European Forum

Results Presidential poll Ukraine: Timoshenko, Yanukovych to meet each other in runoff

Presidential elections held in Ukraine on 17 January showed a not surprising result. With all of the votes counted, Party of Regions leader Viktor Yanukovich gained 35.32% in the first round voting, while his main rival and Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko won 25.05%, as reported by the Ukrainian Central Election Commission (CEC). The two will face each other in the second round on 7 February, as both did not gain 50% of the vote.

Other candidates were far behind the two front runners. Former Central Bank Chairman Sergey Tigipko gained 13.06% of the votes, while former Foreign Minister and Parliament Chair Arseniy Yatsenyuk gained 6.96%. Outgoing President Viktor Yushchenko -who was swept to power in the 2004 Orange Revolution- obtained merely 5.45% of the votes. Leader of the Socialist Party of Ukraine (SPU), Oleksandr Moroz, obtained just 0.38% in the poll. Voter turnout was reported as 66.76%.

Results with 100% of the votes counted (CEC results)

End of ‘Orange power’
Yanukovych seemed elated by his victory over President Yushchenko, his old rival, on Sunday. "Today marks the end of Orange power," he said. "There will be no room for (Yushchenko) in the second round. He has officially lost the faith of the people."

After the vote, Tymoshenko thanked her supporters for ignoring attacks against her. "Despite the great campaign of discrimination that was launched by all the oligarchs who rallied around Yanukovych, people showed their wisdom, trust and faith in me," she said. The results showed a majority of people want Ukraine to be a free, democratic country, she stated. She also said she is ready to start talks with former Presidential candidates to gain their support in the second round of voting. "I am open for talks starting from today, so that one can move on as a part of united democratic forces," she said at a briefing. “The main task for democratic forces, which altogether won over 60% of votes in the first round, is to prevent Yanukovych from winning more votes in the runoff”, she said. The PM also said that she understands people who voted for Tigipko and Yatseniuk. "They [the voters] want changes, and I will be able to secure the changes they want," she stated. Meanwhile, Presidential candidate Yatseniuk said he is not going to support either candidate in the runoff. He said he cannot support those who he has been competing with. Yatseniuk noted that fourth place in the first round of the voting "is a good result, to put it mildly."

Some analysts said that despite Tymoshenko's second place finish, her sharp political instincts give her the edge in the runoff vote. "Yanukovych's voter base has been exhausted. Although it was strong and compact and never betrayed him, it did not grow," said Viktor Nebozhenko, director of the sociology institute Ukrainian Barometer. According to analysts, only the small number of communist and socialist voters will join Yanukovych's supporters. Most observers expect the run-up to the second round will be a battle field amid fraud allegations and court cases.

No massive fraud observed
Despite warnings of large-scale election fraud in the days leading up to the poll officials and election observers said the ballot seemed fair and orderly. Western election observers even called the poll "a ringing success for democracy". "It was an election of high quality," Joao Soares of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly said. "It offered the voters a genuine choice between candidates, and it showed significant progress over previous elections." Andrei Magera, deputy head of the CEC, said "there was nothing similar to mass actions that took place in the year of 2004 when voters with absentee ballots had been carried all over Ukraine by buses." Matyas Eorsi, chairman of the observation mission from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), called it "a very peaceful poll" and offered the authorities "enormous congratulations." Also, European Parliament observers recorded no serious violations in the first round of voting. The polls were democratic and open, said European Parliament observer Rebecca Harms. She said that there were also no problems with voting at home. Observers said, nevertheless, that media came under financial pressure and criticized politicians for trying to "play with the rules not by the rules." Both Tymoshenko and Yanukovich's campaigns have accepted the results, easing fears of a standoff.

The two frontrunners
The blunt-spoken Yanukovych, a former electrician and factory manager, has pledged to scrap Ukraine's NATO bid and elevate Russian to the status of a second official language alongside Ukrainian. Tymoshenko is a heroine of the 2004 pro-Western Orange Revolution who criticized what she called Russia's imperial ambitions. But in the past year she has reached an accord with Moscow on energy and security issues.

Following a fraud-marred ballot five years ago, Yushchenko beat Yanukovych in a court-ordered revote. Yushchenko's win was hailed in the West as a victory by democratic forces over the cynical veterans of Ukraine's Soviet regime. In Moscow, many saw it as part of a Western plot to surround and weaken Russia. After his election, Yushchenko became embroiled in political skirmishing that paralyzed the government and he failed to push through many of his promised reforms. Now, the next Ukrainian President will likely concentrate on consolidating power and shoring up the economy, and will certainly be more accommodating to Moscow, the region's traditional dominant power.

Sources: Unian; KyivPost; Radio Svoboda