You're reading: Yanukovych shrugs off criticism of election

Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych shrugged off international criticism on Tuesday of an election which showed his party on a winning course, while opposition nationalists alleged vote-rigging and threatened possible street protests.

With the count from Sunday’s vote nearing its end,
Yanukovych’s Party of the Regions and its communist allies were
set to retain a comfortable majority in the 450-seat parliament
to cement his grip before he seeks a second term in 2015.

The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe,
which sent 600 observers, called the election a “step backward”
for Ukraine’s democracy. It said state resources were misused to
support the ruling party and media were biased, and noted that
Yanukovich’s main rival, ex-prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko, is
in jail. It did not however criticise the voting itself.

“The observers gave a positive assessment to the process of
voting,” Yanukovich said in a statement that ignored the OSCE’s
critical comments about the election campaign.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton backed the OSCE
criticism and called on Yanukovich to free Tymoshenko.

“We share the view of OSCE monitors that Sunday election
constituted a step backward for Ukrainian democracy,” Clinton
said, adding that “politically motivated convictions” of
opposition leaders like Tymoshenko had kept them from standing.

Tymoshenko has announced a hunger strike in protest against
what she called electoral fraud. Her party has yet to make a
statement on results that show it placing second and losing
about a third of its parliamentary representation.

The election will bring two other opposition parties into
parliament for the first time, making the fractious body even
rowdier – a liberal bloc led by world heavyweight boxing
champion Vitaly Klitschko, and a far right group. Each looked
set to secure about 35-40 seats, enough to make them viable
fixtures on Ukraine’s political scene.

The communists invoked Ukraine’s pre-World War Two past to
condemn the arrival of the far-right Svoboda (Freedom) party,
whose showing was surprisingly strong.

Since coming to power in February 2010, Yanukovich, whose
power base lies in the Russian-speaking areas of the east and
south, has pressed ahead with policies which opponents say
favour the big business industrialists who back him.

The former Soviet republic of 46 million has become
increasingly isolated because of the jailing of Tymoshenko, with
the European Union refusing to settle a major free trade pact.

COST OF PROMISES

Corruption is a big concern in Ukraine and many ordinary
Ukrainians suffer economic hardship. Voters were frustrated with
the performance of the established political parties.

Even in areas that traditionally support the Party of the
Regions, some voters said they were disillusioned by government
policies on tax and pensions. But public sector wage increases,
welfare handouts and promises to boost the status of the Russian
language appeared to have won over many waverers.

Those election-driven economic policies have had a cost. The
state budget deficit reached almost $1 billion in September and
the hryvnia slipped to an eight-week low on Tuesday as
people expect depreciation after the vote.

Half of seats are allocated to candidates who win the most
votes in individual constituencies, and half to parties by
proportional representation. With 87 percent of votes counted,
figures from the Central Electoral Commission showed the Regions
had won 117 constituency seats and 75 from party lists.

Though this was short of the outright 226-seat majority, the
Regions should easily make up the shortfall by cutting deals
with their traditional communist allies, who placed third in the
party list tally, and independents.

Tymoshenko, 51, is serving a seven-year jail sentence for
abuse of office over a gas deal she brokered with Russia in 2009
when she was prime minister. She is an old enemy of Yanukovich’s
going back to 2004 when she led the “Orange Revolution” protests
which doomed his first bid for the presidency.

The leadership of her Batkivshchyna (Fatherland) bloc has
yet to make a declaration on the election. The count showed it
with an estimated 103 seats, down from 156 at the last election.

The Ukrainian nationalist Svoboda party, which is allied to
other far-right groups in Europe, said votes had been stolen
from its candidates and its leader threatened street action
alongside Batkivshchyna and other opposition groups.

“We have evidence of large-scale theft of votes from
Svoboda,” leader Oleh Tyahnybok told journalists, saying that 3
percent of Svoboda’s vote in the party lists and 4 seats in the
single-mandate constituencies had been “stolen” from it.

“We have agreed with our partners Batkivshchyna that if
there is any call for people to turn out on the streets in mass
demonstrations then we will do this only together,” he said.

Communist leader Petro Symonenko called Svoboda’s arrival in
parliament “a tragedy for Ukraine”, harking to European fascism:
“I refer you to the history of the 1920s and 1930s.”