In a comeback, Yanukovych leads Tymoshenko in bid for Ukraine president

Feb 8, 2010 — Washington Post

Philip P. Pan and John Pancake

MOSCOW -- A delegation of international observers on Monday described Ukraine's presidential elections as "professional, transparent and honest," putting pressure on Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko to concede defeat despite a tight vote count and her campaign's charges of irregularities.

Official results of Sunday's vote showed opposition leader Viktor Yanukovych, a Kremlin favorite who was pushed aside in 2004 by the mass protests of Ukraine's peaceful Orange Revolution after he was accused of election fraud, holding a slim lead of 2.7 percentage points with more than 98 percent of the vote tallied.

Tymoshenko, the heroine of the Orange Revolution, had threatened court action and a new waves of protests if she suspected Yanukovych of trying again to steal the election, which both candidates cast as a referendum on the pro-West, pro-democracy uprising that captivated the world in late 2004.

In a brief appearance Sunday, Tymoshenko said it was too early to concede and urged her supporters to be on the lookout for vote falsification as the official count continued. But there was no word from her Monday after the statement from the election observers, headed by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

"Yesterday's vote was an impressive display of democratic elections," the statement said. "It is now time for the country's political leaders to listen to the people's verdict and make sure that the transition of power is peaceful and constructive."

If the final results confirm a win by Yanukovych, a burly former electrician once written off as a bumbling Kremlin lackey, it would represent a stunning repudiation of the Orange Revolution government, which came to power promising democratic reform and closer ties with the West but became mired by infighting and failed to reduce rampant corruption.

It would also be a gratifying victory for Moscow, which endorsed, campaigned for and prematurely congratulated Yanukovych in his 2004 bid, only to be humiliated when the vote was invalidated and he lost a runoff. Russian leaders describe the Orange Revolution as a U.S.-financed coup and have repeatedly clashed with Ukraine over its efforts to join NATO and assert a more independent national identity.

In a brief victory speech Sunday, Yanukovych, 59, vowed to quickly repair Ukraine's battered economy, one of the hardest hit by the global recession, and said the election showed that people "were fed up with the life they had and wanted change."

But before the voting finished Sunday, Tymoshenko's campaign said it would challenge results at more than 1,000 polling stations where its worker had reported irregularities, including an effort to block its representatives from taking seats on local election boards.

A disputed election would prolong the political instability that has affected this former Soviet republic for much of the past five years. It could also deal another blow to Ukraine's economy and hamper efforts to unfreeze a $16.4 billion emergency loan from the International Monetary Fund.

Yanukovych, who was prime minister before the Orange Revolution, never admitted to or apologized for the widely documented effort to steal the last election. Instead, as leader of the opposition Party of Regions, he ran a classic anti-incumbent campaign that pinned the blame for the nation's problems on Tymoshenko, 49.

With the help of an American political consultant, he also recast his image, carefully highlighting his independence from Moscow and pledging to continue efforts to integrate Ukraine with Europe.

In a sign of his confidence in victory, as well as his weakness as a public speaker, he refused to debate Tymoshenko, a charismatic former gas magnate who ridiculed him as a dim-witted stooge of the Kremlin and oligarchs.

Outgoing President Viktor Yushchenko, the Orange Revolution leader whose face was disfigured in a poisoning blamed on Russian secret services, was knocked out in the first round of the election last month.

Partners in the democratic uprising in 2004, he and Tymoshenko turned against each other soon after being swept into power. Their bitter rivalry paralyzed the government for most of the past five years, and Yushchenko refused to endorse her in the second round, a decision that analysts said could have cost her the race.

Special correspondent Pancake reported from Kiev.