Vladimir Putin, the Russian President, threw his weight behind holding totally new elections in Ukraine on Thursday, rejecting the idea favoured by the European Union of a quick repeat of the fraud-ridden runoff vote that has pitched the country into crisis.
On the eve of a supreme court verdict on opposition allegations of election fraud, Putin met the outgoing president of Ukraine, Leonid Kuchma, at a Moscow airport, and backed his idea of starting the entire election from scratch.
”A repeat of the runoff may fail to work,” said Putin. ”A re-vote could be conducted a third, a fourth, 25th time, until one side gets the results it needs. It would yield nothing.”
The largely symbolic meeting coincided with a cautionary intervention from President George Bush, who insisted that the electoral process ”ought to be free from any foreign influence”.
It will anger the Ukrainian opposition, which has condemned Russian meddling and expressed a loathing for Kuchma and his role in finding a political solution to the leadership crisis.
”Let me say this to Kuchma, to anyone, to any politician calling for a fresh election — this amounts to calling for the economic collapse of Ukraine,” the opposition candidate, Viktor Yushchenko, told thousands of supporters in central Kiev on Thursday night.
He said that a repeat runoff vote, by contrast, was ”a compromise which can calm the nation … If, in the days following a supreme court decision, no date is set for a repeat vote, we will adopt appropriate measures.”
Kuchma, however, derided the idea of re-staging the runoff, saying: ”I don’t know a single country that has such a legal norm as a re-vote.” In an attempt to cast himself as a moderate force amid extremes, he added: ”The Ukraine that existed before the presidential elections no longer exists. It has been split up.”
Kuchma’s plan to start afresh would give him time to find a successor to Viktor Yanukovich, the prime minister whose claim to victory in the November 21 runoff has been undermined by widespread fraud allegations.
Ukrainian law requires a three-month gap between elections. Kuchma said he was prepared to hold full elections before then if a way could be found to do so legally.
On Thursday night the supreme court heard final arguments on the fraud allegations after four days of deliberation. The judges are expected to deliver a verdict on Friday, and to annul part or all of the last elections. They could hand Yushchenko the presidency based on the first round of voting, which he narrowly won, or based on the supposed falsification of votes in Yanukovich’s favour in eastern Ukraine during the runoff.
On Wednesday night, the EU’s foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, and Poland’s president, Alexander Kwasniewski, persuaded the two rivals and Kuchma to sign a statement agreeing to await the verdict of the court, and to call off opposition blockades of government buildings.
The agreement has been seen by some of the opposition as a step backwards that has let Kuchma’s government control the solution.
On Thursday, in one of several signs that the opposition movement was losing its position, protesters resumed their blockade of government buildings.
Oleg (37) a factory worker and one of several young men wearing a red badge proclaiming membership of the ”People’s Guard”, blocked access to one building. They would be there, he said, ”until Yanukovich has resigned” — a move demanded by a vote of MPs on Wednesday.
Kuchma said he might agree to dismiss the government if Parliament enacted reforms to reshape Ukraine’s political landscape.
The political and legal wrangling has infuriated hardliners in the opposition.
Anastasia Bezverkha, a spokesperson for the formerly pro-opposition youth activists’ group Pora, said: ”We nearly hate Yushchenko. He has let Kuchma take the initiative.”
She said Solana’s intervention had helped Kuchma regain control ”better than any army”.
On Tuesday night, she said, Pora had intended to take over the presidential administration. ”But Yushchenko found out about it and told the crowd in the square, and said they should not let them. Another group of protesters set out to stop us, so we called it off.”
She said her group was considering more direct action, such as occupying buildings. ”We want to make Kuchma nervous. The whole world is addressing him as if only he can solve the crisis, but he’s the real problem.” – Guardian Unlimited Â