‘I think Ukraine will be ashamed of its choice. But that is . . . democracy,” the country’s outgoing president, Viktor Yushchenko, told journalists as he left the polling station in Kiev.
A bitter Mr Yushchenko, architect of the country’s 2004 democratic Orange Revolution, who was trounced in the first round of the election and admitted he was voting “none of the above” in the second, expressed the seeming paradox at the heart of the elections: that the voters could plump for the candidate he defeated in 2004, Viktor Yanukovich, the epitome of the country’s pre-revolutionary, Russian-leaning totalitarian past and a man implicated in vote-rigging. But free elections mean allowing people to change their minds, even to be wrong and inconsistent.
Importantly, western observers yesterday endorsed the poll as an “impressive display” of democracy despite repeated claims to the contrary by defeated western-backed Yulia Tymoshenko, whose position as prime minister is now likely to prove untenable. Her refusal to accept the result, however, could lead to a continuation of the infighting that has bedevilled Ukraine for five years, with months of legal wrangling, and could yet see Ms Tymoshenko’s supporters out on the streets again. An international clean bill of health for the elections makes it less likely that Mr Yanukovich will seek to reach a powersharing deal with her.
The election will see the country shift back politically towards Russia although Mr Yanukovich, despite his past, did all he could to rebrand himself as independent of Moscow and both candidates had broadly similar programmes favouring economic integration with the EU and particularly the negotiation of an EU-Ukrainian association agreement. Membership of Nato is off the agenda for now. But his victory was less to do with policy differences than his successful leveraging of both the country’s continued deep east-west divide and popular disenchantment over her handling of the economy.
Continued squabbling could further delay Ukraine’s chances of repaying more than $100 billion in foreign debt and reviving its economy after a 15 per cent GDP collapse last year. It is expected to post a delicate 3 per cent increase in 2010, but with credit frozen and banks still shaky, recovery will be fragile. Mr Yanukovich’s commitments in opposition to back costly pension and wage increases, anathema to the IMF, will do little to inspire international confidence. But if he can bring a measure of stability to the country’s politics the election may prove an important turning point.