Financial Times (London, England) November 22, 2004 Monday

Copyright 2004 The Financial Times Limited Financial Times (London, England)

November 22, 2004 Monday
Europe Edition 1

SECTION: EUROPE; Pg. 2
HEADLINE: Ukraine poll fraud claims occupy observers
BYLINE: By STEFAN WAGSTYL

Police officers in body armour guard the polling station in the voluminous entrance hall of the Ukrainian tax administration's national college in the small town of Irpin near Kiev.

But they pay little attention to the alleged wrong-doings happening around them. Inside the hall, Yevhen Zhovtyak, the local member of parliament who supports the opposition candidate Viktor Yushchenko, is complaining bitterly about alleged ballot-rigging by the college authorities. Outside, one of the tyres of his car is slashed. Meanwhile, former US senator Joe Tydings and former congressman Dan Mica, working as international election observers, are trying to establish who is doing what to whom.

The national college, which has 6,000 resident students, is as good a place as any to try to spot election fraud. Petro Melnyk, the dean, made headlines a few days ago when a television station showed him putting pressure on students to support Viktor Yanukovich, the prime minister and government candidate. Speaking at the college yesterday, Mr Zhovtyak accused college officials of putting pressure on students to surrender their blank voting slips and receive in their stead slips marked for Mr Yanukovich. Mr Zhovtyak said the blank slips could then also be marked and cast in Mr Yanukovich's favour.

On hearing these allegations, Mr Tydings and Mr Mica marched out of the entrance hall and across the campus to the dean's office. The external doors were locked.

Guards inside and outside the building ignored the two Americans' efforts to gain their attention. Mr Tydings said: "We cannot stop everything. But we do what we can."

Later, a pro-Yushchenko student said college officials this week increased their efforts to secure support for Mr Yanukovich. Classes were repeatedly disrupted by assemblies in which Mr Melnik and other officials urged students to make "the right choice".