JOHN MARONE, KYIV
TYMOSHENKO HIGH ON HER HEELS AFTER PARLIAMENTARY POLL
The queen of Ukrainian politics, opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko, was the unofficial victor in Ukraine’s snap elections on Sunday, with exit polls indicating she will head the next government.
But Tymoshenko’s ascension to power will be anything but a sexy saunter, as her enemies are unlikely to allow themselves to be sidelined by a pretty populist.
Braided like a peasant girl and branded with a little red heart against a pristine white field, Tymoshenko has based her power on the disaffected Ukrainian people.
Her success on Sunday, around 30 percent of the popular vote according to preliminary tallies, is already being called a protest against cronyism, corruption and bickering among the boys.
It was Tymoshenko who fought tooth and nail during the 2004 Orange Revolution that handed Viktor Yushchenko the presidency. Less than a year later, Yushchenko fired her as premier due to political infighting.
But now Tymoshenko has confirmed her title as the leading Orange politician, claiming more than double the number of votes received by Yushchenko's Our Ukraine-People's Self Defense bloc on Sunday.
Tymoshenko’s ByuT bloc has also served a comeuppance to Prime Minister Yanukovych, the common enemy of her and Yushchenko during the Orange Revolution who came back to head the government after last year’s parliamentary poll.
Early estimates suggest that Yanukovych’s eastern-oriented Region’s party will remain the largest faction in parliament, but less large – at least in relation to ByuT – than before.
Exit polls gave Regions around 34 percent of the vote, the same showing it got last year. But since 2006, when ByuT got 22 percent of the vote, Tymoshenko’s bloc has increased its electoral popularity by at least a third.
Unlike Yushchenko’s bloc, ByuT didn’t stick to its support base in the west.
Instead, Ukraine’s queen courted subjects in the country’s Russian-speaking south and east, which are considered to be the Region’s backyard.
Tymoshenko also put the final nail in the coffin of the Socialists, Orange Revolution allies who defected to form a coalition with the Regions and Communists following last year’s parliamentary poll.
Campaigning hard in economically challenged Central Ukraine, where the Socialists felt most comfortable, Tymoshenko provided an alternative to business as usual.
Socialist leader Oleksandr Moroz was hard pressed to explain to voters how he’d traded a lifetime career as a champion of simple people for the position of speaker in a parliament run by industrial fat cats.
As for Yushchenko, he has looked increasingly weak after allowing the Orange team to fall apart in 2005, letting Yanukovych's Blue to retake the government a year later, and finally permitting his executive authority to be muscled away or ignored throughout most of this year.
As for Yanukovych, those who opposed him in 2004 haven’t forgotten his fraud-filled presidential bid, despite his recent image makeover. Some of his supporters, or those who might have given him the benefit of the doubt, likely blamed him as much as Yushchenko for the two's destabilizing power struggle of the last year.
In the eyes of the people, Yulia has remained a prominent and consistent opponent of big business, condemning dirty privatizations at every turn. Her bright white smock doesn’t bear a (recent) smudge. At the same time, she has brushed off accusations of fanaticism, refusing to seek compromise with her enemies from the east. Like her bloc’s emblem, the woman has heart.
True, ByuT did vote along with Regions to further limit Yushchenko’s presidential power earlier this year, but this fleeting moment has blurred in the spotlight of public reconciliations between Yushchenko and Yanukovych, none of which lasted much longer than the widely photographed handshakes.
Not only has Tymoshenko won – the day, the vote and the trust of the people, she has done so in an aura of legitimacy.
Sunday’s poll demonstrated the usual anti-democratic antics, as much due to clumsiness and local officials' ambition as to orders of support from Kyiv. But international observers were quick to recognize the vote by Monday morning.
Yulia didn’t need an official tally to start acting like a queen. Just after polling stations closed on Sunday evening, she reiterated her strategy to take power.
Unlike during 2005, she made it clear that she would not allow herself to be painted as anti-Russian, an enemy of business or a rabble rouser.
Tymoshenko promised to seek good relations with Moscow, challenge shady privatizations through the courts and fight for every vote she got in the continuing count without resorting to mass rallies.
Gone are the days of post-revolution euphoria. The woman knows exactly what she’s up against, and has been given a new lease on life to get it.
She even showed a regal touch of magnanimity, promising to negotiate opposition rights with the Regions – something she never achieved during her long years in opposition.
But with so much at stake in terms of state patronage and executive authority, Yulia’s high heels have got to be as sharp as they are high. The road to the premiership and eventually the presidency is fraught with hazards.
Moreover, popular support isn’t the strongest pillar of power.
In the short term, Yulia’s opponents could still juggle votes to get the Socialists over the three-percent barrier. The bloc of dark-horse compromiser Volodymyr Lytvyn could also pull off around 4 percent without raising any eyebrows. Combined with the Communists at 5 percent and the Regions with 38 would mean Yulia and Yushchenko locked out again.
The voting has been accepted as fair, but that doesn’t preclude enough last-minute cheating in race that is going to be close anyway.
Another scenario is that Yulia is made premier, either with Our Ukraine or Our Ukraine and Lytvyn. But between now and the presidential elections, she will be stymied and blamed for all the country’s ills, to the advantage of a Regions candidate as well as Yushchenko.
Yulia may be loved by the people but not by anyone else. She has been aggressive toward Moscow, unpredictable to business and a threat to Yushchenko’s re-election.
An increasingly less likely outcome is mass protests by the Regions and their leftist allies, plunging the capital into more confusion and chaos. The Regions could even reject the mandates it does get. If they add up to more than 150 seats, which is all but assured, the parliament would be hung.
But for now, for today, Tymoshenko’s victory is about popularity, the expression of indignation by the masses, fed up with back-room deals that lead to business-backed brinkmanship.
For now, Yulia is standing high in her high heels, which are as sharp as they are sexy. But as she walks the gauntlet of political, economic and even geopolitical power, she’s going to have to watch her footing every step of the way.
John Marone, Kyiv Post Staff Journalist, Ukraine
October 1, 2007
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