Confidentiality Above All, PACE Rapporteurs Decide
Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) special rapporteurs for Ukraine Hanne Severinsen and Renata Wohlwend have surprised us — not with the customary critical remarks about the Ukrainian leadership but with the refusal to admit journalists to most of their meetings, including one with representatives of parliamentary factions. The PACE envoys are themselves to blame.
Their desire to keep the meetings confidential would be quite understandable unless there were a few buts. First, the parliamentary organizers of the meetings do not seem to have even suspected that the PACE envoys might behave this way. Otherwise, the announcements of the rapporteurs’ meetings would have warned that they would be closed- door. Secondly, the closed nature of the meetings does not exactly correspond with PACE’s declared aspiration to promote a favorable climate for the freedom of expression in Ukraine. In their turn, Ukrainian parliament members would have undoubtedly been glad to hit the headlines again.
After Mesdames Severinsen and Wohlwend had two meetings with Communist Party Secretary Valentyn Matvieyev and the Green leader Vitaly Kononov, The Day’s correspondent managed to put several questions to Ms. Severinsen. She immediately confessed to having initiated the closed-door nature of meetings. Consider her arguments. First, Ms. Severinsen referred to the experience of Denmark, her native land, in holding meetings between politicians. She claims this kind of meeting is held without journalists. Secondly, Ms. Severinsen is convinced that the closed-door format of meetings allows opposition politicians “to speak honestly, openly, and more easily” about abuses of power during the elections. “Opposition politicians sometimes find it difficult to discuss certain problems in the presence of journalists,” Ms. Severinsen said to justify her stand. This must be the problem of the Ukrainian opposition.
Mr. Kononov was not exactly delighted with meeting the PACE monitoring mission. He accused the Strasbourg rapporteurs of bias and incorrectness. “They have a long-formed opinion about the elections,” the Green Party leader emphasized. Conversely, Ms. Severinsen, was quite surprised with the Greens’ disappointment, as was she with Mr. Kononov’s failure to explain where he takes money for his election campaign. On the contrary, deputy Communist fraction leader Matvieyev said he was satisfied with meeting the rapporteurs because they noted his claim that the leaders of district electoral commissions predominantly represent the For a United Ukraine and Our Ukraine blocs. Ms. Severinsen promised to raise this point at her March 1 meeting with members of the Central Electoral Commission.
On February 28 the PACE envoys discussed with Verkhovna Rada Vice Speaker Stepan Havrysh the problem of using the administrative resource during the election campaign. In Mr. Havrysh’s opinion, “although the administrative resource is being used, one should not exaggerate its role and conclude that it presents a danger in the 2002 elections.”
Meanwhile, PACE rapporteur Renata Wohlwend had told Radio Liberty shortly earlier that she has no specific information about any violations in the current election campaign. She also said, “Word has it that some candidates have been denied access to the mass media, so we must clear this up during our sojourn in Ukraine.”
