Presidential elections in Ukraine - first conclusions
Iryna Chupryna February 19th, 2010
On February 7, 2010, the former heroine of the Orange Revolution and the current prime minister of Ukraine, Yulia Tymoshenko, and the opposition leader who was defeated in 2004, Viktor Yanukovych, competed in the second round of the presidential run-off took place in Ukraine. In the first round, Yanukovych won over Tymoshenko with the 10 percent lead (35.32 % and 25.05 % of votes). Till the very last moment the intrigue shaped the election campaign – will Tymoshenko manage to reduce the gap and even win? But the miracle did not happen. The prime minister whom many blame for the severe economic crisis in Ukraine fell short of the victory. She received 45.47 % of votes, while Viktor Yanukovych – 48. 95%. Tymoshenko made a remarkable progress compared to the first round gaining additional 20 % of votes, but this was not enough for realizing her dream.
The first post-Orange presidential elections in Ukraine were marked by some salient trends exposing the disappointment of Ukrainian voters that replaced the enthusiasm and idealism of the participants of the Orange Revolution in 2004. Namely, the turnout in the run-off was only 69.07 percent. While a decent figure by Western standards, in Ukraine this has become the lowest level of electoral participation since the presidential elections in 1999 (in 1999 turnout was 73.8, in 2004 – 77,32 %). It cannot be ruled out that among more than 30 percent of voters who ignored the presidential race, the protest electorate represented a substantial share.
The high percentage of those who voted against the two candidates (there is a legal option to vote “against all” in a ballot) - 4.36 percent, - is definitely an even more convincing evidence of the growing disappointment with two main contenders for presidency. It is peculiar that although Tymoshenko lost to Yanukovych in view of general number of votes in her support, she won in more regions. She took the lead in 16 regions and in Kyiv, while Yanukovych – in 8 regions of Ukraine, as well as in Crimea and the city of Sevastopol. This is explained by the fact that southern and eastern regions where Yanukovych won are more densely populated than the western ones.
Why did Tymoshenko lose to Yanukovych who is less eloquent, attractive and steadfast politician, who was twice criminally convicted before? The reason is probably that she managed to alienate many of voters in the Western and Central Ukraine that was a stronghold for Yuschenko and “orange” political forces. In 2009, the Bloc of Yulia Tymoshenko (ByUT) together with the Party of Regions developed a constitutional reform project that was aimed to share the power in the country between only two political forces and to exclude any other, but the project failed due to the unwillingness of Yanukovych to become a figurehead president. In August 2008, Tymoshenko did not protest against the Russia’s aggression towards Georgia. She was responsible for the new gas contracts with Russia that proved to be very disadvantageous to Ukraine and contributed to the huge growth of state’s debt. As a prime minister, Tymoshenko could hardly find an efficient strategy to cope with the economic and financial crisis. All those factors severely undermined her credibility even among her former supporters. In contrast, being in the opposition, Yanukovych has a better position than the Tymoshenko.
If we look at the election results on the map of Ukraine, it becomes evident that the clear electoral divide of the country between the “orange” West and Center and the “blue” East and South has remained largely unchanged since the elections in 2004. There are only two differences. First, the “orange” team was represented this time by Yulia Tymoshenko instead of Viktor Yuschenko, and the second, Yanukovych managed to gain more votes in central regions of Ukraine compared to 2004, and that secured victory for him.The territorial political divide of Ukraine is hardly a positive signal. It means that none of influential Ukrainian politicians in last five years in Ukraine managed to become a genuine national leader uniting Ukraine’s East and West. However, Sergiy Tyhipko and Arseniy Yatseniuk who finished third and fourth in the first election round demonstrated nearly equal support in different regions in Ukraine. Those promising politicians can in the future become the leaders who are able to overcome the notorious Ukraine’s divide. If Viktor Yanukovych manages to recruit them in his team, he would make a wise step, since the country’s political divide remains one of the main reasons for chronic political instability in Ukraine along with flawed constitutional and electoral reforms.
As expected, Yulia Tymoshenko did not recognize her defeat in the run-off and appealed against election results in the Supreme Administrative Court of Ukraine. Still most political analysts agree that if successful she may be able to change the final result up to 1%, but Yanukovych is a legitimate winner of the presidential race.Before the elections, Tymoshenko threatened to take people to the streets if the elections are stolen. But she didn’t dare to stage street protests, since, in contrast to 2004, all domestic and international observers claimed that the elections were free and fair and met international standards. In particular, the election conduct was praised by the OSCE-ODIHR observation mission and the largest Ukrainian election observation NGO, the Committee of Voters of Ukraine.
If Tymoshenko decided to destabilize the situation in Ukraine claiming that she was the genuine elected President, she would have seriously undermined her image, especially after the recognition of election results by world leaders, including U.S. President, Barack Obama. It is remarkable that for almost a week after the election date she did not make any public appearance.At the moment, the most important challenge for the newly elected President is to form a new viable coalition in the parliament. The currently existing coalition between the Our Ukraine –People’s Self-Defense Bloc, the Bloc of Yulia Tymoshenko (BYuT) and the Lytvyn Bloc has less MPs e than it is needed for the majority, and lately most of the voting was situational and based on momentary interests of different political factions. It is very likely that Yanukovych will urge upon the formation of a new coalition that is viable and loyal to him that would include Party of Regions, Communists, Lytvyn Bloc. But in order to form a majority the coalition needs to include MPs from Our Ukraine who have been perceived as official political rivals so far. If the Party of Regions fails to form such a coalition, this may lead to pre-term parliamentary elections. But taking into account the emergence of new political “tigers” such as Arseniy Yatseniuk and Sergiy Tyhypko, who both already launched their own political party projects, the new election may weaken the representation of the Party of Regions in power and, therefore, is better to be avoided by the new President.If Yanukovych manages to reformat the ruling coalition in the parliament and to put in place a new loyal prime minister, he will have much more comfortable situation than one of the President Yuschenko whose relations with the premier Tymoshenko were hostile. He will definitely have an opportunity to consolidate his power, and only time will show whether or not this will be accompanied by the attacks on democracy or not.
