(CNSNews.com) – Six years after Ukraine turned away from Russia and towards the West, the strategically-located country on Sunday appeared to have swung the other way by narrowly electing as president the same Moscow-backed politician whose attempts to rig the last election triggered the “orange revolution.”
Viktor Yanukovich, the leader of the Party of Regions, claimed victory in Sunday’s second-round runoff over rival Yulia Tymoshenko, the incumbent prime minister who in 2004 was a leader of the street protests that overturned Yanukovich’s purported presidential election victory.
Various exit polls late Sunday gave Yanukovich, 59, a lead of 3-5 points, although in official results early Monday it had dropped to around 2.7 points, with 89 percent of votes tallied.
Tymoshenko, who earlier warned her supporters could take to the streets if the vote was not deemed to be fair, did not immediately concede defeat. Following a bitterly-fought campaign, analysts predict legal challenges and continuing political tensions.
(Exit polls also showed that around five percent of voters chose neither of the two candidates in the race. The “none of the above” option allows voters to register a protest vote.)
The current president and one-time Tymoshenko ally, Viktor Yushchenko, fared dismally in the first round of the election last month and was eliminated from the race.
Yushchenko, who was ushered into power by the orange revolution, moved Ukraine towards the West, seeking European Union and NATO membership, and supporting fellow NATO aspirant Georgia in its standoff with Russia over the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
His policies angered neighboring Russia, which views both Ukraine – the biggest of the Soviet Union successor states after Russia itself – and Georgia as crucial parts of its sphere of influence.
Moscow has in the years since 2004 repeatedly used its position as Ukraine’s major energy supplier in a bid to influence – and, sometimes, to punish – the government in Kiev.
In the 2004 election, Russian backing of Yanukovich was clearly evident, and then President Vladimir Putin congratulated him on his “victory” when the results were still being widely disputed.
Although the Kremlin took pains to avoid being accused of interference this time, Russian media coverage was strongly pro-Yanukovich.
Tymoshenko, on the other hand, was portrayed as a puppet of the West, despite her efforts ahead of and during the campaign to demonstrate a willingness to improve ties with Moscow.
Yanukovich has long been viewed as a champion of Russian culture and language in Ukraine, where 17 percent of the population of almost 50 million are ethnic Russians, located mostly in the east of the country.
He is a controversial figure who served jail terms as a young man for robbery and crimes of violence. His initial “win” in the 2004 election was so marred by ballot-stuffing, intimidation and other problems that the U.S. refused to recognize it and E.U. member states withdrew their ambassadors in protest.
In an editorial ahead of the runoff urging readers to vote for Tymoshenko, the
Kyiv Post daily said that despite her faults she alone of the two candidates was capable of carrying “Ukraine’s democratic torch.”
It derided Yanukovich as an “empty suit” and “petty ex-con” whose “team of Soviet apologists and industrial robber barons has shown nothing but hostility to Ukraine’s infant democracy and nascent middle class.”
Changes loom
The bitter tone of the campaign reflects deep divisions in Ukrainian society, with further polarization likely if Yanukovich makes good on campaign pledges including reviving a “strategic partnership” with Russia.
He said while campaigning that while he would like visa-free travel and a free-trade agreement with the E.U., accession was something to be considered at some future point. On NATO, he said Ukraine’s current level of cooperation with the alliance was adequate, adding “we don’t want to join any military bloc.”
A Yanukovich presidency will deprive Georgia of an important ally in its continuing dispute with Russia; Yanukovich has indicated he will recognize the “independence” of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. (The only other countries to do so are Russia and its allies Nicaragua and Venezuela, as well as Nauru, a small Pacific nation that reportedly did so in December in exchange for $50 million in Russia aid.)
President Bush supported accession plans for NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia, and visited Kiev in April 2008, en route to a NATO summit in Bucharest where the issue was discussed – and shelved, due to reluctance by some European countries to antagonize Russia.
Ukraine was not included on the itinerary of any of President Obama’s six European visits last year, and prominent figures in eastern and central Europe
voiced “nervousness” that his stated desire to “reset” ties with Moscow would entail the “wrong concessions to Russia.”
Vice President Joe Biden did visit Ukraine and Georgia last July, and expressed support for their NATO aspirations.
A shift by Ukraine towards Moscow would likely result in changing priorities for Ukraine at the United Nations, where in recent years the country has aligned itself closely to positions held by the U.S. and European Union.
Voting patterns monitored by the State Department show that in 2008, Ukraine’s voting record at the U.N. coincided with that of the U.S. 71.4 percent of the time – a similar grading to that of most E.U. member states. Ukraine’s figure in 2007 was 77.8, even closer to U.S. positions than most E.U. members. Figures for 2009 have not yet been released.
By contrast, Russia’s voting coincided with that of the U.S. 0 percent of the time in 2008.
(The evaluation is based on votes on 13 key “issues which directly affected United States interests and on which the United States lobbied extensively.” They included resolutions relating to Cuba, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Human Rights Council, moratorium on the death penalty, “defamation” of religion, the “Durban II” racism conference documents, and human rights in North Korea, Iran and Burma. The countries whose voting most closely matched that of the U.S. in 2008 were Israel and Palau, both 91.7 percent.)