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International Relations and Security Network (ISN).
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January 4, 2005
Ukrainian poll not black and white
Contrary to common interpretations of the Ukraine presidential poll as a simple battle between East and West, opposition candidate Viktor Yushchenko is not rejecting Russia in favor of Western integration.
By Ustina Markus for ISN Security Watch
Ustina Markus is a Washington, DC-based international affairs analyst specializing in security issues. She covered the elections for ISN Security Watch in Ukraine from Kiev and other parts of the country.

The rerun of Ukraine’s presidential elections held on 26 December was closely monitored in Ukraine and abroad as an indicator of Ukraine’s political evolution. Following a fraudulent runoff election on 21 November, supporters of opposition candidate Viktor Yushchenko took to the streets, staging massive demonstrations throughout the country. Parliament, which has frequently been at odds with incumbent President Leonid Kuchma, backed Yushchenko, while international observers condemned the election putting pressure on the Supreme Court to seriously review the allegations of fraud. The court agreed that fraud had been widespread and ordered a rerun of the vote. That was widely seen as a victory for the opposition and signaled that the regime was not as entrenched in its totalitarianism as in neighboring Russia and Belarus, where a decision going against the authorities by courts or legislatures is almost unthinkable. Both Russia and Belarus had been declared unfree states by the NGO Freedom House. Had Ukraine joined their ranks it would have been interpreted as an indicator that Western efforts to build democratic institutions in those countries has been a failure. Since popular protests forced Ukraine’s first President Leonid Kravchuk to hold early elections in 1994 the winner of that vote, Kuchma, has steadily clamped down on independent media and continually demanded more power from parliament, ostensibly to push forward with economic reform, but in reality those powers have served to silence opposition. That trend had been seen throughout the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), with Belarus essentially becoming a pariah state in Europe, while Russia finally won the distinction of being “not free” after having had a lively independent media emerge in the mid-1990s, which has since disappeared.

Not a proxy battle between East and West

The rerun election gave Yushchenko a decisive victory over his opponent, Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych. Yet, while Russia and Belarus had rushed to congratulate Yanukovych after the flawed second round, both refrained from extending the same recognition to Yushchenko after the Central Electoral Commission (CEC) announced the election tally on 28 December. On the contrary, Russian President Vladimir Putin was reportedly furious with the result and the so-called meddling by Western powers in the vote. In fact, unlike Putin who openly backed Yanukovych, no Western state backed either candidate. Instead, they called for a fair and free vote vowing to recognize whichever candidate won. In Russia, and in the minds of Yanukovych’s supporters, that was seen as backing Yushchenko. This interpretation of opposition and Western efforts to see a free vote was played up by Yanukovych in his campaign before the rerun vote. It portrayed Yushchenko as rejecting a relationship with Russia in favor of integration with the West and allowing Western powers to dictate developments in Ukraine. An opinion poll published in Den on 29 December found that almost half of Yanukovych’s supporters believed the vote was a choice between an East or West orientation, rather than an issue between interest groups vs. rule of law. While that campaign rhetoric was widely circulated and believed by many, the actual platform of Yushchenko was quite different. Yushchenko does want to improve relations with the West after they cooled following allegations that Kuchma had a hand in the murder of a critical journalist, Heorhiy Gongadze, in 2000; may have allowed arms and technology transfers in Iran; was clamping down on independent media and opposition; and may even have been involved in the poisoning of Yushchenko at the beginning of the presidential race. Yet Yushchenko has not rejected Russia, stating that Moscow remains an important partner and stressing his desire to meet with Putin and reaffirm ties with Russia, albeit on an equal footing with Ukraine’s larger neighbor. His campaign platform focused more on domestic economic reform and fighting corruption and interest clans rather than joining NATO or the EU, which are seen as long term goals and not an imminent development. Western funding also did not figure prominently into his campaign as Russia and Yanukovych suggested. Western funding was directed towards NGOs working with developing democratic institutions in Ukraine and did not go into the coffers of any party or candidate. In fact, Yushchenko denied his campaign was financed by the West but said it was paid for by local sources, with some oligarchs and powerful individuals such as Kiev Mayor Oleksandr Omelchenko backing him, while other oligarchs, notably from the eastern part of the country, backed Yanukovych. It was, therefore, a national struggle between the two contenders and not a proxy battle between East and West.

A choice between interest groups

In contrast to Yanukovych’s supporters, the opinion poll in Den found that 70 per cent of Yushchenko’s supporters saw the election as a choice between interest groups and rule of law, while only 22.7 per cent felt it was an East-West struggle. In general, the perception that it was a tug-of-war between East and West was engendered by Yanukovych’s negative campaign against Yushchenko, which raised issues such as language (an issue that was resolved with the passage of the constitution in 1996 that made Ukrainian the state language but gave official status to other languages), and charged that Yushchenko stood for a complete rejection of Russia in favor of the West. While the west did contribute to pressure to hold a fair election rerun, the race and its outcome was a national matter for Ukrainians, funded by Ukrainian interest groups and its results, if free, would have been recognized by the West regardless of who won. At the time of writing, Yanukovych has refused to accept the results and has lodged a complaint with the CEC charging that over four million voters were disenfranchised because of last-minute changes to the election procedures. Analysts generally do not believe he will prevail and will instead focus his efforts on the 2006 parliamentary elections where he will run for office in his home base of Donetsk and form an opposition party representing the interests of the country’s eastern regions. If he succeeds that would point to a democratic and tolerant political culture within the country and distinguish it from its neighbors Russia and Belarus.

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