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Ukraine presidential race ends, tension high

05 February 2010 20:49 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA. Ukraine’s Yulia Tymoshenko and Viktor Yanukovich head into a final clash for the presidency on Sunday, but the prospect of post-election unrest threatens any quick return to stability, analysts say, APA reports quoting Reuters.
Many commentators now predict a narrow victory by Yanukovich over Tymoshenko after a bitter campaign of smears and insults in which each has accused the other of planning electoral fraud.
If the margin of victory is slender on either side on Sunday night, the other camp seems certain to challenge the result.
The fiery, 49-year-old Tymoshenko has threatened to bring people out in protest in a new "Orange Revolution" like that of 2004 which was triggered by a rigged election won by Yanukovich.
Yanukovich, 59, gloating at the prospect of a comeback after being cast as the villain in 2004, laughed off the threat. She was positioning herself for defeat, he said.
A decisive outcome should reset the ex-Soviet republic’s relations with its former imperial master, Russia, which have plummeted under the pro-Western President Viktor Yushchenko, and decide the speed of Ukraine’s path into the European mainstream.
A return to stability, after five years of infighting between the presidency and the prime minister’s office, would help restore investor confidence in the struggling economy, particularly hard hit by the global downturn.
It would also help to get back on track quickly a $16.4 International Monetary Fund bail-out program for the country of 46 million people which has been derailed by Ukraine breaching promises of fiscal restraint.
Challenges to the election result would only delay this.
"The likelihood of a close result creates a high probability that the loser of the race would challenge the outcome in court, delaying the inauguration of the new president," said a Eurasia Group note.
Yanukovich, a rough-hewn ex-mechanic from the Donbass mining region, has a support base in the Russian-speaking industrial east and in the south and is backed by wealthy industrialists and interest groups there.
He had 10 percent more of the votes than his opponent in the first round on January 17. Tymoshenko, a former gas tycoon, is strong in Ukrainian-speaking western regions and in the center, but some commentators doubt that she has managed to win over enough of the floating votes to overtake him.
Yanukovich’s relationship with the Kremlin is not as close now as it was in 2004 when he was tagged a pro-Moscow stooge.
But on Friday, at a meeting with Russia’s new ambassador he made a warm pledge to improve ties, if he was elected president, after the deep chill of the Yushchenko years.
"I am sure that we will be able to tie up a number of agreements in the near future which will be very much in the interests of Ukraine and of Russia," he told Mikhail Zurabov.
EPITAPH
A Yanukovich victory would write an epitaph to the "Orange Revolution" which Yushchenko and Tymoshenko led.
The euphoria of 2004 has evaporated and voters are largely disillusioned over falling living standards, deep corruption and the political squabbles that have paralyzed progress.
A confident, broadly smiling and relaxed Yanukovich waved from a concert stage in a central Kiev square later on Friday, while a somber Tymoshenko prayed for Ukraine’s future in a nearby square only a short distance away.
"The time of reckoning has come," Yanukovich, speaking in Russian, addressed his foes in Tymoshenko’s team. "For all they have done the Ukrainian people will show them the red card, and this red card will make them political pensioners."
The candidates both say they want to integrate with Europe while improving ties with Moscow, though Tymoshenko is seen as more enthusiastic about the EU. Both acknowledge Ukraine’s reliance on IMF support.
But during the campaign Tymoshenko dubbed Yanukovich a "coward" and "puppet" of the oligarchs while he accused her of telling "beautiful lies." An alliance between them after the election is hard to imagine.
If Yanukovich wins, he may find it difficult to form a coalition to oust her from her post of prime minister. Then his only recourse would be to call a snap parliamentary election, further delaying a return to stability.
Tension remained high on Friday in the snow-bound capital of Kiev after Tymkoshenko has threatened to mount another "Orange Revolution" if her opponent tried to cheat.
Her acting interior minister, Yuri Lutsenko, told Interfax-Ukraine news agency that Yanukovich’s Regions Party had brought about 2,000 former defense and security officers into the Kiev region.
But few people believed Tymoshenko, despite her extraordinary powers of oratory, would be able to bring thousands out again onto the streets.
"It will never happen. People do not trust her," said Svitlana Palun, a Kiev office worker in her 30s. "We gave all the power to these two people -- to Yushchenko and to Tymoshenko -- and it was a great, great disappointment because neither of them used their power to do anything for people."