- Title: UKRAINE: UKRAINIANS VOTE IN COUNTRY'S PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS
- Date: 31st October 1999
- Summary: KIEV, UKRAINE (OCTOBER 31, 1999)(REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 1. MV EXTERIOR POLLING STATION 0.05 2. CU POLLING STATION CLOCK 0.09 3. MV POLLING STATION DOORS OPEN 0.18 4. WS INTERIOR POLLING STATION 0.24 5. VARIOUS VOTERS REGISTERING TO VOTE 0.29 6. SV'S VARIOUS VOTING (2 SHOTS) 0.39 7. SLV'S EXTERIOR POLLING STATION, SOLDIERS ARRIVING TO VOTE (2 SHOTS) 0.48 8. VARIOUS SOLDIERS VOTING (2 SHOTS) 1.01 9. LV EXTERIOR SCHOOL POLLING STATION 1.04 10. SV PRIME MINISTER LEONID KUCHMA ARRIVES TO VOTE 1.09 11. SV PRIME MINISTER KUCHMA VOTING 1.19 12. SV MEDIA 1.21 13. SCU SOUNDBITE (Russian) LEONID KUCHMA SAYING: "The campaigning for this election has gone beyond all the bounds of decency.I voted for a better life, for Ukraine to continue its present course. There can be minor deviations but the strategic course should remain unchanged." 1.57 KNYAZHNICHI, UKRAINE (OCTOBER 31, 1999) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 14. LV MAN WALKING WITH COW ACROSS FIELD 2.01 15. LV'S VILLAGE POLLING STATION/ VILLAGERS GATHER, SHAKE HANDS, GREET ONE ANOTHER OUTSIDE POLLING STATION (2 SHOTS) 2.08 16. MV INTERIOR POLLING STATION/ VARIOUS OF VILLAGERS REGISTERING/ CASTING BALLOTS (2 SHOTS) 2.21 KIEV, UKRAINE (OCTOBER 31, 1999) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 17. SV COMMUNIST PARTY CANDIDATE PETRO SYMONENKO WITH SUPPORTERS AT POLLING, CASTING HIS VOTE STATION 2.42 18. SV SOCIALIST PARTY CANDIDATE OLEXANDER MOROZ WITH SUPPORTERS AT POLLING STATION, CASTING HIS VOTE 2.49 19. VARIOUS OF PEOPLE VOTING (2 SHOTS) 2.58 20. LV/PAN EXTERIOR OF POLLING STATION (2 SHOTS) 3.10 21. VARIOUS OF VOTING AT MENTAL INSTITUTION (4 SHOTS) 3.34 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
- Embargoed: 15th November 1999 12:00
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- Location: KIEV AND KNYAZHICHI, UKRAINE
- Country: Ukraine
- Reuters ID: LVA7GUHF5IXQW593FNOJJ99RXBCB
- Story Text: Ukraine's nearly 38 million voters have been voting in
presidential elections amid deep disenchantment with
post-Soviet reforms and wide social rifts in the mostly
agricultural nation.
All three of Ukraine's main presidential hopefuls
appeared confident of victory as they cast ballots in an
election on Sunday (October 31) that will test the public mood
after years of economic decline.
But the challengers also complained of a dirty election
campaign and doubted that the results would be honest.
Incumbent Leonid Kuchma, the favourite to win a second
five-year term in a field of 13 candidates, was relaxed and
smiling as he voted at a school in central Kiev.
"I voted for a better life, for Ukraine to continue its
present course," he told reporters."There can be minor
deviations but the strategic course should remain unchanged.
When asked about possible defeat, he said: "I don't see this
as a tragedy and I am ready for any turn of events...I have
never clung to power and I am not going to do that," he said,
adding that he hoped the first round would be decisive.
"The presidential marathon which has been unfolding in
Ukraine has broken through all limits of morality and to
continue it would be bad for society," he said, referring to
pre-election mud-slinging and dirty tricks."
Kuchma's main challengers, Communist Party leader Petro
Symonenko and radical leftist Natalya Vitrenko, blame market
reforms for ruining the economy, impoverishing the people and
allowing corruption to flourish.
As they cast their ballots, they were optimistic but
doubted whether the vote would be fair.
Symonenko and Vitrenko are expected to pick up votes from
elderly people disgruntled with reforms that have led to
widespread hardship and nostalgic for the stability and
welfare guarantees of the Soviet past.
If Kuchma wins but fails to get more than 50 per cent of
the votes cast, he will have to face the second-placed
candidate in a runoff which will probably take place on
November 14.
Communist candidate Petro Symonenko, one of the leading
presidential hopefuls, has attracted large crowds and loud
cheers in rural Ukraine by promising to take back the
limousines and privatised factories from Ukraine's nouveau
riche concentrated in the city regions.
Other leading left-wing candidates have also sought to
capitalise on the disenchantment and the feeling that only a
corrupt few are being let in on the good life.
But moderate President Leonid Kuchma is hoping to push
through a victory in the first round by appealing across the
regions and social classes of Ukraine as the only candidate of
peace and stability.
Kuchma has said that there can be no going back to the
past, and has asked Ukrainians from all walks of life to
choose not just their next president, but the fate of the
nation.
As voter turnout continued to be active in the second half
of the day, more and more Ukrainians were making their own
answer to that appeal, an answer that the world should find
out sometime on Monday (November 1) morning.
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