Political Education Vs. Negative PR

Each new election campaign is becoming tougher than the previous one, Chairman of the Voters of Ukraine Committee Oleksandr Chekmyshev told journalists on July 4. He stressed the danger that the voters whose votes can be crucial for Ukraine’s future will be cheated again and the elections rigged.

In order to stop this, such organizations as the Civil Society Institute, Voters of Ukraine Committee, Democratic Initiatives Foundation, and others have joined forces in a public initiative for honest elections called Your Voice. As President of Democratic Initiatives Ilko Kucheriv declared, many organizations have already accumulated sufficient experience during previous election campaigns which can be used to prevent rigging the election results and manipulating public opinion. However, he continued, the major role has to be played not by NGOs but by individuals. According to the participants of this movement, the basic goal is to secure that candidates are elected in a fair election, not by manipulating public opinion on the eve of the voting.

Still, movement experts express fears that procrastination with the approval of the new election law could leave such problems as rigging the election results and disinformation among the voters not addressed. For this reason, Mr. Cheremyshev says, voters are to be taught how to tell the real goals of candidates from empty promises. Speaking to The Day, he stressed that “voters are to be made aware that their deputy’s performance in parliament is to be measured not by building a sewage system in some collective farm, but, for instance, by reducing taxes or enacting vital economic legislation.”

With this purpose in mind, the Counterpart Creativity Center has come up with a program for training instructors who will implement voter-targeted educational projects. The participants of this public initiative also pledged to submit to the public tentatively in September a draft memorandum for honest elections, which will be offered to representatives of Ukrainian political parties for signing. In addition, parties will be requested to publicize the sizes of their campaign war chests and campaign in a fair, transparent, and honest way.