Accusations fly before Ukrainian presidential poll

THE MAIN contenders in Ukraine’s presidential election have traded accusations ahead of Sunday’s vote, which could decide whether the country moves closer to Russia or the European Union.

Prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko, a long-time pro-western politician who has recently softened her criticism of Moscow, claimed yesterday that her Russia-friendly rival, Viktor Yanukovich, was planning “monstrous” electoral fraud to seize power.

“A conscious disruption of the election process is going on,” Ms Tymoshenko said, claiming that Mr Yanukovich’s party planned to rig the vote in its stronghold of eastern Ukraine.

“Such monstrous falsification didn’t even happen in 2004,” she said, referring to Mr Yanukovich’s fraudulent election “victory”, which sparked huge street protests in what became known as the Orange Revolution.

“We will protect the country from a second coming of this oligarchic plague of locusts because they can eat up everything, but we must defend the country,” Ms Tymoshenko said. She also condemned Mr Yanukovich’s “cowardice” after he refused to take part in a live television debate.

An ally of Mr Yanukovich in his Regions Party, Anna Herman, countered that he would compete with Ms Tymoshenko “by good deeds and not beautiful words”. “If there was a world championship for beautiful unfulfilled promises then Tymoshenko would be unchallenged,” Ms Herman said.

Surveys suggest that Mr Yanukovich will comfortably win the first round of the ballot and enter a run-off with Ms Tymoshenko in early February.

Current president Viktor Yushchenko is expected to be trounced, amid widespread disappointment at his failure to fulfil the promises of the Orange Revolution. He and Ms Tymoshenko, allies in 2004-2005, have squabbled ever since, paralysing the reform process and leaving Ukraine rudderless in an economic crisis.

“If you do not support Yushchenko, you will be supporting a Kremlin plan in which Viktor Yanukovich becomes president and Yulia Tymoshenko prime minister,” Mr Yushchenko said this week, calling the election a “referendum on confidence in pro-European policies or a return to the swamp of the past”.

Mr Yushchenko claimed Ms Tymoshenko would do anything to gain “absolute power”. “We are facing a crucial choice: either we say goodbye to democracy or we win,” he said.