Economist
November 30, 2004 Tuesday
Growing pressure for a fresh vote;
Ukraine’s political crisis
As Ukraine’s supreme court hears the opposition’s accusations of
widespread fraud in the presidential election, pressure is growing
for a new vote to be held-this time, a clean one
Growing pressure for a fresh vote
UKRAINE’S supreme court continued to hear allegations of widespread
fraud in the country’s presidential election on Tuesday November
30th, and its parliament debated a motion to sack the supposed
winner, Victor Yanukovich, from his current job of prime minister.
Meanwhile, the supporters of the pro-western opposition candidate,
Victor Yushchenko, kept up their big street protests. The chances of
a partial or full re-run of the election have continued to grow. On
Monday, the incumbent president, Leonid Kuchma, who had backed Mr
Yanukovich, conceded that a new election might be the best solution
to the country’s deep crisis. On Tuesday, the German government said
that the Russian president, Vladimir Putin-who is the pro-Moscow Mr
Yanukovich’s most important backer-had agreed with Chancellor Gerhard
Schroder that the outcome of any new election would be respected.
Mr Yanukovich himself now says that, if the supreme court upholds the
opposition’s claims of ballot-stuffing in his Russian-speaking
strongholds in the east of the country, he would accept either a
re-run of the election’s second round, just in those regions, or a
completely new election-but with different candidates. He said he
would also be bringing some complaints of his own, about the counting
of votes in Mr Yushchenko’s Ukrainian-speaking strongholds in the
west.
Mr Yushchenko’s supporters had begun to lift their blockades of some
public buildings in the capital, Kiev, but on Tuesday afternoon one
of his aides called for them to be reimposed, with the parliament
being spared to “give it a chance to make a decision” on sacking Mr
Yanukovich. The parliament has already cheered the opposition
supporters by voting to declare invalid the election, in which Mr
Yanukovich supposedly beat his rival by a margin of three percentage
points. Though the parliament does not in fact have the power to
overturn the election, its vote may influence the supreme court’s
decision.
Mr Yanukovich’s hopes of upholding his dubious claim to the
presidency received a further blow on Monday, when one of his most
important aides appeared to jump ship. Serhiy Tyhypko, the governor
of the country’s central bank, who has been doubling up as Mr
Yanukovich’s campaign manager, announced he was quitting both jobs.
Late last week, Mr Kuchma, high-level envoys from the EU and Russia,
and the presidents of Poland and Lithuania held talks with the two
candidates to try to broker a solution. The talks ended with only an
agreement to hold more talks, and a joint renunciation of violence
from the two rivals. The international mediators-including the EU’s
foreign-policy chief, Javier Solana-were due to return to Kiev on
Wednesday for fresh talks. The European Union and America have backed
the opposition leader’s calls for a re-run of the election.
Backers of both sides have continued to raise the stakes. Regional
governments in some of Mr Yanukovich’s eastern strongholds have begun
moves towards declaring autonomy from Kiev if Mr Yushchenko gains the
presidency. Though Mr Yanukovich has distanced himself from these
moves, Mr Putin’s envoy to the crisis talks, Boris Gryzlov, said that
he could see no other outcomes than either the break-up of Ukraine or
bloodshed. On Monday, one of Mr Yushchenko’s closest aides gave Mr
Kuchma 24 hours to sack Mr Yanukovich as prime minister, or they
would press for criminal proceedings against Mr Kuchma and impose a
blockade on his movements.
The opposition’s blockades and both sides’ intransigence threaten to
turn Ukraine’s political crisis into a financial meltdown. On Monday,
Mr Kuchma gave a warning that the country faced financial collapse
“like a house of cards” within days. The next day, to avert a
collapse in the banking system, the central bank imposed restrictions
on withdrawals. Ukrainian bond prices have plummeted.
A rapid and clear decision by the supreme court might bring about a
speedy resolution of the conflict. But the court may still take some
days to arrive at a ruling-and even then, there is no guarantee that
it will come down clearly on one side or the other. Ukraine does not
have much of a tradition of an independent judiciary, though its
supreme court has been known to rule against the authorities.
If Ukraine starts to enjoy western-style human rights and prosperity,
voters in Russia itself might begin to ask why they cannot have the
same
The outcome of the conflict in Ukraine-the second-largest economy in
the former Soviet Union-could affect the fate of the rest of eastern
Europe, including Russia itself. Mr Putin has strongly backed Mr
Yanukovich in the hope of reasserting Moscow’s grip on Russia’s “near
abroad”. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, several of Russia’s
former satellites have broken away to join both the EU and the
American-led NATO defence alliance. Mr Yushchenko proposes that
Ukraine do the same, while his rival has argued for maintaining
strong links with Russia. If Ukraine does now go West, so to speak,
it may trigger similar movements in those remaining bits of the “near
abroad” that still cleave to Moscow. Furthermore, if Ukraine starts
to enjoy western-style human rights and prosperity, voters in Russia
itself might begin to ask why they cannot have the same.
Mr Yushchenko’s supporters hope for a repeat of last year’s “rose
revolution” in Georgia, in which huge but peaceful protests forced
the country’s then president, Edward Shevardnadze, to resign
following dubious parliamentary elections. In the ensuing vote for a
new president, the country’s pro-western opposition leader, Mikhail
Saakashvili, emerged victorious.
However, some less rose-tinted precedents have recently been set by
other 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 last week to tighten its sanctions
against those in his government it blames for the ballot fraud.
Azerbaijan and Armenia also held flawed elections last year, in which
the incumbent regimes stayed in power.
While the turmoil continued in Ukraine at the weekend, presidential
and parliamentary elections were held in Romania-another former
eastern-block country that is seeking to move westwards. The centrist
opposition claims there has been Ukrainian-style ballot-stuffing and
implausibly high turnouts in the strongholds of the governing
ex-communist party, and is demanding a re-run. But, unlike in
Ukraine, international observers declared the election to have been
largely fair (though they did say the reports of irregularities
should be investigated). Also unlike in Ukraine, both of Romania’s
main parties are in favour of their country joining the EU, which is
expected to happen in 2007-long before Ukraine ever might.