Ukraine: Yushchenko Headed For Defeat In Parliamentary Elections

Ukraine: Yushchenko Headed For Defeat In Parliamentary Elections

By Robert Parsons

President Viktor Yushchenko looks headed for a remarkable defeat in Ukraine's first parliamentary elections since the Orange Revolution just over a year ago. Independently conducted exit polls issued shortly after the polling stations closed at 10 p.m. put his Our Ukraine bloc in third place. The pro-Russian Party of Regions looks almost certain to take first place but will fall well short of a majority. Forty-five parties contested the election but polls suggest that only five of them will clear the 3 percent barrier needed to win a place in Ukraine's 450-set Verkhovna Rada.

PRAGUE, March 26, 2006 (RFE/RL) -- The negotiations are already under way to form a coalition government -- now the only conceivable outcome of an election that has struck a severe blow to the dreams of the Orange Revolution.

Supreme National Security Council Secretary Anatoliy Kinakh appeared to hint today that President Yushchenko is looking to strike a deal with his erstwhile ally and co-leader of the Orange Revolution, Yuliya Tymoshenko. The exit polls indicate that she has edged Yushchenko's party for second place.

"Consultations are constantly under way but we categorically reject consultations and the formation of coalitions on the basis of primitive division of posts," Kinakh said. "It's very important for us to unite programs, ideology, and methods, which will make it possible to strengthen the irreversible development of Ukraine as a democratic state based on the rule of law."

That would appear to rule out a deal with the winning Party of Regions. It is pro-Russian and led by the man Yushchenko defeated in the bitterly contested presidential election of late 2004.

Viktor Yanukovych opposes many of the pro-Western reforms supported by the leader of the Orange Revolution and would seek to turn Ukraine back toward Moscow.

Fair Vote An Achievement

Yushchenko hailed the vote as the most fair and democratic ever held in Ukraine and called it one of the country's biggest achievements in recent years.

The head of the electoral monitoring mission from Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Christian Strohal, appeared to agree.

"I think what we can say is that we have been welcomed here and received extremely frankly and with open arms and we have come here with an equally open mind and we see this observer mission as a consolidation of democracy in the Ukraine," Strohal said.

But Taras Chornovil, spokesman for the Party of Regions, was not so sure. He told RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service that the lines of voters in the eastern part of the country, which provides the bedrock of his party's support, were longer than elsewhere and that the government had deliberately enlarged the voting districts.

"The lines are a catastrophe. I read on the Internet that some lines in Donetsk Oblast had a 40-minute waiting period," he said. "I called my friends and they told me that the lines are three-four hours long. In Kyiv, they average 40 minutes. In the morning there were no lines but now they are there. It is a problem."

The irony of Chornovil's complaint will be lost on no one in Ukraine. Blatant falsification of the vote by Yanukovych, now the leader of the Party of Regions, led to the nullification of the presidential election in December 2004 and the rerun that ended in the triumph of the Orange Revolution.

But today's vote shows just how dramatically popular disillusionment with Yushchenko's government has eaten into his support. Opinion polls have repeatedly shown that people are angered by the sharp slowdown in economic growth and the infighting between the leaders of the Orange Revolution.

Yushchenko dismissed Tymoshenko as prime minister in September last year, blaming her for Ukraine's floundering economic performance. Now he may have little choice but to ask her to return.

If Yushchenko is to retain control of a parliament whose powers are soon to be enlarged at the presidency's expense, he will have to make some hard choices. Whatever balance of forces takes shape in the coming weeks, Yushchenko most likely will emerge much weakened.

Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)

Ukraine: Yushchenko Headed For Defeat In Parliamentary Elections