We are living in an election purgatory in the United States. We have a projected winner with the loser determined not to acknowledge the result. Most Americans are confident that the transition to the new administration will be smooth. It's a luxury that we have been afforded after centuries of peaceful elections. However, the robustness of our free and open elections are not something we should flippantly question.
In November of 2004, Ukraine held a runoff election for president. The incumbent president Kuchma, not running due to term limits, threw his support behind Yanukovych. Yes, the same Yanukovych who was later forced to resign as president amid bloody protests in 2014, and employer of Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort. Yuschenko, a pro-Western politician, was Yanukovych's runoff opponent. The election was held 21 November, and had about 75% turnout.
I was oblivious to these facts; I had mailed in my absentee ballot for George W Bush several weeks earlier from the Missionary Training Center in Provo, UT. It was to be my last vote for a winning US presidential candidate for 16 years. Three American companions were with me on the multi-leg flight to Ukraine. We left early in the morning from KSLC, had a brief layover in KORD, and had a long transatlantic haul to EDDF. It was about 4 AM local when we had arrived in Frankfurt, and we were exhausted. We fell asleep at the gate for our final leg, a Lufthansa flight to Kyiv, until jostled awake by the boarding call. In that terminal was the first time I had heard a live native Russian speaker, and my 3 months of Russian study was not quite enough to follow. My heart began racing as we rode the bus to our plane.
As our flight approached Kyiv, we were told to fill out customs declarations, something that I had never done before since I had never traveled internationally. I began rehearsing the lines that I may need to use with the customs agent. Looking out the window, I saw little more than a snow-covered expanse as we touched down. I didn't really anticipate the rural setting of Boryspil Airport (UKBB). After comparing our customs forms with my companions, I approached the customs agent, a surly woman in a military uniform. I summoned up my best zdravstvuyte, which only got a brief glance, as I handed over my passport and form. She asked me a sharp question which I did not understand, and upon seeing my blank expression, she asked simply, "Food?" I shook my head, she stamped my passport, and said, "Go." I entered the airport terminal and froze at the sight of chanting crowds, signs, and orange banners.
The exit polls for the 21 November runoff indicated 5%-11% victory for Yuschenko. The elections commission announced early in the morning of 22 November that Yanukovych had won by a 2.7% margin. Crowds assembled, the overwhelming majority decorated in orange, the color of Yuschenko's political party. They chanted, "Razom nas bahato, nas ne podolati!" (together we are many, we cannot be overcome). They filled Independence Square, "Maidan." The Moscow-backed current Ukrainian government moved to block roads and airports, but failed to prevent the flow of protesters into Kyiv. It also did not stop Lufthansa service between Frankfurt and Boryspil.
The assistants to the mission president, two American rebyata, quickly found us from the tumultuous crowd. They whisked us away and herded us toward baggage claim, where our bags were already waiting for us due to the customs wait. They explained there was "something political" going on and that we had to move fast. It was either the 23rd or 24th of November. They remained remarkably sanguine, even as I was afraid there was going to be violence, gauging the temperature of the crowds. We pushed our luggage into the back of a van and mounted up. It was maybe 3 PM local, and the sun was setting. Our driver, a goofy, wiry Ukrainian (one of many whom I met over my time there), jovially explained, in gloriously accented English, some details of what was going on.
I understood that traffic was worse than usual because there was protesting due to fraud in the presidential election. Our driver also expressed concern that Putin was going to send soldiers to fight them, but in the same breath, he shrugged and said he might not if our president supports the protestors. All I knew was that I didn't want to be caught up in a war the very first day I was in the mission field. We arrived at the mission office, which was off a quiet street in Kyiv, but the echoes of loudspeakers could be heard from Maidan. With a little time to kill, the APs thought it would be fun to show us the metro. It was packed to an incredible degree that I fought down a growing sense of dread as we descended down an incredibly long escalator. The whole crowd waddled in sync; there was no personal space whatsoever as we were firmly packed in against the surrounding bodies. We were told that we'd only travel one stop and reverse direction. I barely got out of the metro train in time, some of my companions got a bonus stop. The APs laughed like it was the funniest thing they ever saw, observing our wide, shell-shocked eyes. I never again saw the metro so crowded.
We met President West, the mission president, who took us to his home a short distance away from the office. There we finally got to sleep in real beds. We were even permitted to sleep in, not that we knew what time it really was. President West informed us that our initiation will be a little unusual given the climate and the timing. We'd stay in town for an extra day and have Thanksgiving with some of the senior missionaries. On the way to my adopted Thanksgiving family, I passed Khreschatyk, were tents and crowds lined the street, singing and chanting. The atmosphere was nearly jubilant, and it felt more like a festival than a political movement. I ate with Canadians, and things seemed fairly...normal from my limited experience. I then met my trainer, who took me on a bus to travel to Bila Tserkva, a small city some 100 km to the south of the city. Things were much calmer there. Then we were told not to wear our nametags. One day, we were told not to leave our apartment. Eventually, these restrictions subsided and I had learned that Yuschenko had become the president; the crisis had ended.
International and domestic observers immediately reported irregularities in the 21 November runoff. Double voting and tabulation inflation skewed the results heavily to Yanukovych. It was predicted that more than 1 million votes were manipulated. Turnout was up sharply in pro-Yanukovych regions. Indiana Senator Richard Lugar observed the voting process and reported a "concerted and forceful program of election day fraud." Tensions rose until 3 December, when the Ukrainian Supreme Court declared the election invalid and ordered a re-run of the runoff election. Yuschenko subsequently won the runoff by nearly an 8 point margin as international observers declared the election to be much fairer.
This is what a fraudulent election looks and feels like. Democracy was a new concept to the fledgling Ukrainian republic, which was holding only its 4th presidential election ever. That the country continues to be yanked around on the geopolitical stage (and even the American political stage) feels offensive to me. The people there are still sharply divided, but nonetheless they feel they should be able to determine their own destiny.
The United States just held its 59th presidential election. Four times, the winner of the most votes did not win the presidency. By design, the United States permits for the possibility for minoritarian rule, a feature that has been gradually eroded over time. Still, many conservatives puff their chests and proclaim they know the best, that the Founders were correct in permitting the majority of Americans to have their will overridden. The fear is that "the majority" will reign tyrannical, suppressing the rights of the minority. What has really happened is that the historical tables have turned; the white property owners of the 18th century are now fewer in number than the descendants of slaves and poor immigrants, who finally succeeded to some degree in reclaiming their rights. What will happen to them now? There appears to be a growing fear that their rights will be abridged by brown people. Rather than find a way to appeal to the brown people they fear, they seek to exploit the features of our nation that make it possible to...suppress the rights of the majority.
We have a sneering Secretary of State who declares that there will be a peaceful transition to a 2nd term for the loser of the electoral and popular votes. We have a lame-duck president who is tweeting from his safe spaces that the election is fraudulent. We actually have foreign observers too, just like there were in Ukraine in 2004. Guess what they say (https://www.oas.org/en/media_center/press_release.asp?sCodigo=S-020/20 and https://www.osce.org/odihr/elections/usa/469437)? Or what about our own federal agency that monitors elections integrity (https://www.cisa.gov/news/2020/11/12/joint-statement-elections-infrastructure-government-coordinating-council-election)? Please, read the reports, but I can save you time by telling you that they all report a secure, proper election has taken place on 3 November 2020. There will be no Orange Revolution this year in America. The era of the Orange man is over. But mark this, when we start going down this path of baselessly alleging fraud in our elections, we are well on our way to the chaos I observed some 16 years ago as a scared 20 year old foreigner.
No comments:
Post a Comment