CEE News Archive

Reform Leader Suffers Setback In Ukraine Vote

By STEVEN LEE MYERS
Published: March 27, 2006

KIEV, Ukraine, Monday, March 27 — President Viktor A. Yushchenko, who led a wave of popular protest to office promising a freer Ukraine aligned with Europe and the United States, suffered a stunning political defeat in parliamentary elections on Sunday, leaving him weakened and his reformist policies in doubt.

Mr. Yushchenko called the vote for a new and newly empowered Parliament "the first fair, democratic elections in Ukraine," and his party appeared to have been routed.

Nearly a year and a half after the protests and international pressure swept Mr. Yushchenko to the presidency, his party fell far behind not only the party of the man he beat for the top job, Viktor F. Yanukovich, but also the party of his former prime minister, Yulia V. Tymoshenko, according to an independent survey of voters leaving the polls, announced by the Democratic Initiatives Foundation, after voting ended at 10 p.m. on Sunday.

Mr. Yanukovich's Party of Regions, which the survey showed with 33 percent of the vote, was poised to win the largest bloc of seats in the 450-seat Parliament, but not enough to win control outright. Ms. Tymoshenko's bloc received 22 percent, while Mr. Yushchenko's party, Our Ukraine, trailed in a distant third place, with only 13 percent, according to the survey.

Mr. Yanukovich, the former prime minister whose supporters were accused of having rigged the presidential race against Mr. Yushchenko in November 2004, declared "a decisive victory," using the sort of language that rallied those against him and his patron, the former president, Leonid D. Kuchma. "Ukraine made its choice," he said. "Its choice is freedom, democracy, stability and confidence in the future."

Mr. Yanukovich's strength is less a reflection of his political successes than it is of the failings of Mr. Yushchenko, whose reputation at home has suffered from one problem after another despite his image abroad as a reform-minded democrat.

His inability to help improve the weak economy and lessen the country's reliance on Russian gas, which caused painful shortages this winter in a price dispute, deeply hurt him.

The election results set the stage for a period of political jockeying that could last for days or even weeks before a new government is formed. Much will depend on the success of an array of smaller parties that needed to win at least 3 percent of the vote to secure seats.

The voting was the first electoral test of the sweeping changes Mr. Yushchenko promised during the huge street protests that came to be known as the "Orange Revolution."

If the results of the voter survey hold, the election will underscore the disastrous turnaround in Mr. Yushchenko's political fate, leaving him forced to compromise.

At stake are Mr. Yushchenko's stated policy goals, including integrating Ukraine into the European Union and NATO. Mr. Yanukovich's party has promised to restore economic stability and forge closer ties with Russia.

The election has added significance for Ukraine, a country of 47 million on the edge of a newly expanded European Union, because of a political compromise that cleared the way for Mr. Yushchenko's presidency. Under constitutional changes adopted then, the new Parliament will have the power to choose the prime minister and most of the cabinet, though Mr. Yushchenko will retain control over foreign affairs and security ministries.

Mr. Yushchenko's party now faces a choice of whether to repair the fractured coalition with Ms. Tymoshenko, who served as his first prime minister until a falling out amid infighting over policy and accusations of corruption, or possibly to face a hostile government. Together, their parties still drew more votes than Mr. Yanukovich's, according to the voter survey, but her showing increased her leverage in the talks.

Without Ms. Tymoshenko's support, Mr. Yushchenko's only other choice would be an improbable alliance with Mr. Yanukovich. The president remained noncommittal on Sunday, saying in televised remarks that he was considering "all kinds of various combinations."

Later, though, as the gravity of his party's poor showing became clear, Mr. Yushchenko's aides said they were prepared to revive the "orange" coalition. The mood at the party's headquarters was funereal, despite rock bands that performed on the central square of Kiev, the capital, and videos that evoked the 2004 protests there.

A scheduled appearance by the current prime minister and leader of the party, Yury I. Yekhanurov, was abruptly canceled without explanation early Monday morning.

Ms. Tymoshenko, by contrast, clearly relished a result that provided a measure of vengeance after her dismissal last September. She said those who supported the Orange Revolution were still a majority — now led by her, her remarks suggested, though she stopped short of declaring her insistence on becoming prime minister again.

"I would not like us to let the people down again," she said.

Although Mr. Yanukovich's party complained of widespread irregularities ahead of Sunday's vote, including names missing from voter lists or Russian ones mistranslated into Ukrainian, there were few immediate reports of fraud or significant disruptions. But long lines formed as voters slogged through a ballot with 45 parties, and a homemade firebomb damaged one polling place in the Kiev region.

For many of those who voted, the significance was not in the results, but in the process. They described a Ukraine that was freer and more democratic, if also unruly and still divided along the same ethnic, social and political lines of 2004.

"It is already a big victory," Mr. Yushchenko said, putting the best face on his party's performance.

The survey of voters was carried out for the Democratic Initiatives Foundation by the Razumkov Center and the Kiev International Institute of Sociology, which is part of the Kiev-Mohyla Academy. Final results are not expected at least until late Monday, and perhaps later.

Critics of Mr. Yushchenko's performance as president welcomed the freedom of choice.

Maria I. Kompaneyets, 63, said that she voted for Mr. Yanukovich in 2004, but that she had hopes that Mr. Yushchenko would use his popular mandate to improve life in Ukraine, especially the economy and pensions, recurrent complaints among those less well off.

"Nothing changed, at least nothing changed for better, neither in the country nor in our own life," she said, as she voted with her husband, Pyotr. "Of course we had hopes. So much had been said in those days. Who could expect that it would turn out so bad?"