KYIV, Ukraine—During the three-week window of time between election rounds in Ukraine, arch rival candidates for the presidency are doing everything possible to assure their final victory.
The competition between Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and opposition leader Viktor Yanukovych, is mainly to pick up voters whose first-round election choice was eliminated. This represents more than 37 percent of the vote. In the first round on Jan. 17, Yanukovych pulled in 35 percent of the vote, 10 points ahead of his main rival, Tymoshenko.
Eighteen candidates ran in the January poll; the Feb. 7 runoff is a contest of two.
Tymoshenko’s strategy is to pull over to her side candidates who dropped out after the first round. Among them is Sergei Tigipko, who took third place in the vote at 13 percent. Ms. Tymoshenko has repeatedly promised him the post of prime minister if she wins the presidency. While Tigipko has not refused the offer, he has also stated that he does not want to support any one candidate and is ready to cooperate with any president.
The fourth place vote-getter, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, has called upon politicians not to “bargain.”
The Yanukovych’s strategy is more restrained. He is relying on the citizens’ choice to secure his political future, trying to change the electoral law.
Current President Viktor Yushchenko, hero of the Orange Revolution, who has also not declared support for either candidate, considers neither choice a boon for democracy.
“Those citizens who share democratic values and the prospects, they have no choice in the second round,” said Yushchenko in a statement released by his Our Ukraine Party.
Yushchenko failed in the first round of voting and thus so did his Orange Revolution. He did not manage to implement democratic reforms in the country or improve the quality peoples’ lives. “He is an ideologist,” said political scientist Alexei Garan.
The campaign waged between the two candidates has been anything but calm. Each has been slinging dirt at the other through the newspapers and on television.
Tymoshenko has attacked Yanukovych’s character, calling him pro-Russian and claiming that he will do nothing for Ukraine because what can a prisoner do? Both Yanukovych and Tymoshenko have served prison terms. Yanukovych has called Tymoshenko a lair who has done nothing for Ukraine over the last five years but make promises and promises. He blames her for not carrying out the budget, and because of that, the country does not have the money to pay any loans or pensions.
Last Friday, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, some participants reportedly watched the film “Mr. and Mrs. Smith”—about a married couple who are both assassins, each hired to kill the other—and compared the Tymoshenko and Yanukovych fight to the film.
“There is no trust between the two candidates,” said Ivan Zajac, deputy from the Ukrainian People’s Party.
Now, both camps are trying to make changes to the electoral law in the final few days before the vote.
At an unscheduled session of Parliament last Thursday, members from both parties proposed competing amendments to electoral legislation. Opposition members cheered, but Tymoshenko’s party members were disappointed with the results of the day.
More than half of the members present voted in favor of an opposition bill to remove from the current law a rule under which the territorial electoral commission is considered as legal if it has a quorum at least of two-thirds of its membership.
The opposition believes that Tymoshenko’s team wants to use the rule to disrupt the normal work of the electoral commission on election day by withdrawing its members from the commission.
At the same time, a bill proposed by Tymoshenko’s party was not adopted. Her members insisted on adding an amendment to the current law stipulating that ‘home voting’—the practice of applying to vote from home if you’re medically unable to make it to a polling station—should only be allowed if the voter gets a medical certificate.
They believe that the status quo, of no certificate required, will be exploited by Yanukovych’s team to push the results of voting in his favor.
According to the international observers, the ‘home-voting’ mechanism was used to commit mass voter fraud during the 2004 elections that lead to a Supreme Court-ordered re-vote and eventually the Orange Revolution.
Parliament members are now officially on vacation. However, the opposition insisted that an extraordinary session of Parliament be convened this coming Wednesday to resolve the issue on the spot. This will be a tall order since in Ukraine, any law or amendment is normally hard to pass. And for an electoral law, in particular, officially they should be made one year before a vote.
The competition between Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and opposition leader Viktor Yanukovych, is mainly to pick up voters whose first-round election choice was eliminated. This represents more than 37 percent of the vote. In the first round on Jan. 17, Yanukovych pulled in 35 percent of the vote, 10 points ahead of his main rival, Tymoshenko.
Eighteen candidates ran in the January poll; the Feb. 7 runoff is a contest of two.
Tymoshenko’s strategy is to pull over to her side candidates who dropped out after the first round. Among them is Sergei Tigipko, who took third place in the vote at 13 percent. Ms. Tymoshenko has repeatedly promised him the post of prime minister if she wins the presidency. While Tigipko has not refused the offer, he has also stated that he does not want to support any one candidate and is ready to cooperate with any president.
The fourth place vote-getter, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, has called upon politicians not to “bargain.”
The Yanukovych’s strategy is more restrained. He is relying on the citizens’ choice to secure his political future, trying to change the electoral law.
Current President Viktor Yushchenko, hero of the Orange Revolution, who has also not declared support for either candidate, considers neither choice a boon for democracy.
“Those citizens who share democratic values and the prospects, they have no choice in the second round,” said Yushchenko in a statement released by his Our Ukraine Party.
Yushchenko failed in the first round of voting and thus so did his Orange Revolution. He did not manage to implement democratic reforms in the country or improve the quality peoples’ lives. “He is an ideologist,” said political scientist Alexei Garan.
A Bitter Battle
The campaign waged between the two candidates has been anything but calm. Each has been slinging dirt at the other through the newspapers and on television.
Tymoshenko has attacked Yanukovych’s character, calling him pro-Russian and claiming that he will do nothing for Ukraine because what can a prisoner do? Both Yanukovych and Tymoshenko have served prison terms. Yanukovych has called Tymoshenko a lair who has done nothing for Ukraine over the last five years but make promises and promises. He blames her for not carrying out the budget, and because of that, the country does not have the money to pay any loans or pensions.
Last Friday, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, some participants reportedly watched the film “Mr. and Mrs. Smith”—about a married couple who are both assassins, each hired to kill the other—and compared the Tymoshenko and Yanukovych fight to the film.
“There is no trust between the two candidates,” said Ivan Zajac, deputy from the Ukrainian People’s Party.
Now, both camps are trying to make changes to the electoral law in the final few days before the vote.
At an unscheduled session of Parliament last Thursday, members from both parties proposed competing amendments to electoral legislation. Opposition members cheered, but Tymoshenko’s party members were disappointed with the results of the day.
More than half of the members present voted in favor of an opposition bill to remove from the current law a rule under which the territorial electoral commission is considered as legal if it has a quorum at least of two-thirds of its membership.
The opposition believes that Tymoshenko’s team wants to use the rule to disrupt the normal work of the electoral commission on election day by withdrawing its members from the commission.
At the same time, a bill proposed by Tymoshenko’s party was not adopted. Her members insisted on adding an amendment to the current law stipulating that ‘home voting’—the practice of applying to vote from home if you’re medically unable to make it to a polling station—should only be allowed if the voter gets a medical certificate.
They believe that the status quo, of no certificate required, will be exploited by Yanukovych’s team to push the results of voting in his favor.
According to the international observers, the ‘home-voting’ mechanism was used to commit mass voter fraud during the 2004 elections that lead to a Supreme Court-ordered re-vote and eventually the Orange Revolution.
Parliament members are now officially on vacation. However, the opposition insisted that an extraordinary session of Parliament be convened this coming Wednesday to resolve the issue on the spot. This will be a tall order since in Ukraine, any law or amendment is normally hard to pass. And for an electoral law, in particular, officially they should be made one year before a vote.
