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Press conference of Oleksandr Zinchenko in Kharkov

16.11.2004   
Evhen Zakharov, the Kharkov group for human rights protection
On 13 August the press conference of Oleksandr Zinchenko, a deputy of the Head of the Supreme Rada of Ukraine, head of the election headquarters of “Our Ukraine”, was held in the Kharkov regional headquarters. The press conference mainly consisted of the monologue of Mr. Zinchenko, who tried to give as much as possible information about the campaign of Viktor Yushchenko, about the basic positions of his program and about the pressure put upon the entire Yushchenko’s team, from the candidate to presidency to common agitators. Zinchenko was speaking very quickly and vigorously, he was inspired and verbose, but his speech was interesting and saturated with ideas and facts. It is a pity, but only a small group of journalists listened to him – such monologue deserved to be transmitted in TV or radio air.

Zinchenko told that the headquarters planned to organize the calculation of the results of voting at the electoral stations, in order to obtain the results of the election as early as at the night just after the voting. For that the work is planned of about 165 thousand members of election commissions and observers at more than 33 thousand of electoral stations. The large-scale exit-poll is going to be conducted: 50 thousand respondents throughout Ukraine. The thorough research for checking of the lists of voters will be carried out with the aim to prevent the use of the “dead souls”. The special group of deputies looks for the solution of the problem of voting by the Ukrainians, who work abroad, and the number of such people is about 7 million.

Unemployment is one of the most serious problems in Ukraine, now its level is about 20%. So, one of the main tasks of Yushchenko’s team is the creation of 5 million of workplaces; this index should become the basis in the assessment of the activities of the executive power officials. The Zinchenko gave an example: the real plan of development of the Kharkov aircraft enterprise, which would produce scores of airplanes AH-140; this plan is grounded on the cooperation with Russian “Aeroflot”. The distinct program also exists of the work on state order.

Zinchenko revealed the sources of the election campaign of V. Yanukovich: according to his words, this is the illegal privatization of the giants of Ukrainian industry, such as Krivoy Rog metallurgical plant, and the concealed budget means got at the expense of decreasing the minimal salary from 237 to 205 hryvnas. This money is planned to be spent for guaranteeing the victory of Yanukovich by giving the bribe to citizens in September in the form of increase of pensions and salaries, which had to be increased anyway.

O. Zinchenko also told about the mass violations of the law on election of the President and communicated that the headquarters had handed 92 complaints, thoroughly elaborated and confirmed by documents, to the Central election commission about such violations. He showed the video record, which had been seized from a militia major, who had shadowed Viktor Yushchenko during his vacation. The militiaman observed, with whom Yushchenko communicated, who visited him (the registration numbers of all cars that entered the territory, where Yushchenko rested, were written down in major’s notebook), recorded his talks. Zinchenko remarked that the power transformed militia, prosecutor’s office and tax organs into the tool of political struggle with opposition. At the same time, according to his words, there are many honest militia officers, who refused to fulfill the illegal orders and warned Yushchenko’s headquarters about the planned actions of the power. Zinchenko says that revelation of such methods in a civilized country would be equivalent to Watergate. But not in our country.

A short comment. In my opinion, the explanations given by a deputy of the Minister of Interior in the feature “Same toi” on the TV channel “YT-1”, who told that the secret video recording had been realized for the purpose of guarding of V. Yushchenko, are absurd. The ODA for guarding of high officials may be carried out only by the State department of safety, which was a separate organ of state power earlier, and now is a part of the USS. The Ministry of Interior has no authorities to realize the ODA concerning V. Yushchenko. The mentioned video record evidences that he was an object of operative work, but there were no grounds for such work in this case.

I reckon that the reaction of “Our Ukraine” to such facts as secret supervision and other brutal violations is inadequate. 92 complaints to the Central election commission are not enough, and I doubt that the CEK would consider these complaints quickly and objectively. I believe that “Our Ukraine” ignores such method as handing complaints to court against the illegal activities or passivity of the organs of executive power, organs of local self-government and their officials, although there are very many grounds for such complaints in Ukraine. The courts should be overfilled with such complaints, but nothing of this kind happens. Only the active resistance to the violations, both on the political and legal levels, would be able to reform the election campaign in the Eastern and Western Ukraine, which more and more resembles the fight without observance of rules by one of the rivals.

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