THE NEW SOVIET UNION : Fledgling Politicians Get American Election Tips

Mikola Khorbal would have been much more impressive if he had taped his suit jacket to the seat of his pants.

But for someone unschooled in the tricks of the television trade, the former political prisoner, now active in the Ukrainian independence movement, did fairly well in his first on-camera interview.

“It happens often that your jacket will crease, riding up on your shoulders as you lean forward to talk,” explained John B. Roberts II, a Washington media consultant helping neophyte Soviet politicians brush up their voter appeal.

“Professional television people will often tape their jackets to their pants,” Roberts noted, eliciting a chorus of giggles from his seminar students. Perhaps alluding to the usual shortage of adhesives in the Soviet Union, he added, “What you can do is just pull the tail of the jacket down and sit on it.”

Looking the part of the natty, blow-dried professional he sought to enhance in others, Roberts joined a battery of American campaign experts this weekend in teaching Soviet and Baltic candidates some of the secrets of getting elected.

The two-day seminar was organized by the Washington-based National Republican Institute for International Affairs to pass along tips on image-building and message development that the nascent opposition movements will need at the polls.

The session, offered free of charge to 85 political party activists, also was an attempt to make a fair fight of the budding democrats’ challenge of those trained with the considerable resources of the Communist Party.

“We tend to go into countries where there has been traditionally only one party and attempt to simultaneously strengthen the new parties and to make the election more competitive,” Roberts explained.

After lectures on such basics as voter canvassing and public opinion polling, a dozen of the participants were asked questions in a mock television interview.

“Good hands!” Roberts said, as the videotape showed Sallija Benfelde of the Latvian People’s Front with her hands casually clasped to the side of her lap. “Hand movement can look very exaggerated on television. If you’re nervous with your hands, the viewer will notice it.”

Ivars Redisons, another Latvian with aspirations to high office, looked positively presidential in his film clip. He gazed sincerely into the camera lens as he explained why his party would be the best choice for the advance of democracy. But, the experts told him, it is best to look at the interviewer while answering his or her questions.

“Eye contact is very important,” Roberts said. “When we meet people on the street and can’t get them to look us in the eye, we are suspicious. We think that something is wrong. It’s the same on television.”

Andrus Villem, a member of the Estonian Parliament, was lauded for his dark blue suit, the color considered by the experts to be the most photogenic. The participants were warned about white shirts and their propensity to “flare” under the searing camera lights.

“This was a good lesson for us. We need to prepare if we are going to be successful,” said Benfelde, assistant to the president of the Latvian democratic movement. “This was helpful because the best way to learn is through your mistakes.”

Some of the participants need that know-how soon because the pressure of elections is already bearing down upon them.

Khorbal, with the problem of the hunching jacket, has to prep his candidate for the Ukrainian presidential election to be held Dec. 1. The Ukrainian Republican Party advocates swift independence for the Soviet Union’s second-most-populous republic, an issue that will also be put to the voters in December.

Supporters of secession, such as Khorbal and URP presidential candidate Lev Lukanyenko, were considered enemies of the people until Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s reforms took hold only a few years ago.

Both Khorbal and Lukanyenko spent most of their adult lives in prison, only to emerge all the more determined to lead their republic out of the political quagmire of one-party rule.

It is just such underdog activism that the Americans set out to help.

“What we discovered during two hours of discussion on polling was that we need to get them thinking about the basics,” said Katherine Dickey, the NRIIA’s regional program officer who helped organize the Moscow session. “We found we had to first explain the importance of presentation and message development.”