Transcarpathian Student Opinion “Corrected”

None of the students at Uzhhorod State University dreamed about the students' presidential elections in advance. Then physics and chemistry undergraduates refused to take part, believing that the election results would be fixed. However, the rest did take part: both at Uzhhorod University and the Uzhhorod Institute of Information Sciences, Economics, and Law. Observers also went to Mukacheve's Podillia Commercial Institute. Just in time, as zealous professors had already slipped away with the filled ballot boxes just before the observes came. So this institution was not taken into account during the vote count for want of ballot boxes.

Here are the results in Transcarpathia: 26.4% voted for Yevhen Marchuk, 19.8% for Leonid Kuchma, 13.9% for Oleksandr Moroz, 5.6% for Hennady Udovenko, 5.5% for Natalia Vitrenko, etc. It is worthwhile to have a close look at the latter name, for Ms. Vitrenko ranks second after Mr. Kuchma and before Mr.Marchuk in nationwide public opinion polls. Observer Volodymyr Tyshchenko explains why. In his words, Ms. Vitrenko polled 86 votes, according to the Transcarpathian results but gained another 200 votes, according to the Kyiv version of the same results. The observer muses that a certain person with a soft spot for this region might have just put a 2 before the figure 82, that's all.

Another observer, Larysa Alantieva, is completely convinced: “If the election had gone in all regions the way it did in Transcarpathia, Yevhen Marchuk would have scored an undoubted win. All the young people support him.”

Incidentally, the Kaniv Four accounted for 42.9% of all votes cast.