territorial delegate from Illinois. Wisconsin may not have noticed, or it may not have cared; nonetheless, the ethical tone was set. What Gogol had envisioned as satire Illinois had put into practice.


It was the opportunity of a lifetime for a political junkie and I am a political junkie. I had been invited to be an Official Election Observer of the 2002 parliamentary elections in Ukraine. Without a breath and only a brief hesitation to confirm that the week that I would be gone coincided with the spring break at the college where I teach, I accepted the offer. The thought of travelling halfway across the world after the September 11th tragedy appalled some of my friends, but it didn't deter me at all. In fact, if I thought about it at all, I felt that Americans should continue to travel internationally just to show that some two-bit, well-financed hate-monger who lived in a cave couldn't stop us. It was a bit grandiose perhaps, but it seemed to me that helping to ensure a democratic election was exactly the right thing to do.

My invitation arose from an off-hand remark I had made when I had traveled to Ukraine in July of 2001 to attend the birthday party of a young man that I had tutored during the previous year. He is from Khmelmytskyy; a town in Midwestern Ukraine and his twentieth birthday (which has the same significance as a 21st birthday in the States) coincided with the beginning of the celebration of the tenth anniversary of Ukraine's freedom. Both his mother and his father are prominent businesspeople in his town and they had arranged to have me picked up at the airport and driven to their home approximately 90 miles outside of Kyiv. During the week preceding the party I was provided with a car and a driver and a translator and shown the sights of their region.

Nothing was hidden from me; I was entertained in apartments that from the outside and the stairwells made Cabrini-Green look inviting, yet the apartments were clean, spacious and decorated with magnificent rugs on the walls and china and crystal to rival the best of the rest of Europe. I dined in restaurants that served delicious food; veroniki (perogi in Polish) borscht and wonderful stews and salads yet, asked patrons to use the outhouse if the need arose. I saw private farms whose owners celebrated the addition of a dozen apple trees that would make them profitable and the formerly collective corporate farms that were in the midst of a wheat harvest that would make ADM and Cargill drool for the yield. Ukraine is wealthy in resources yet its people are the poorest in Europe.

My tour culminated at my student's birthday party. Restaurants are few and far between except in Kyiv and in general, it is rare for a private celebration to be held in public. This was a very public celebration indeed; members of the church hierarchy, both Roman Catholic and Orthodox sent flowers and greetings, even the Mayor and the members of the city council stopped by to honor an prominent businessman by acknowledging the oldest son's birth. It was also the beginning of a month-long celebration of the tenth anniversary of Ukrainian freedom.

Most of the attendees had never met an American before and they were especially interested in my impressions of their country. It was easy to praise the kindness of the people and the bounty of the land, but I was hard- pressed to discuss the politics of Ukraine, as was my translator. Ten years of independence is not long enough to erase a lifetime habit of silence and obfuscation regarding political corruption or legislative decisions. My American habit to be out-spoken is slightly shocking to the former citizens of a Soviet state. Perhaps as a way of keeping their opinions to themselves, or as a way to suggest that I discover the answers to my questions for myself, it was suggested that I return to Ukraine the following March to observe their up-coming elections. I wasn't just being polite when I responded with an enthusiastic "I would love to." But I never expected to get a chance to do it. Cocktail party conversation in the U.S. is generally light and forgotten before the end of the evening; in Ukraine it is remembered.

The largest country completely in Europe, Ukraine is just slightly smaller than Texas. This rich and productive steppe land is almost completely flat with the exception of the Carpathian Mountains that occupy a small area on the western border with Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania. Thus, it offers no natural barriers to conquerors and has been overrun by Turks, Tatars, Scandinavians, Lithuanians, Poles and Russians throughout the centuries. Yet, Ukraine has always maintained a separate ethnic and cultural identity no matter what nation happened to be in power.

In 1648, Cossack Bohdan Khmelnytskyy led a national uprising to free Ukraine from Polish rule. Ukraine was recognized as a sovereign state until 1654 when Khmelnytskyy entered into a protection pact with Muscovy, which almost immediately began to subjugate and incorporate Ukraine into Russia. Fifty years later Ivan Mazepa tried again to form a Ukrainian state, but was defeated in 1709 by Tsar Peter I. After the overthrow of the Tsar in 1917 Ukraine again declared her independence. After a bitter three-way war among the Reds, the Whites and the Ukrainian nationalists, Kyiv became a part of the Soviet Socialist Republic in 1920. To punish the nationalists, the Capital was moved to Kharkiv in Eastern Ukraine and therefore closer to Russia until 1934.

At the same time, the process of Russification began. The Ukrainian language was made illegal, and Ukrainian churches and cathedrals were either closed or destroyed. The Ukrainian intelligentsia were systematically destroyed by Stalin and approximately 8 million Ukrainian peasants were starved to death in a deliberate strategy to force them onto collective farms. World War II brought more destruction. The route through Ukraine was the Nazi path to Stalingrad, in violation of a misbegotten short-lived pact between Ukrainian nationalists who hoped that the Germans would help free Ukraine from Communism. By the time peace was declared Ukraine had lost another 4 million civilians and over 2 million people had been shipped to Nazi concentration camps.

The only encouragement to Ukrainian nationals during most of the twentieth century was the acceptance of Ukraine as a founding member of the United Nations in 1945. This nod to Ukraine is generally seen as a cynical maneuver by Stalin to gain an extra vote of support; to the rest of the world Ukraine was not a "captured nation" as they referred to Latvia, Lithuania or Estonia, but a "buried" nation wholly subsumed by the USSR.

The chaos surrounding the collapse of the Soviet Union opened yet another window of opportunity for Ukraine to declare herself free and she did so on August 24, 1991. The following December, in a 90% voter turn-out (the concept that freedom allows you the right not to vote is still difficult) Ukrainians endorsed independence and chose Leonid Kravchuk as their first democratically elected President. Four years later he was defeated by Leonid Kuchma, who was re-elected in 1999.

Ukraine is the Janis door of Europe. It faces both psychologically and culturally both to the East and to the West. It comes as a shock to most Americans (certainly to me) that the geographical center of Europe is located amidst the Ukrainian Carpathian Mountains. Physically Ukraine is split through the center by the Dnipro River which runs through Kyiv then meanders east and south to Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhya, and finally turns back west until it empties into the Black Sea. More than once in history has the Dnipro River been used as the boundary to determine which Empire controlled which part of Ukraine, Russian, Polish, Austro-Hungarian or Holy Roman. The split between the people that believe that Ukraine should continue to look to Russia for leadership and support and those that want to join with the rest of Europe is roughly analogous to the course of the Dnipro. This split in political philosophies was most apparent during the 2001Parliamentary elections and emotions ran high.

I became aware of the emotional energy surrounding the elections the moment I stepped onto the Ukrainian Airways plane that took me from Amsterdam to Kyiv. Almost the entire passenger cabin was filled with foreign nationals who had volunteered to be members of the Official Election Observation team. I met bureaucrats that served in the French and Belgian governments, a couple of members of the British Parliament, and a few Americans who had observed the elections in Kosovo.

The diversity of the observers heartened me. During the long flight from Chicago to Amsterdam, I had begun to question the wisdom of my decision to be an OEO. How could I properly judge an election for a country in which I could neither speak nor read the language? Since none of the men that I chatted with could speak Ukrainian and only one man on the plane (an American, I am proud to say) was fluent in Russian, I felt a little more confident. "So how do you observe an election without language skills?" I asked. "Just watch," I was told. "Use your eyes fully, trust your instincts and take a camera to document what you see." When they asked me where I was from, it was easy to grin and tell them that I was from Chicago. Just then, the American sitting next to me leaned over and announced "I'm John and I'm from Florida." The rest of the group agreed that we were clearly well prepared to recognize election shenanigans.

After a mix-up at the Kyiv Airport, (I was supposed to go to the VIP lounge, but went to the general deplaning and customs area instead. The signs were only in Ukrainian) Michael Sawkiw, the President of the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America, came out to the airport and personally drove me to the Dnipro Hotel.

Single rooms in Kyiv are clean but small. Not just small, they are tiny; monks would feel cramped. I was only going to stay the night, so I put my coat, computer and camera into the armoire, which filled it. My suitcase overhung the sides of the ladderback chair, and the bed was not built for tossing, never mind rolling over. But the view, oh the view was spectacular. My tall french windows overlooked the Kyiv Philharmonic Hall and the park behind it. The park features a tall, steel rainbow arch that symbolizes the unification of Russia and Ukraine. It popularly called the yoke. The Grecian columns that form the entrance to the sports stadium were visible a little to the left. After a delicious meal in the hotel dining room, I fell asleep to the sounds of the symphony that was presented that night. It more than made up for the size of my room.

Modern Kyiv and the old town around which it is built, is a cross between San Francisco and Paris with the charm of both. The main boulevard, Khreshchatyk, reminds me of the Champs D'Elysee or the Place Vendome. As I strolled to the UCCA headquarters, I passed boutiques for Gucci, Versace, and Dupont. Clearly too expensive for the average Ukrainian, but then, they are too expensive for the average Chicago shopper, too.

After collecting my Official Election Observer credentials, I was taken along with the other election monitors to the Shevchenko National Museum, where we were given a private tour. The artworks were obviously loved and honored, but I worried about the quality of care that they were given.

The UCCA team of 46 OEOs was the largest non-governmental organizational team and it had scored a coup by being allowed to hold a combination press conference and forum for representatives of the 33 registered political parties and blocs. It was a coup for UCCA but a disaster for me. The translators had not arrived and I had no idea who was speaking, what party was represented or what they were espousing. So I took pictorial notes.

The first man to speak had a full crop of silver hair cut in the official political manner with a part and a wave, an expensive suit, and a tie in the colors of the Ukrainian flag; powder blue over yellow, sky over grain. He commanded and received respect and he was never interrupted. He was the only speaker afforded that courtesy. Later I learned that he was Former President Leonid Kravchuk and he represented the SDPU. The mayor of Kyiv also spoke. He had dancing eyes, enjoyed the debate and commented upon or questioned every other representative. I recognized him from the huge poster placed just outside the museum. The representative of Viktor Yushchenko's Our Ukraine Party was immaculately dressed. Yushehenko was running for Prime Minister and is the most Western leaning candidate of the group. His wife was born in the U.S. and privately most of the observers were hoping that he would win resoundingly. The other pro- western party was that of Yulia Tymoshenko. It is called the Beauty Party and is assumed to be backed by the oligarchs that still control much of Ukraine's heavy industry. More than 15 parties or blocs took advantage of the opportunity to present their viewpoint to us.

Like most candidate forums, it quickly devolved into a series of complaints and name-calling. It was generally agreed among the parties not in power that

Election reforms regarding assess to the government controlled mass media, political pressure, and negative ads had been ignored. According to the observers that had been in Ukraine for any length of time, the complainers were correct.

A buffet luncheon was served after the forum. Just as in the States, the less likely a candidate is to win, the more likely he is to stay and eat. The Green Party representative, who could have used a bath, made sure that UCCA didn't have to deal with the problem of leftovers.

The second half of the seminar concentrated on practical information for the election observers. We were to be on the lookout for chain voting, or any obvious ballot box stuffing and if possible we should attend both the opening and the closing of the polling place. This was done in both Ukrainian and English. The information packets and forms were in both languages as well. It sounded like pretty standard stuff to me. The most interesting announcement was that Russia, Belarus and Romania had asked for credentials for teams of election observers. They were being sent in response to what their governments termed the inability of the United States to safeguard its own elections.

I had chosen to monitor the elections in Khmelnitskyy and my summer hosts were kind enough to pick me up at my hotel and drive me to their home. This not only saved me from getting lost on the Ukrainian train system, it allowed me to have a full day to renew acquaintances and simply to rest and get my bearings in a familiar place. We left in the late afternoon, we picnicked in the car and arrived in town around 10 p.m. Khmelnitskyy is reminiscent of Kansas City with an eye to becoming Chicago. It is prosperous and bustling. Located in the center of Western Ukraine, it is where the two main roads of the area cross. In fact, its city symbol is an X, as in X marks the spot. It is surrounded by an ocean of grain .The local economy is driven by agriculture; farmers bring their fruits, vegetables, grain and livestock to Khmelnytskyy for sale and leave with manufactured goods. Someday, I envision a Board of Trade operating a futures market there. Even in the short time since I had been there in July, I noticed more shops, more merchandise and shopkeepers painting and repairing.

UCCA had arranged that I have a car and driver for Election Day; so I met my assigned helper, Vladomyr, for lunch at one of the downtown cafes. Vladomyr brought along his daughter, Lina, in the hope that I would hire her as a translator. This proved a bit awkward since I had already asked Raisa, the lovely woman that had served as my translator when I had visited in July to work with me again. Lena had been a student of Raisa's in high school and while she seemed to be technically perfect, she couldn't seem to grasp that I was looking for nuance and opinion as well as strict translation. Vladomyr ran a small one-person foundation that researched Ukrainian-American relations and had received a grant to help monitor the elections; his daughter was to be paid from this grant as well. After a lot of smiling and verbal fencing, it was most politely agreed that both women would accompany me on election day and that Vladomyr would drive us all. I chose to pay Raisa myself; I trusted her and there was something a bit "off" about my assigned guide.

That issue settled, we all went to the local city hall to get a map of the polling places. Vladomyr made a great show of introducing the American Election Observer (still a novelty) to all of the bureaucrats. He even managed to get them to lend us a table so that we could set up our route for the entire day. In the middle of all the government workers in the clerk's office, the polling places that the American wanted to see were selected. I was beginning to smell a rat.

The polls opened at 8:00 a.m. so I planned to get to my first stop, the polling place nearest my host's home, by 7:30 to watch how they did their set up. Vladomyr and Lina would pick up Raisa and then finally me and we would all drive to the polling place together. It seemed like a reasonably simple plan. We parted ways and I made sure that I carried all the documents, addresses and maps. I may not be able to read the language but I knew that my hosts could help me plan a better, or at least different, route.

Vladomyr and Lina arrived promptly at 7:00 the next morning to drive to the first precinct. Without Raisa. Apparently, she had overslept. I raised an eyebrow at this, but went with them to the planned-upon stop. Just as here, National flags flying out in front of the designated buildings indicate polling places. Electioneering is not allowed with 100 meters of the polling place and the Chicago precinct captain's best friend, the palm card, is not allowed. Lawn signs are simply not done.

Elections are held on the last Sunday in March to allow for greater participation. This year, the last Sunday in March also happened to be "Polish" (or Roman Catholic) Easter Sunday. I had wondered whether this was another subtle election maneuver since Catholic voters, who are concentrated in Western Ukraine, are also strong supporters of the pro-western, anti-government Our Ukraine party of Vicktor Yushchenko. I was assured that it was just an unfortunate coincidence and that Easter or no Easter, the voters that followed the Roman calendar would get to the polls.

The first polling place was in ship-shape order. It was even decorated with banners and vases of flowers on the registration tables. A charming touch, I thought. Voters were lined up in the hallway and were not allowed to vote until 8:00 (the election judge used a stop-watch.) Before the polls opened the election judges made a great show of folding, tying, sealing with wax, and signing the empty cardboard ballot box. There is no question that the box was empty. The problem was not the ballot box; it was the ballots. All seven of them. Every voter received a total of seven ballots, one of which, the ballot for the individuals running for the Supreme Rada, or Parliament, had a total of 72 names all in linear order. The ballot was longer that some voters were tall. This was one instance where ballot position really did make a difference. Another ballot contained the list of all the parties and blocs, a choice of thirty-three organizations. Pick one. The rest of the ballots were for various local and regional elections, such as the county or (oblast) council and the city council.

This sheaf of paperwork was not just difficult to manage; it was impossible. The typical precinct in Khmelnytskyy has approximate 2,500 voters and the average voter turnout is about 85%, or more than 2,100 voters to be processed in a twelve-hour period. Now add this to the mix: the government had provided only two voting booths per polling place. It is a formula for instant chaos. The first polling place was just beginning to show signs of clogging up when Vladomyr suggested that we leave. I had checked all the things that UCCA had specifically requested that I look for, such as: site accessibility, prominently displayed election law posters empty ballot boxes. Nothing was said about the number of voting booths and nobody had calculated the time it would take to wade through all those paper ballots and make a decision.

Raisa arrived just as we were leaving. She had waited at the appointed time, on the appointed corner, but somehow Vladomyr and Lina missed her. So she took one of the few and relatively expensive cabs to catch up with us. I was glad to see her. I was already getting tired of being treated like something between a fool and a trophy. Amid much hugging and kissing and profound apologies on all sides, it was decided that the transportation mix-up was just an unfortunate mishap and that there was never any intent to avoid Raisa. Yeah right.

Already having been caught out regarding Raisa, Vladomyr was not pleased when I suggested that we change our route and stop at one of the polling places on the River Buh. I was beginning to feel that I had stepped back in time and was watching a rerun of the vote count as it was conducted during the 1940's and 1950's in Chicago. River wards are river wards, no matter what the river.

As we pulled up to the instantly selected polling place, I saw a great number of cars and busses parked around the building. This wouldn't have been a surprise in the States, but in Ukraine most people depend on public transportation. I put it down to the familiar U.S. practice of transporting friendly voters to the polls. I was right, but in Ukraine there is an unusual practice for handling absentee voters.

If a voter is not able to vote in his regular precinct, he simply notifies the local election officials sometime before the election. They then draw a line through the voters name on the official sheet of registered voters, and he is then allowed to vote at the polling place that is most convenient. It seems fair in theory, but in practice it is a different story. By giving up the right to vote in one precinct, an unscrupulous voter can cast as many ballots in unfamiliar precincts as he can get to without being noticed. Theoretically, because there is a National Voter Registration, the "outside" voter can be reconciled with his residential precinct after the vote is counted, but the possibility for abuse of the system is tremendous.

The polling place that I had chosen to view combined a number of nearby precincts. It was still two voting booths per precinct, with three full precincts of voters trying to vote. If the single polling place was chaotic, this was volunteer election judge official hell. People didn't know which registration table served with precinct, so recent entrants were walking back and forth, cutting through the lines of people standing in line with their ballots in their hands, trying to find the correct table at which to start. The wait for the few voting booths was so long that people were using any available surface to mark their ballots; the backs of their friends, the corners of the registration tables, windowsills and even the ballot box!

Another Official Election Observer tells the story of one irate voter in Lviv. He went home after he had voted, knocked together another voting booth out of scrap lumber and brought it to the polling place. It took the harried election officials almost an hour to decide that there was no harm to use it. Election law said nothing of the topic.

Smoke and the smell of sausage meat filled the air in many of the polling places. In Ukraine, voting is regarded as a holiday event. It is not unusual to take all of the children with you to watch you cast your ballot and in almost every polling place there is a privately run catering table that provides snacks such as chocolate, sandwiches and drinks, both soft and hard. Generally, these tables are placed in an area outside the official voting area, but when the room is overrun with people, the official and unofficial areas merge.

At another polling place, we met a candidate for the Supreme Rada standing at the theater door shaking hands with the voter as they entered the building. Apparently he knew Vladomyr and who I was, because he immediately moved to the other side of the street when we approached. Vladomyr took my elbow and steered me toward him. We chatted for a while, but as I moved to check out the polling place. I was stopped by the candidate's hand on my shoulder and an invitation to have tea in his private office. I tried to refuse, but Vladomyr and his daughter insisted that to refuse would be an insult. Raisa looked worried, but she could not say anything without being heard by Lena.

It is an old election trick to get the inspectors out of the way long enough to get the precinct put in order, and this was a classic example of it. Yet, I really didn't know how to get out of it. I had no desire to cause an incident and Vladomyr and the candidate were more than insistent. They ignored my noes (I even tried nyet.) Lina suggested that it would be good for U.S.-Ukraine relations. I was being pressured in a language that I do not understand by three very good weedlers. I told them we would join them for only a few minutes. I knew that by the time I had finished tea that the precinct would be running in an efficient manner as possible. I was right, but the tea and cookies were delicious. I checked later and am pleased to report that the candidate did not win his bid for re- election. Apparently, the voters could see through his tactics too.

Around late afternoon, Vladomyr took Lina and the car saying that he had some important business that had to be finished immediately. Since even in Ukraine business is rarely conducted on Sunday, I guessed that I no longer met his needs as a pliant Election Observer who would certify that the election was conducted without incident.

At Raisa's request we went to the school where she teaches so that she could introduce me to he friends and colleagues. It, too, was also being used as a polling place so we chose to observe the poll closing here. At exactly 8:00 p.m. by the clock on the schoolhouse wall, the polls were closed and the doors were locked. All those that could squeeze into the room were allowed to vote but none that arrived later. The final voter received applause from the election workers and observers as he left the voting booth at 9:30 p.m.

Only one old man was left and he was weeping profusely. All day long he said he sat and waited for the travelling voting box to arrive so that his mother could vote. It never came. So he came to the polling place to ask that it be brought to her so that she could die knowing that she had done her civic duty. After a heated discussion and a number of votes among the election workers, it was decided to let the old man's mother cast her ballot. The travelling voting box is another Ukrainian innovation. On the assumption that people in jails, hospitals and the bedridden should not be denied their civil rights, they are allowed to cast their votes on Election Day by asking for the travelling ballot box. This is simply a twist on our absentee ballot, with a somewhat more personal and immediate touch. In another precinct in Khmelnytskyy, a candidate for the local council was clearly running ahead of his opponents when a last minute, oh look what I forgot, travelling box was found with most of the votes supporting the underdog. The underdog ultimately won.

Before the election workers in the schoolhouse moved to do anything, the chief election judge would read the election law aloud. Then they were allowed to proceed. I wondered if this was for my benefit, but it seemed to serve her purpose well. There were few questions and the count moved quickly, efficiently and fairly. There was no cheating in this part of the process as far and I could see. In fact, I admired the people that were up for more than 24 hours hand-counting paper ballots and then recounting them to ensure accuracy.

Former Speaker of the U. S. House Tip O'Neill once said, "Politics ain't beanbag." He was right. It is my opinion that all elections share some very basic similarities. First and most basic is that someone will win and someone will lose. It follows that whoever is up for election will do everything that they can to win. Most of the time candidates do their best within the law; sometimes they don't and sometimes the system messes everybody up. Who would have thought that so much trouble would result from the lack of voting booths? Or by hanging chads? Politics is a blood sport and democracy is messy, sometimes unfair, and always controversial.

Yet no one will argue that it is still the best system we've got.



Bibliography


Hodges, Linda and George Chumak Hippocrene Language and Travel Guide to Ukraine, Third Edition, New York : Hippocrene Books 1994-2000

Longstreet, Stephen Chicago, 1860 1919. New York: David McKay Co., Inc. 1973

Wilson, Andrew The Ukrainians: Unexpected Nation, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000

Warner, Tom "Observers Face Challenge Monitoring Ukraine Poll" Financial Times, March 26, 2002