Ex-presidents back Rada ouster

Leonid Kravchuk, president from 1991 to 1994 said that while people don’t want elections, the “scenario [of early] elections was unavoidable… given the make up of the country’s political elite.” He blamed Yushchenko for “placing ambitions above all else” and called upon him to announce presidential elections simultaneously with the parliamentary poll as the optimal solution to the political standoff that has gripped the country.

“That’s exactly what I did,” Kravchuk said, referring to the snap poll that saw him lose to Leonid Kuchma in July of 1994. Then, the country was grappling with striking coal miners, hyperinflation and Crimean separatism.

Kuchma, meanwhile, expressed support for Yushchenko’s move as a way of “changing the country’s political elite,” UNIAN news agency reported Oct. 9.

“There’s no point shuffling the same deck of cards of the same politicians,” Kuchma said.

Kravchuk argued that while early parliamentary elections will not drastically change the current make up of parliament, letting voters also choose a president to work with the next parliament is a way out of the standoff.

“This will put and end to the cycle of repeat elections… it will help Ukraine save face in the world and help save parliamentarianism in Ukraine.”

Kravchuk predicted that Tymoshenko and Yanukovych would square off in the second round of presidential elections. He added that the political forces led by this duo will also take the largest slices of the parliamentary pie.

As president, Kravchuk agreed to early pre-term parliamentary and presidential elections in the fall of 1993 when the country was gripped by multiple crises of striking miners, hyperinflation and Crimean separatism. But the elections were not simultaneous in 1994: the presidential poll was held in July, buying Kravchuk more than a half a year of time in office. Kravchuk lost to Leonid Kuchma in the second round after the winning the first by a 38 to 31 percent margin. Kuchma beat Kravchuk in the second round 52 to 45.

That same year very messy pre-term parliamentary elections were held lasting five months from March until August. But even multiple rounds of voting saw 45 districts fail to elect members to the 450-seat legislature.