Ukraine voters ready to accept ‘lesser evil' Yanukovich

A mood of resignation settled on Kiev on Monday, the city that five years ago fizzed with protest against a rigged election won by Viktor Yanukovich, now Ukraine's president-in-waiting.

The beefy ex-mechanic narrowly won Sunday's election thanks to the votes of Ukraine's Russian-speaking industrial east and the frustration of the European-friendly west with a revolution turned sour.

Fiery revolutionary and glamorous prime minister, Yulia Tymoshenko, was silent on Monday, ignoring a call by international election monitors to accept defeat and shake hands with the victor.

But there was no sign of the street demonstrations that met Yanukovich's last victory in 2004, when tens of thousands braved sub-zero temperatures on Independence Square to protest the fraud of a sleazy post-Soviet establishment.

The euphoria of 2004 quickly turned to disappointment with the paralyzing infighting of Orange Revolution co-architects Ms. Tymoshenko and Viktor Yushchenko, the man swept to the presidency but who proved ineffective and out of touch.

The tandem proved incapable of governing through an economic crisis that saw no improvement in living standards.

“The expectations of the people were not met,” said 72-year-old pensioner Olexiy Onash. “Many people have lost faith in what was once good.”

Like others in snow-bound Kiev, he admitted voting reluctantly for Ms. Tymoshenko out of no personal affection for the former gas tycoon but a visceral distaste for Mr. Yanukovich, a rough-hewn 59-year-old from the hard-scrabble mining region of Donetsk in the east.

“I wasn't going to vote for anyone, then I saw those drunken idiots from Donetsk, and I thought if it's him (Yanukovich), then everything will be terrible,” said Onash. “There was no option. I picked the lesser evil.”

Like Ms. Tymoshenko, Mr. Yanukovich says he wants integration with Europe. But he is seen as closer to Moscow, and was tagged the Kremlin's stooge in 2004.

Ms. Tymoshenko won 65 per cent of votes in the capital against 26 per cent for Mr. Yanukovich. But tellingly, more than 8 per cent voted against both, an option in Ukrainian elections. The election again exposed Ukraine's deep divide.

Ukrainians of Kiev harbour particular disappointment in Mr. Yushchenko, who came a humiliating fifth in the first round of the election in January.

“Our president made big mistakes. He's smart, and a good president, but he found power difficult,” said musician Ihor Rudy, 38. “Some people are probably angry that nothing got better for them,” he said. “I'm for a new generation of politicians.”

There was no talk of replaying the Orange Revolution.

“I'm sorry, but you can't have a revolution every five years,” said 28-year-old law graduate Svitlana.

“In five years, maybe those people who were for Yushchenko are disappointed in those leaders. Now, maybe the other half of Ukraine will face disappointment with the reign of Yanukovich.”

Source:theglobeandmail.com/

Ukraine: so farewell, then, Princess Leia

It looks as if Yulia Tymoshenko has lost the Ukraine presidential election. Her supporters are joined in their distress by newspaper production staff the world over. Rather like the French president’s wife who is used to illustrate anything faintly Gallic in every paper every day, Mrs Tymoshenko’s Princess Leia hair and pleasant female countenance made her stand out among the rugged, potato-faced eastern European villains. (I am paraphrasing the thoughts of British newspaper staff here.)

But how on earth are newspapers to illustrate their stories from now on? I am predicting even fewer articles than the already meagre quota, all with picture captions like: “Yulia Tymoshenko (above) still lives in Ukraine, a country whose president yesterday said…”

Moving on, I hope she does concede gracefully at a press conference on Tuesday. Ukraine needs to move swiftly forwards from its ugly election campaign. The new president, Viktor Yanukovich, needs to crack on with a spending clampdown in order to restore the flow of emergency IMF funds to his beleaguered economy. He hasn’t shown much appetite for that so far, promising instead to raise the standard of living everywhere, but I am assuming that campaign promises will soon give way to reality.

We in other countries need this geopolitically important place, central to the West’s energy security, to put divisive and destructive politics behind it. The West has rather neglected Ukraine recently – it’s hard to do business with a country riven with corruption and whose political class is so childlishly at war with itself. In the process we have allowed Russia to pull the strings more skilfully. The Kremlin was going to win whichever of the two presidential candidiates prevailed – no one talks in Ukraine any more of joining Nato and its Orange Revolution that promised to tilt the country westwards is a distant memory.

Source:blogs.telegraph.co.uk/

Ukraine Vote Begins With Uncertainty About Election Process

The presidential vote in Ukraine opened amid uncertainty over the election laws. Distrust between candidates Yulia Tymoshenko and Viktor Yanukovych has led to doubts about the electoral process.

Four days before voting started Sunday, Viktor Yanukovych's Regions Party in Parliament managed to pass a controversial amendment to Ukraine's election law. The measure allows a local election precinct to open even if it lacks a quorum of commission members representing both candidates.

Serhiy Davydych is a commissioner representing Mr. Yanukovych at Precinct Number Eight in Kyiv.

Davydych says there was need to avoid the possibility of special moves by several commission members who could disrupt the election if they failed to show up.

In other words, Yanukovych supporters feared Ms. Tymoshenko would withdraw her representatives from precincts where she was weak. Under the previous law, the lack of a quorum would have prevented the opening of a precinct, thus depriving those registered there of a vote.

Ms. Tymoshenko's representative at the precinct, Volodymyr Rykhlik, says international election observers would make it difficult to carry out such a scheme. Rykhlik's concern is changing election rules so late in the game.

He says any law needs to be verified, reviewed and tried out in practice. He notes that other government laws are studied by commissions, publicized and then released in an official publication.

The head of the Council of Europe's observer delegation, Hungarian lawmaker Matyas Eorsi, says that Ukrainian politicians seem to play with the rules rather than playing by the rules. He cautions that sudden rule changes undermine voter confidence and violate a general principle of election law.

"According to the principle, no country should change the law one year prior to the elections," said Eorsi. "And in our [Ukrainian] case, it was not only a last minute amendment, but between the two rounds. This is totally unacceptable by any international standard."

The observer delegation from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) has urged the losing candidate to accept defeat. But Volodymyr Rykhlik and Serhiy Davydych say Yulia Tymoshenko and Viktor Yanukovych do not know how to lose, and could dispute election results in court or on the streets.

Prime Minister Tmyoshenko and Mr. Yanukovych were the top finishers in last month's preliminary round of voting in the race to replace the current president, Viktor Yushchenko. The campaign has been marked by smears and there are fears that supporters of the loser could protest on the street.

Source:voanews.com/