The Ukrainian government made a significant climbdown on Monday night in its stand-off with the opposition when outgoing president Leonid Kuchma said another round of elections might be required because the ”country needs a legitimate president”.
”If we really want to preserve peace and accord, and if we really want to build up the democratic society that we talk about so much … let’s organise new elections,” Interfax reported him saying.
The comment came after the United States secretary of state, Colin Powell, said he had phoned Kuchma to express concern about reports of a possible split between east and west Ukraine. After meeting regional leaders and the prime minister, Viktor Yanukovich, Kuchma said there should be legislative reform, including ”a constitutional agreement to be approved by [Parliament], because the country needs a legitimate president”.
Viktor Yushchenko, the opposition candidate, seized upon the comments, the first admission by the president that the election lacked legitimacy. Yushchenko told tens of thousands of his supporters that his coalition would on Tuesday ”bring a request for the resignation of the government of the prime minister because they have lost political, economic and financial control of this country”.
Markian Bilynskyj, a pro-opposition analyst, said: ”It is a climbdown but [the government] really have nowhere else to go. It is beginning to be more of a case of how and when Yushchenko will be president than if.”
Ukraine’s Parliament is expected today to consider a change in the law to permit a repeat vote and set its date. It would require Parliament to push through changes to the Constitution, a potentially lengthy process. The Parliament on Saturday declared no confidence in the central election commission. On Monday the supreme court began its deliberations over a series of complaints against electoral irregularities by the opposition, expected to continue on Tuesday.
Kuchma’s climbdown came hours after Yanukovich said he would be open to another vote in the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk — part of his support base — if it was shown the previous vote had been falsified.
He also softened his rhetoric against Yushchenko, whose defeat amid allegations of government fraud in last Sunday’s presidential run-off has sparked a week of protests. He called the opposition ”scoundrels … beyond the limits of the law, the constitution and reason”, but excluded Yushchenko from this group.
The call for a new vote came hours ahead of the opposition’s first ultimatum to the government expiring. At 10pm on Sunday, opposition deputy Yulia Tymoshenko said Kuchma had 24 hours to sack and prosecute Yanukovich, and the heads of the eastern regions who have threatened to secede from Ukraine, or the protesters would block his movements.
Meanwhile, outside the presidential administration, blockaded for five days by a tent city, protesters danced to a rap song based one of their favoured chants: ”We are many, and we will not be defeated.” – Guardian Unlimited Â