Wed 03 Oct 2007 - Old women rule, in Ukraine

At seven o' clock in the morning of 30 September, an old Ukrainian women comes nordic walking into a polling station near the Sea of Azov. That is to say she needs two walking sticks to climb the stairs to the voting booth. She is nearly blind, so another woman helps her cross the party of her choice on the ballot paper. But when the same helpful lady also wants to drop the ballot in the ballot box, the old woman tears the piece of paper out of her hands. ''I am voting, not you!'' she shouts.

And it is not just the old woman who is keen on voting. Women have complete control of the electoral process in the Ukraine as by far most election officials are women. Often housewives or pensioners, they have time and can use the extra money. Apart from that, hey themselves claim they are simply much better at the paperwork involved than men are. And they are mighty proud of their nicely decorated and clean polling stations.

But the mood turns ugly when the counting of the votes begins. The women, all representing different parties, fight viciousely over every detail of the procedure. That explains why even in a hospital with only 65 votescast, the counting still takes a full three hours. The counting of the ballots in the region takes days, not to speak of the whole country. Any break during the counting is forbidden by law. But even with such tough rules, fraud can not be prevented completely.

In one polling station, the neat stacks of ballot papers in one of the transparant boxes might be an indication of foul play. Ballots dropped in individually can never form such a stack. An old man just outside the polling station is waving a scythe in the air. ''They are stealing our elections'' he shouts ''We should fight them!''.

Democracy is still quite new in a country where for decades you could vote for whatever party you liked, as long as it was the communist party. But if it is up to Ukraine's women and elderly, it's here to stay.

Posted by Pim de Kuijer on 03-10-2007 - 12:53:36