Ukraine Presidential Election Rigged Says Opposition Leader

The voting on Sunday in Ukraine was between two men whose first name is Viktor. There, the similarity ends. Opposition candidate, Viktor Yushchenko, would rather move Ukraine’s 48 million people toward EU citizenship, free up the economy and essentially behave like the Poles and Bulgarians. Outgoing president Leonid Kuchma has run a rather authoritarian regime, with close ties to Moscow and a fear mongering against the west. His chosen candidate, Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich, vows to keep this arrangement, while also making Russian the second official language. One of Mr. Yanukovich’s other Soviet-style habits seems to be rigging elections. Ballot boxes have been burned, and a policeman who was guarding a polling station was killed.

Both sides have complained to the Central Election Commission, which has advised everyone to “calm down.” That would be inappropriate. When an election is in the process of being stolen, calm suggests that the public doesn’t much care if the theft occurs. What needs to happen is for the people of Ukraine to go into the streets, stay off the job, and shut the country down. The first of these has already begun at the request of Mr. Yushchenko.

The ballot is a run-off election, and in the first round, the CEC admits that Mr. Yushchenko had a plurality, having stolen a first round victory from him. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which has been observing the first round of elections, issued a statement shortly after the polls closed that said, "We have to conclude that this election did not meet a considerable number of ... European standards for democratic elections.” This election, according to the same statement, was "a step backwards from the 2002 [parliamentary] elections."

The strong showing of Mr. Yushchenko scared the meta-Soviet regime of Mr. Kuchma into blatant thievery. They called in Vladimir Putin, president of neighboring Russia, to almost but not quite campaign for Mr. Yanukovich. Police and other bureaucrats have been forced to hand in their passports, which are required to vote. Grenades have been tossed into offices run by opposition organizers, and violence against election observers has been more than threatened.

As Monday morning came to Ukraine, the opposition supporters were beginning to fill Kiev, responding to Mr. Yushchenko’s call. It appears that he will rely on “People Power,” first used by Corzon Aquino in the Philippines, to force the government to acknowledge his victory. At first blush, it appears that he will be able to bring Kiev to a standstill. The wild card in all of this is the army. Is the military of Ukraine like that of the Philippines, unwilling to shoot at the people, or is it like the People’s Liberation Army in China, willing to prop up a dictatorship? The best possible outcome appears to be a negotiated settlement and a new election. Bloodshed, however, is much more likely.


© Copyright 2004 by The Kensington Review, J. Myhre, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent.


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