Huge protests over a “stolen” election
The Economist, UK
Nov 23 2004
Nov 23rd 2004
>>From The Economist Global Agenda
Up to 200,000 Ukrainians have protested outside an emergency session
of their parliament, at which the expected winner of the country’s
presidential election, Viktor Yushchenko, said he was robbed of
victory by ballot fraud. The country is now on the brink of a
conflict, he says.
HUGE columns of protesters, perhaps 200,000-strong in all, marched on
the parliament in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, on Tuesday November
23rd, as it held an emergency session to debate the deeply suspect
official results of the presidential election, whose final round was
held two days earlier. Leading the protest was Ukraine’s pro-western
opposition leader, Viktor Yushchenko, for whom exit polls had
predicted a comfortable win. Instead, the country’s electoral
commission announced that the winner, by a margin of three percentage
points, was Viktor Yanukovich, currently Ukraine’s prime minister,
who was backed by both the outgoing president, Leonid Kuchma, and
Russia’s leader, Vladimir Putin. America, the European Union and
other international observers have denounced the election as a fraud,
while an official Russian observer said it was “legitimate”.
The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe reports from
its independent electoral observation mission in Ukraine. The Kremlin
publishes press releases from President Putin.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 previous election results.
Inside the chamber, Mr Yushchenko accused Mr Yanukovich and Mr Kuchma
of electoral fraud and warned them that, as a result, the country was
now “on the brink of civil conflict”. Asserting that he was the
rightful election winner, he declared the presidential oath, with his
hand on a bible, before opening a window to address the crowds.
Outside, among the sea of blue-and-yellow Ukrainian flags, and
banners in Mr Yushchenko’s campaign colour, orange, were a few in the
red-and-white colours of Georgia, another former Soviet republic.
This was the protesters’ reminder that Tuesday was the first
anniversary of Georgia’s non-violent “rose revolution”, when huge
popular demonstrations forced the country’s then president, Edward
Shevardnadze, to resign following dubious parliamentary elections.
Could Ukraine be about to undergo its own, peaceful “orange”
revolution, rather like Georgia’s–or one stained blood-red? Mr
Kuchma, having kept silent since polling day, issued a statement on
Tuesday night urging talks between the two candidates and warning
that criticisms by western countries risked worsening the situation.
Mr Putin, who had earlier congratulated Mr Yanukovich on his
“victory”, called on both candidates to act within the law. The
parliament’s emergency session ended inconclusively, after Mr
Yanukovich’s supporters boycotted the debate to ensure there was no
quorum for any binding decisions.
What happens now depends on several factors. First, the magnitude of
Ukrainians’ reaction to the dubious election result. As the protest
began to gather strength on Monday, Mr Yushchenko warned: “Our action
is only beginning.” There has been talk of a general strike and the
local authorities in Kiev and several other large cities have
declared their refusal to recognise the official results. Around 20
middle-ranking Ukrainian diplomats, in missions in America, Germany
and other countries, have signed a document denouncing the results.
A second important factor is how Ukraine’s security forces react to
the protests. On Monday, they issued a statement promising that any
lawlessness would be put down “quickly and firmly”. But in Georgia’s
revolution last year, Mr Shevardnadze bowed to the inevitable and
stepped down after it had begun to look doubtful if his security
forces would obey any order to crush the rising pro-democracy
protests.
International pressure may also have a significant effect on the
outcome. 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 White House has talked of punitive measures against
Ukraine if the irregularities are not investigated. The EU has said
all 25 member countries would summon their Ukrainian ambassadors to
register formal protests. Russia’s attitude will be at least as
important: towards the climax of the Georgian revolution, Mr Putin
seemed to lose patience with Mr Shevardnadze, perhaps contributing to
his downfall. Does the Russian leader’s even-handed call for both
candidates to obey the law suggest he is already hedging his bets?
All along, both Russia and the West 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 would
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.
Thus 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. 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.
Though Mr Yushchenko is now hoping for a Georgian-style bloodless
revolution to deliver him the presidency, 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 decided this
week to tighten its sanctions against those in his government it
blames for the “fraudulent” ballot. But so far there is no sign that
Mr Lukashenka will be dislodged from power.
Azerbaijan and Armenia also 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, and in other parts of the former Soviet Union, may be
dashed.