Ukraine poll scene heats up
KYIV Ukraine’s race to succeed ousted Russian-backed president Viktor Yanukovych heated up on Friday after his arch-rival Yulia Tymoshenko joined a crowded field of contenders ready to tighten Kyiv’s embrace of the West.
The charismatic but hugely divisive Tymoshenko’s decision to contest the May 25 poll encapsulates the spectacular scale of change that has swept over the culturally splintered nation since it was first hit by waves of deadly pro-Europe protests four months ago.
Yanukovych meanwhile added fuel to the election-day fire by calling for referendums to be held across the country to determine the future status of every Ukrainian region, instead of presidential elections planned for May 25.
“As president who is with you in thought and soul, I ask every single sensible citizen of Ukraine not to let yourselves be used by the imposters! Demand a referendum on determining the status of every region in Ukraine,” Yanukovych said in a statement quoted by Russia’s ITAR-TASS news agency.
The appeal threatens to reignite separatist passions that gripped the mostly Russian-speaking southeastern swaths of the nation of 46 million once Kyiv’s new leaders turned Ukraine on its Westward course.
But Yanukovych’s impact on Ukrainian voters appears to have diminished beyond repair since his flight to Russia and he will play no part in the presidential vote itself.
His ruling Regions Party meanwhile has joined the pro-Western opposition and enters a Saturday caucus without a viable candidate to present at the polls.
Yanukovych in his statement asked to be removed from the party and relieved of his duties as honorary chairman — a move the congress was expected to make anyway.
Things could hardly be more different for the Batkivshchyna (Fatherland) party that Tymoshenko founded, which is expected to formally back her candidacy at its own convention on Saturday.
Tymoshenko said on Friday that Yanukovych would one day answer for his call for regional referendums in court.
“If these really are his words, then this once again proves that the person who was once the president of Ukraine has effectively turned into a tool used for Ukraine’s destruction,” Tymoshenko told reporters.
Yet Tymoshenko has considerable ground to make up if she hopes to win the election. An opinion poll published by four respected Ukrainian research firms this week put her in third place with about eight percent of the prospective vote.
Chocolate baron Petro Poroshenko — the only prominent Ukrainian tycoon to join protesters at the Kyiv barricades — ranked first with the backing of almost a quarter of the respondents.
Former heavyweight boxing champion turned opposition leader Vitali Klitschko was second with almost nine per cent.
Separately, accusing Western states of using blackmail and threats to drum up “yes” votes, Russia said on Friday a UN resolution declaring invalid Crimea’s Moscow-backed referendum on seceding from Ukraine was counterproductive.
“This counterproductive initiative only complicates efforts to resolve the domestic political crisis in Ukraine,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
It accused Western states of using the “the full force of the unspent potential of the Cold War-era propaganda machine” to whip up support for the resolution.
“It is well-known what kind of shameless pressure, up to the point of political blackmail and economic threats, was brought to bear on a number of member states so they would vote ‘yes’,” the ministry said.
Also on Friday, US President Barack Obama said Russia’s troop buildup on the Ukraine border was out of the ordinary and called on Moscow to pull its military back and begin talks to defuse tensions.
“You’ve seen a range of troops massing along that border under the guise of military exercises,” he told CBS ‘This Morning’ in an interview in Vatican City. “But these are not what Russia would normally be doing.”