A highly dubious result

The Economist
Nov 22 2004

>>From The Economist Global Agenda

A huge protest has gathered in Ukraine’s capital amid signs that the
expected winner of its presidential election, Viktor Yushchenko, was
robbed of victory by ballot fraud. Will the authorities crush the
protest or is a revolution—of the “velvet” or the blood-soaked
variety—in prospect?

ACCORDING to the exit polls, Ukraine’s pro-western opposition leader,
Viktor Yushchenko, was heading for clear victory in the final round
of the country’s presidential election, held on Sunday November 21st.
They showed Mr Yushchenko on 54%, compared with 43% for Viktor
Yanukovich, currently Ukraine’s prime minister, whose bid for the
presidency is backed by the outgoing president, Leonid Kuchma, and
Russia’s leader, Vladimir Putin. Yet as voting continued overnight,
the opposition leader’s apparent walkover somehow turned into a
narrow win for the official candidate. On Monday, the Ukrainian
electoral commission said that, with over 99% of votes counted, Mr
Yanukovich had an unassailable lead of almost three points.

Ukraine’s election
Nov 19th 2004
Ukraine’s presidential election
Nov 4th 2004
Ukraine, Belarus and Russia
Oct 28th 2004
Ukraine’s presidential election
Oct 28th 2004
Ukraine’s presidential vote
Aug 12th 2004

Russia, Ukraine

The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe reports from
its independent electoral observation mission in Ukraine. The EU
issues statements on the elections and gives information on foreign
relations. See also the US State Department. “Governments on the WWW”
provides a comprehensive resource on the government and politics of
Ukraine, including the previous election results.

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About Global Agenda

Fearing a repeat of the widespread irregularities seen in the first
round of voting last month, thousands of Mr Yushchenko’s supporters,
dressed in orange, his campaign colour, gathered in sub-zero
temperatures in the main square of the capital, Kiev, on Sunday
night. They called on the government to recognise his victory, and by
Monday morning, as the country’s electoral commission began issuing
tallies showing Mr Yanukovich in the lead, their numbers had swollen
to perhaps 50,000. “Remain where you are,” the opposition leader told
his followers, promising that tens of thousands more protesters were
on their way, “on carts, cars, planes and trains”, to demonstrate
against the alleged defrauding of the election. Many protesters began
to pitch tents along Kiev’s main avenue. “Our action is only
beginning,” said Mr Yushchenko. By the evening, their numbers were
said to have risen above 100,000.

Western observers immediately denounced the election. Senator Richard
Lugar, a Republican sent by President George Bush to monitor voting,
accused the Ukrainian government of supporting a “concerted and
forceful programme of election-day fraud and abuse”. The European
Union said all 25 member countries would be summoning their Ukrainian
ambassadors to register a formal protest. But Mr Yanukovich’s
campaign manager, Serhiy Tyhypko, insisted that his man had won,
arguing that the exit polls were not reliable. Mr Putin congratulated
Mr Yanukovich on his victory.

All through the campaign, Ukraine’s news media have been highly
skewed towards Mr Yanukovich, barely giving the opposition leader a
mention. Ahead of the first round of voting, the official candidate’s
supporters were accused of intimidating electoral officials to try to
swing the vote his way. Mr Yushchenko even accused them of being
behind an attempt to poison him, which has left his face bloated and
scarred. In Sunday’s run-off, suspicions centred on possible
fraudulent multiple voting in the Russian-speaking east of the
country, where support for Mr Yanukovich is strongest. According to
the official electoral figures, turnouts there were implausibly high,
at up to 96%.

Mr Yanukovich had some strong cards to play in the election campaign:
he recently awarded big increases in pensions and public-sector pay;
and the Ukrainian economy is booming, helped by a bumper grain
harvest and rising exports of steel and chemicals. Nevertheless, even
some in Mr Yanukovich’s eastern power base have grown sick of his
regime and the oligarchic business clans that prop it up.

Foreign observers have been taking a close interest in Ukraine’s
election, not just because it is one of eastern Europe’s largest
countries, with 49m people, but because the outcome could have
important consequences for the whole region. Mr Yushchenko presented
himself as a pro-western, free-market reformer who will seek
membership of the EU and the American-led NATO defence alliance,
while cleaning up corruption and enforcing the rule of law. Mr
Yanukovich, in contrast, stood for deepening Ukraine’s close links
with Russia. If Mr Yushchenko had gained the presidency and led
Ukraine towards becoming a westernised democracy with European-style
prosperity, voters in Russia and elsewhere in eastern Europe might
have begun to demand the same.

A win by Mr Yushchenko would have been a huge blow to Mr Putin, who
twice visited Ukraine during the election campaign to back Mr
Yanukovich (while denying this was the purpose of his trips). The
Russian president’s attempts to exert control over former Soviet
states would be greatly diminished if the second-largest of them were
to escape from his grip and join the West.

So what now? Much depends on the determination of Mr Yushchenko’s
supporters. Already, there is talk of a general strike. The city
councils of Kiev and another big city, Lviv, have refused to
recognise the official result of the election. Will there now be a
crescendo of protests and civil disobedience until they reach a point
where Mr Yanukovich has no option but to step aside? After all,
something rather similar happened last year in another former Soviet
state, Georgia, where people power forced its then president, Edward
Shevardnadze, to resign following dodgy parliamentary elections.

Mr Shevardnadze was forced to quit after it became doubtful if
Georgia’s armed forces would obey any order to crush the protesters.
The question is whether Ukraine’s security forces would react in the
same way: on Monday night, they issued a statement promising that any
lawlessness would be put down “quickly and firmly”.

Though Mr Yushchenko is now hoping for a Georgian-style bloodless
revolution, there are also some less promising precedents among the
former Soviet states: only two months ago, Belarus’s president,
Alexander Lukashenka, “won” a rigged referendum to allow him to run
for re-election. The EU is said to be planning to tighten its
sanctions against his government but so far there is no sign that he
will be dislodged from power. Azerbaijan and Armenia both held flawed
elections last year: in Azerbaijan, there were riots after the son of
the incumbent president won amid widespread intimidation and bribery,
but these were violently put down; and in Armenia, voters reacted
with quiet despair at the re-election of their president amid reports
of ballot-stuffing. If Ukraine follows these precedents, hopes for
change there will be dashed.

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