RPCV Trey Aven, dean of design and technology for McIntosh College, headed to Ukraine this week for the Sunday run-off between Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych and opposition presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko
Educator, former congressman to observe Ukraine election
By Associated Press
DOVER, N.H. - Among the New Hampshire observers at the upcoming Ukrainian election will be an educator who used to live in the Eastern European country and a former congressman.
Trey Aven, dean of design and technology for McIntosh College, headed to Ukraine this week for the Sunday run-off between Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych and opposition presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko. Dick Swett, former New Hampshire congressman and ambassador to Denmark, will observing the polls, too.
Aven lived in Kiev in the late 1980s and the mid-1990s. He signed up to be an observer when he learned that the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America, a New York-based nonprofit organization representing interests of Ukrainian immigrants, was looking to dispatch a delegation of international observers.
"I thought that would be something nice to do for Christmas," Aven said.
Aven, who also has served as a business adviser for the Peace Corps in the former Soviet Union, is scheduled to arrive in East Kiev on Christmas Eve and stay with a family he knows. He said he has friends on both sides of issues affecting the election and that keeps him impartial.
The Ukraine Supreme Court ordered the election after voiding results from the original runoff on Nov. 21 and revoking the victory of Yanukovych. The court cited massive fraud.
Following the Nov. 21 election, thousands of voters protested possible irregularities and demanded a rematch. Over the past few weeks, news programs have frequently shown footage of Yushchenko, whose face was deformed from a dioxin poisoning during the campaign.
Aven said many Ukrainians consider the election as one of the most important ones in their lifetime. Yushchenko is a reformer friendly to Western allies while Yanukovych is backed by Moscow.
Many Ukrainians want the country to have its own identity, Aven said. He said Yanukovych even compared the significance of the upcoming election to the one of the tearing down of the Berlin Wall.
"How can I not go to something like that?" Aven said.
Swett will meet with 19 other former members of Congress, including a few from Massachusetts and Vermont. They'll be joined by 20 former members of the European parliament, and then split into teams of three: One American, one European and one translator. They'll watch for ballot box stuffing, repeat voting or voter coercion.
First on Swett's agenda is a meeting with each candidate.
"I'm most curious to get a sense of the individuals, how they view the previous election," Swett said. "I'm interested in understanding what kind of control they have over their party apparatus and the people who are operating at the balloting locations."
Swett, who was sifting through a thick training packet on Tuesday, said poll watchers have to be scrupulously objective. Even their wardrobe must be bland, because specific colors are associated with each political party. Yushchenko's supporters, for example, drape themselves in orange.
Swett says he's already picked out a nice, long coat for the job.
"I'm going to be wearing that, hopefully with lots of long underwear," he said.
