Monitors Urge Ukraine to Clean Up Its Act in Presidential Runoff

As Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich and opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko headed into a presidential runoff election, foreign election observers on Monday declared that the first round of voting fell short of democratic standards and pressed Ukrainian authorities to do better in the next round.

Yanukovich, who has pledged to strengthen Ukraine’s ties with Russia if elected, clung to a slight lead in the official vote count for Sunday’s balloting but will face a Nov. 21 runoff with the Western-leaning Yushchenko.

The Central Election Commission said that with 94% of the votes counted, Yanukovich had 40.1% and Yushchenko had 39.1% in a field of 24 candidates. Neither leading candidate was expected to exceed the 50% to claim a first-round victory.

Socialist Oleksandr Moroz placed third with 6%, while Communist candidate Petro Symonenko came in fourth with 5%. Moroz and most of his supporters appeared likely to back Yushchenko in the runoff; what stance Symonenko might take was not clear.

The Yushchenko campaign had earlier spoken of possible mass protests against feared electoral fraud, but it adopted a wait-and-see attitude to the vote count and the conclusions of an international observer mission that included members from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the Council of Europe and other groups.

“With a heavy heart, we have to conclude that this election did not meet a considerable number of ... standards for democratic elections,” Bruce George, one of the observers’ leaders, said at a news conference. “Consequently, this election process constitutes a step backward from the 2002 [parliamentary] elections.”

About 500 supporters of the local fair-elections group Pora, whose members generally back Yushchenko, gathered peacefully in a central square in Kiev, the capital, on Monday to press their demand for a fair count.

“It’s a protest against falsification of the elections in Ukraine,” said Denis Butkevich, 23, a businessman who attended the rally. He said he did not believe the official tally that showed Yanukovich in the lead.

Lesya Onikijenko, 19, a Pora activist, said the demonstration site was changed from the Central Election Commission because of fears that authorities would organize provocateurs to attack people.

The foreign observers avoided direct comment on the accuracy of the vote count, and instead blasted features of the campaign, such as pro-Yanukovich bias shown by state-run television and other broadcast media. They also criticized government obstruction of opposition activities.

“We call on the authorities, including the Central Election Commission, to address existing deficiencies prior to the second round,” said the OSCE’s Geert Ahrens.

“Ukraine now has three weeks to show that it is willing to organize democratic elections in accordance with its commitments,” added Doros Christo- doulides of the Council of Europe. “The authorities should ensure that both candidates have equal access to and unbiased coverage by the media.”

Christodoulides also called on authorities to “fully respect the provisions of the electoral law and international standards” and to “prosecute to the full extent of the law any violations committed during the first round.”