Yanukovich Wins Presidency Amid Serious Voting Abuses
By C. J. ChiversThe New York Times -- KIEV, Ukraine
Ukraine approached a political stalemate on Monday, as vote counts of the presidential runoff election indicated that Prime Minister Viktor F. Yanukovich had won but international observers alleged systemic voting abuses and the opposition candidate refused to accept defeat.
With more than 99 percent of ballots counted, the government tally gave Yanukovich 49.42 percent of the vote to 46.7 percent for Viktor A. Yushchenko, whose supporters turned out in the tens of thousands in Independence Square here, vowing not to move until results were reversed.
“To victory!” said Nina Kovalevskaya, 53, who stood in the cold Monday evening air. “To our victory!”
With the opposition filling the landmark square, an international election observer mission -- from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the European Parliament, the NATO Parliamentary Assembly and the Council of Europe released a preliminary report that buoyed them, declaring that the election did not meet democratic standards.
The observers’ findings were seconded by Sen. Richard G. Lugar, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who had led an American mission to Ukraine to urge outgoing President Leonid D. Kuchma to organize fair elections.
“A concerted and forceful program of election-day fraud and abuse was enacted with either the leadership or cooperation of governmental authorities,” the senator said Monday in Kiev.
At stake is not only the presidency of a nation of nearly 48 million, but also the direction of the overwhelmingly Slavic country during the next five-year presidential term.
Yanukovich is the personally selected successor of Kuchma, a former Soviet technocrat who ruled the country in a centralized fashion for 10 years, amid sometimes tense relations with Washington and allegations of corruption and abuse of power.
The prime minister has vowed to continue on Kuchma’s course, and to steer the county closer to Russia, its historic and cultural partner. The Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, telephoned Yanukovich on Monday from an official visit to Brazil to congratulate him, according to Interfax.
Yushchenko, a former prime minister, has described the incumbent bloc of state power as crooked and hidebound, and pledged to maintain ties with Russia while encouraging business and expanding Ukraine’s relationship westward to Europe.
His support in the capital, and among young voters, is palpably high. His campaign -- deprived of equal media coverage and pressured by the resources of the Ukrainian state, according to the reports of international observers -- has adopted the tactics of the underdog.
The nearly three-point victory for the prime minister given in official results diverged sharply from a range of surveys of voters at polling places that gave the opposition as much as an 11-point lead. Opposition organizers pushed for protest and mass action.
Yushchenko, addressing the large public, began a multipronged effort to block Yanukovich’s claim on office. He urged his supporters to remain united and in the streets, and called for an urgent session of Parliament to review extensive allegations of state manipulation of the election, and for the judiciary to investigate documented complaints.
View Archives