Alleged Tapes of Vote-Rigging

Friday, November 26, 2004. Page 2.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2004/11/26/015.html
By Simon Saradzhyan

Staff Writer Ukrainian web news portal Ukrains'ka Pravda posted what it claims are transcripts of four telephone conversations between Yury Levenets, PR adviser to Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, and unidentified campaign workers on election day.

The tapes, which the online newspaper says were given to opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko's headquarters by high-ranking law enforcement officials, document alleged collusion on rigging the results of the Nov. 21 election.

In the first reported conversation, Levenets asks who is winning, and an unidentified campaign worker responds that as of 2:30 p.m. their candidate is losing by 1.46 percent, and they agree the vote needs to be rigged so that by 8 p.m. he appears to be winning.

It is not clear which district is being referred to. Nor is it clear how the vote would be rigged. According to the newspaper and Yushchenko's headquarters, the most popular method used by Yanukovych's campaign team was to obtain numerous absentee ballots and then have the same people cast them at several polling stations.

The second taped conversation allegedly features Levenets and another campaign worker, identified by his first name, Valery. The two discuss how results of a nationwide exit poll should be tweaked to give Yanukovych a 3 to 3.5-percentage-point advantage. The third tape allegedly features a brother of Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Klyuyev debating with a campaign worker how to organize fights with students.


The fourth tape allegedly records Levenets being briefed by an unidentified campaign worker on how to invalidate seven protocols from district election commissions to tilt the overall balance in the remaining protocols toward Yanukovych.

The online newspaper also claimed to have received several other tapes from Yushchenko's headquarters, including conversations involving presidential administration chief of staff Viktor Medvedchuk, Central Elections Commission chairman Serhiy Kivalov, and several other senior officials. The conversations were taped from Oct. 30 to Nov. 24 and will be released soon, the paper said.

Myron Wasylyk, a spokesman for Yushchenko's political bloc, confirmed Thursday that the opposition candidate received the tapes from law enforcement officials.

Calls to the prime minister's and President Leonid Kuchma's press services went unanswered Thursday evening. Vladislav Yezhelin, a spokesman for Yanukovych's campaign headquarters, denied any knowledge of the reported tapes.

Leaks of taped phone conversations have been a political weapon of choice in former Soviet republics, but have been especially popular in Ukraine. The opposition used alleged intercepts of conversations between Kuchma and his subordinates in which he vented his anger with the writings of Ukrains'ka Pravda editor Heorhiy Gongadze to strengthen its calls for the president's resignation.

Gongadze was abducted in downtown Kiev in September 2000. His decapitated body was later found buried in a forest outside the capital. His murder triggered months of violent protests against Kuchma, who the opposition alleged was involved in the killing. Kuchma denied the allegations.