US embassy cable - 04OTTAWA3058

C O N F I D E N T I A L OTTAWA 003058 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/12/2009 
TAGS: CA, EU, PGOV, PHUM, PREL, UP, FAC 
SUBJECT: CANADA: DEMARCHE ON SECOND ROUND OF UKRAINIAN 
ELECTIONS 
 
REF: STATE 240442 
 
Classified By: Minister Political Counselor Brian Flora, reasons 1.4 (b 
) (d) 
 
1. (C) Poloff delivered reftel demarche to FAC Deputy 
Director for Eastern Europe Habib Massoud and Desk Officer 
Claude Demers November 12, the latter of whom recently 
returned from observing the first round of elections in 
Ukraine.  Massoud thanked us for the points and commented 
that we are generally in synch on the key issues.  He did 
note however, that the GOC is somewhat constrained in how 
forceful it can be with Ukraine because of the million strong 
Ukrainian Diaspora living in Canada.  The Ukrainian community 
wants a genuine democratic outcome, but more importantly it 
does not want Canada to curtail relations with Ukraine 
regardless of the outcome.  He said they are heavily 
concentrated in the Alberta region, which the PM has 
identified as a key political target and in fact the Deputy 
PM,s riding is heavily Ukrainian.  When they have an issue, 
&they don,t call me, they call the Minister,8 he said. 
This pressure, Massoud said, tends to moderate any response 
Canada has to electoral irregularities and Canada has 
generally reached the limits of its forcefulness.  Canada has 
issued several statements in the lead up to the vote and 
before the elections will issue an OSCE press statement. 
 
2. (C) That said, Massoud expressed that his department is 
genuinely more optimistic about how the election will turn 
out.  He said they have been surprised there has not been 
more violence and intimidation and believe there may be an 
acceptance on the part of many of the elites and oligarchs 
that Yushchenko is going to win and they will have to work 
with him.  Massoud also wonders if many key supporters of the 
current regime concede that the government has been so 
incompetent in its campaign of intimidation that it has 
simply lost the opportunity to swing the election.  They do 
not want to end up on the wrong side of the new regime. 
Massoud said he was demarched by the Russians recently, who 
said their government is prepared to work with either party; 
he believes they too appear to accept that Yushchenko may be 
the winner and are starting to make their peace with him. 
 
3. (C) Massoud said his department has considered several 
scenarios.  If Yushchenko wins a clear victory things will be 
the simplest.  A more difficult scenario will be if 
Yanukovych wins a clean vote after conducting a dirty 
campaign.  This becomes very problematic in terms of how to 
accept the results.  The third scenario is one in which 
Yanukovych wins, but with a small (5-10 percent) margin which 
is widely recognized to be roughly the number of stolen 
votes.  In the third scenario, and possibly in the second, 
Massoud said he is convinced there will be violence in the 
election,s aftermath. 
 
4. (C) A critical issue for Canada, Massoud added, will be 
the OSCE mission statements after the vote.  They will rely 
heavily on these statements as a declaration of legitimacy 
and will use them to defend their position on the outcome. 
The Government of Canada will be sending 15 long-term and 21 
short-term observers for the second round, and in addition 
three MPs will represent the Parliament and 60 members of the 
Ukrainian-Canadian Congress will observe as an independent 
group.  Massoud described the official delegation as &huge8 
by Canadian standards.  Canada welcomed the news that we 
would be funding an additional 1,000 observers and urged high 
standards in terms of training and credentialing of these 
observers to protect the integrity of the process, which can 
be diluted when there are less well-qualified observers. 
Finally, he said they had heard that the U.S. was considering 
sanctions if the vote is confirmed to be rigged in a 
Yanukovych victory, and wondered what those sanctions might 
entail, in addition to the visa blocks referred to in reftel. 
 
Visit Canada's Classified Web Site at 
http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/wha/ottawa 
 
DICKSON