Between the Ying and Yang

Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, who came to power on the back of popular protests in 2005, was overwhelmingly voted out of office with just five percent of votes in the first round of the presidential elections. As expected, his Prime Minister and former Orange-revolution partner Yulia Tymoshenko will face a second round run-off against Viktor Yanukovich, the man whose attempts at electoral fraud caused the revolution in 2005. Yanukovich has a narrow lead, but Tymoshenko has a good chance of overtaking him in the February 7 second round.

By Roland Oliphant

Russia Profile

Ukrainians Can Now Choose Between Two Very Different Candidates With Varying Degrees of Political Power

KIEV, Ukraine/ As the first round of voting approached, the intrigue was not who would continue to the second round – countless opinion polls over the preceding months had made that quite clear. The question was rather how big the gap would be between Party of the Regions leader Viktor Yanukovich and Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, and whether the latter could realistically make up the difference.

The general prognosis was for “approximately a ten percent gap,” said a Lvov-based analyst Roman Onishkevich before the poll. An exit poll by the Inter TV station, which the Party of the Regions team referred to at its post-poll press conference, showed just such a result, with Yanukovich at 36.6 percent and Tymoshenko at 25.8. But the exit poll conducted by the Democratic Initiative Foundation, widely considered to be the most trustworthy, gave Yanukovich just 31.3 percent and Tymoshenko 27.1.

At a press conference in Kiev’s Hyatt hotel Tymoshenko cried foul. Across the road at the InterContinental, Yanukovich graciously noted that these were only exit polls, and that the real result would be known when all the votes were counted. But the immediate picture is of one favourable to Tymoshenko: at the least, she has done no worse than expected. At best, the gap between her and Yanukovich is narrower than most people ever imagined. Either way, she is still in the race.

The two sides now face a three-week race to gather as many extra votes as possible. Tymoshenko was especially quick off the mark. Almost as soon as the exit polls were available she was trying to reconcile with those who voted for her rival candidates, telling journalists that the fact that more than 60 percent did not vote for Yanukovich proved “Ukraine was and is a European democracy,” and called on those who voted for “the other democratic candidates” (i.e., everyone except Yanukovich) to rally together to keep Ukraine on its path of “democratic Renaissance.”

She and Yanukovich will battle particularly hard to lure the supporters of the three main runners-up: outgoing President Viktor Yushchenko, former Parliamentary Speaker Arseny Yatsenyuk, and most importantly Sergei Tigipko, who came in third with 13.4 percent of the vote, according to Democratic Initiative’s exit poll.
 
Tigipko publically declared his neutrality in the event of a Yanukovich-Tymoshenko run-off before yesterdays’ poll, but neither the two rivals nor the press seem to be taking that pledge seriously. Both Yanukovich and Tymoshenko were asked whether they would approach him last night, and while Yanukovich side-stepped the question as something to be thought about “tomorrow,” Tymoshenko frankly told reporters that “if he wants to see his policies implemented, I am his partner.”

A minister of economics under former President Leonid Kuchma and a one-time Yanukovich ally (he worked on Yanukovich’s election campaign in 2004), it would apparently make sense for Tigipko to return to the Party of the Regions fold. But it is unclear whether the defeated candidates would be able to marshal their voters to support one or the other candidate even if they wanted to. Yushchenko, for example, is said to favor Yanukovich simply because his relations with Tymoshenko are so bad. However, his supporters in Western Ukraine may prefer Tymoshenko.

Two very different presidencies

Their choice may be affected by the relative power Yanukovich or Tymoshenko would wield as president. A Yanukovich presidency would be stymied from the start. Under the Ukrainian Constitution, governments do not change with presidents, so even if Yanukovich becomes president, Tymoshenko will stay on as prime minister. And she will be able to use that position to frustrate his attempts to govern. “If Yanukovich will not have his own alliance or majority in Parliament which will approve his choice of government, he won’t be able to implement his program. And he’s got practically no possibility of forming his own parliamentary majority at the moment,” said Volodymyr Fesenko, the head of the Penta Center for Applied Political Sciences, a Kiev-based think tank. “That will probably go on until he can call parliamentary elections – on May 30 at the earliest. So there will be a battle for power for at least the next six months.”

On the contrary, were Tymoshenko to take control, she would be able to gather all the reins of power in her hands and to concentrate immediately on implementing her program. Some, especially those who suspect Tymoshenko of a weakness for authoritarianism, see a danger in this. “Tymoshenko reminds me more and more of Vladimir Putin,” said Yevgenny Kiselyov, a political analyst and television host on Inter, the channel that brought out the exit poll most favourable to Yanukovich.

Tymoshenko herself rejected accusations of authoritarianism last night, pointing to a proposed law she is sponsoring to shore-up the position of the parliamentary opposition. But she has also promised a package of constitutional reform to unblock the decision-making log-jam caused by disagreements between the president and the Parliament. “Ukraine must be either a presidential or a parliamentary republic” instead of a half-way house, she said at a press conference last night. She said she would consult the public on which one they would prefer, but cynics would say she has already made up her mind, and that what she would really like is a Russian-style vertical of power, with herself at the top as “president and prime minister at the same time,” said Fesenko.

Taking the Putin comparison to its logical conclusion, some see some very similar policies in the offing. “She would maintain a democratic facade and keep close to Europe – she doesn’t want to be [Belarusian President Alexander] Lukashenko,” said Fesenko. But at the same time she has made no secret of her dislike of Ukraine’s oligarchs’ involvement in politics, and we “could see a Ukrainian Khordokovsky,” he added.