CALIFORNIA YANKEE

Ukraine Court Dismisses Yanukovych Appeal

The Associated Press reports that Ukraine's Supreme Court rejected losing presidential candidate Viktor Yanukovych's appeal of last month's repeat election:

Yanukovych, who has one more chance to appeal, has said openly he had little hope of success, but he vowed to fight against the Dec. 26 vote, which preliminary results show Yushchenko winning.

Yanukovych's campaign had said their main appeal is still to come and would be filed with the Central Election Commission only after the Central Election Commission announces the final results.

The campaign will then seek to prove that massive fraud made it impossible to determine the winner of the vote.

I'll be a lot happier when the election is certified, no appeals are left and a Yushchenko government is installed.

Ukrainian President Kuchma Accepts Yanukovych Resignation

The Associated Press reports that Ukranian President Kuchma formally accepted the resignation of Yanukovych as prime minister on Wednesday:

Yanukovych's resignation immediately triggers the dissolution of the entire 20-member Cabinet. Kuchma now has 60 days to appoint a new government - though he is likely to appoint a caretaker government until a new president is inaugurated.

Yanukovych announced his resignation on New Year's Eve.

Ukraine's Central Election Commission is expected to announce the final results of Yanukovych's challenge to the results of the December 26 revote this week.

Exit Polls Project A Yushchenko Win

The Associated Press reports that three exit polls projected Ukrainian opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko the winner by a commanding margin over Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych in presidential revote.

The state-funded Ukrainian Institute of Social Research and Social Monitoring Center showed Yushchenko winning with 58.1 percent of the vote and Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych garnering 38.4 percent. The margin of error was 2 percentage points.

The Western-funded Razumkov Center of Political Studies and Kiev International Institute of Sociology showed Yushchenko winning with 56.5 percent and Yanukovych collecting 41.3 percent of the vote, with no margin of error given.

A third exit poll, by Frank Luntz, a pollster for the U.S. Republican Party, and Douglas Schoen, of the Washington-based market research company Penn, Schoen & Berland, showed Yushchenko winning with 56 to Yanukovych's 41 percent, Schoen said. The margin of error was 2 percentage points.

Official results are not expected until Monday.

Ukrainians Vote In Presidential Revote

Polls opened at 8 a.m. in Ukraine and are set to close at 8 p.m. Exit polls will be released tonight but no official results are expected before Monday morning.

Bloomberg reports that polling indicates that Yushchenko should win:

A majority of Ukrainians, 53.3 percent, said they will vote for Yushchenko and 41.7 percent will back Yanukovych, according to a nationwide poll of 2,008 registered voters conducted Dec. 14-19 by the Kiev-based Razumkov Center for Economic and Political Studies. The survey had a margin of error of 2.3 points.

Hpoefully, those that attempted to steal the Ukranian presidential election have been stoped.

Ukraine High Court Calls For New Election

The Ukrainian Supreme Court has thrown out the results of last month's run-off election between Prime Minister Yanukovych opposition leader Yushchenko and called for a "repeat vote" to take in three weeks.

Reuters reports that this decision suggests that the "repeat vote will be would be a re-run of last month's run-off vote:

Chairman Anatoly Yarema, delivering the court's ruling after five days of deliberations, said a "repeat vote" was required.

He said this ballot should take place three weeks counting from Dec. 5 -- meaning Dec. 26 -- suggesting it would be a re-run of last month's run-off vote which opposition candidate Viktor Yushchenko alleged was rigged by authorities.

Judges backed arguments by Yushchenko's camp, which have brought tens of thousands out on to the streets of the capital Kiev, that the vote had been subject to systematic fraud.

This is great news for the emerging democracy in Ukraine, but I am very worried about how Outgoing Ukrainian President Kuchma and Prime Minister Yanukovych will respond having failed to get the court to call for an entirely new election.

Yesterday Kuchma flew to Moscow and gained Russian President Vladimir Putin's backing yesterday against calls for a quick rerun of the last round of the disputed presidential election. According to the Washington Times, the move by the Russian leader underlines Kremlin fears that if Ukraine's opposition presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko took power he would weaken links with Moscow and push Ukraine deeper into the West's embrace.

MosNews reports that both Zbigniew Brzezinski and former secretary of state Henry Kissinger are concerned about how Russia is responding to Ukraine's political crisis:

“If Ukrainian democracy prevails, Russia has no choice but to go to the West and to be a democracy,” Brzezinski said at an American Enterprise Institute event. “If Ukrainian democracy fails, Russia and imperial ambitions are awakened.”

“The stakes are of truly historic proportions,” he added.

Henry Kissinger also believes that Russia is still acting in the Soviet imperial manner, undeterred by the breakup of the USSR 15 years ago.

Putin has boxed himself into a bad spot. In a fair "repeat vote," Yushchenko will almost certainly win. There's a possibility that pro-Yanukovych regions in eastern Ukraine will refuse to accept Yushchenko as President, in which case Ukraine could split apart. Business Week quotes Nikolai Petrov, scholar-in-residence at Carnegie Moscow:

Putin has put himself into a corner. Now no outcome looks good for Russia

According to Business week, a divided Ukraine would lead to instability in a region where Russia has important economic interests 80 percent of the gas Russia exports to Europe goes through Ukraine. If the country remains united, Putin's goal of linking Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus in a new economic union are history. If Kuchma and Yanukovych figure out a way to retain power unrest would continue over a deeply unpopular regime in Kiev would hardly be a stable partner for Russia. Another risk for Putin is that the Ukrainian revolution inspires democratic opposition movements in other former Soviet republics, perhaps even in Russia.

I am worried about the possibility that Russia may react like the Soviet Union did to the Prague Spring. Warsaw Pact forces rolled into Prague on the night of August 20-21, 1968 crushing the Czechoslovak experiment in "socialism with a human face."

The BBC reports that it is unlikely that Russia would intervene militarily in Ukraine.

The respected Russian defence analyst, Pavel Felgenhauer, thinks such a scenario is highly unlikely.

"Putin's Russia does not have the military power to send in the tanks and dominate foreign countries", says Mr Felgenhauer.

"We cannot even bring Chechnya into line. What could we hope to achieve in Ukraine, with its rebellious population of nearly 50 million?"

The U.S. and all the worlds democracies should endorse the Ukainian Supreme Court's call for a "repeat vote."

The Blogosphere hasn't gotten into full gear on this yet. Some initial reactions from the usual suspects include:

Art Captain's Quarters, Captain Ed agrees that unless Kuchma calls in the Russians, he and Prime Minister Yanukovych are toast.

At Wizbang, Kevin Aylward points out that most of the cheating was done via absentee ballots, and posts that we should take note because early, unsupervised absentee voting is one of the fastest growing election trends here.

At SCSU Scholars, King links to the Kyiv Post quotes these paragraphs validating the claims of fraud:

In its ruling, the court slammed Ukraine's CEC, citing massive lapses by the government in the run-up to the election and in the vote counting that followed.

Particular attention was paid in the ruling to the numerous documented cases of fraud brought by the opposition. Among them were the improper transportation and handling of ballots; improperly or inadequately compiled voters lists; abuse of administrative resources in favor of the government-backed candidate, and lack of equal media access for both candidates.

Dan Drezner is also wondering whether Putin will tolerate the blow to his reputation that would come with a Yushchenko victory.

TulipGirl posts that she is happy and amazed at how things are turning out.

At A Fistful of Euros, David posts that Maidan reports that outgoing President Kuchma vetoed the recently passed law invalidating “absentee ballots” for the re-run. These ballots allowed Ukrainians to vote in other than their home districts, and were, according to numerous reports by international observers, one of the main instruments of electoral fraud in the initial run-off.

UPDATE:
At Outside The Beltway James Joyner posts this result is not surprising given how everything seemed to be breaking opposition leader Yushchenko's way.

At The Moderate Voice, Joe Gandelman posts that the courts decision indicates the roots of democracy are perhaps as strong as many of us in the West had hoped.

Ukraine Negotiators Settle On Some Form Of New Election

The Los Angeles Times reports that Ukraine's Government and opposition leaders on Wednesday agreed to work for a rerun of a presidential election:

Details of a revote remained sketchy, but it appeared to hinge on anticipation that Ukraine's Supreme Court would soon render invalid the official results of the Nov. 21 presidential runoff, which put Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych ahead by a slim margin.

After several hours of mediation at the presidential residence, Yanukovych, outgoing President Leonid D. Kuchma , opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko and European foreign policy chief Javier Solana announced that they had reached a broad agreement to resolve the crisis peacefully with some form of repeat election.

[. . .]

The court, which is hearing opposition allegations of election fraud, was not part of Wednesday's agreement. But Solana said it was "very unlikely" that judges would approve the disputed Central Election Commission tally.

Wednesday's deal meant the crisis would be solved "by voting," Solana said. The people of Ukraine "have shown their interest in free and fair elections, and this at the end of the day is what they're going to have," he said.

If the court quashes the election results, parliament would need to set the rules for repeat balloting.

The Ukraine's political crisis is truly an amazing story. The protester's patience and persistence, staying in the streets for ten days, in winter weather, is very inspiring.

Ukraine Deputies To Name New Prime Minister

Bloomberg reports that Ukraine's parliamentary groups are negotiating to choose a successor to Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych after he lost a confidence vote prompted by the political crisis arising from disputed election:

There are "four or five" candidates for the premier's post, Valentina Semenyuk, a Socialist Party deputy for the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, said in an interview, without giving names. The talks began late yesterday, she said.

The Bloomberg report tells us that the no-confidence failed to pass at first. The no-confidence vote only succeeded after a proposal to hold a secret ballot was approved. Some deputies "hid their voting buttons with their other hand to conceal their vote, some with shaking hands," Semenyuk, 47, said in her parliamentary office:

The desire for secrecy among some lawmakers was prompted by threats "more against their families than against them," Semenyuk said. "I have sent my children out of Kiev," she said. Her party, headed by its founder, Oleksandr Moroz, has 20 members in the Verkhovna Rada, or parliament.

We take an awful lot for granted in our political process.

Signs Of Compromise In Ukraine

The Associated Press reports that an agreement signed by Yushchenko; the declared official winner of the presidential runoff, Viktor Yanukovych; outgoing President Leonid Kuchma and European envoys requires Yushchenko supporters to lift their siege of government buildings:

The agreement also calls for talks on changes in the Ukrainian law to end the election crisis.

Participants in the talks emphasised the need to avoid the use of force and said the next round of talks would be held after the Supreme Court rules on the opposition's appeal against the official vote results.

Yushchenko and Yanukovych held face-to-face talks after the opposition showed its strength by bringing down Yanukovych's government with a no-confidence in parliament.

After the talks, Yushchenko proposed that a new run-off vote between him and Yanukovych be held December 19. Yushchenko said he would not accept a whole new election. That idea was suggested earlier by outgoing President Leonid Kuchma who denounced the idea of repeating just the run-off.

Ukraine's Supreme Court is meeting for a third day considering whether to annul the disputed election result. While Ukrainians wait for the court's decision , the political crisis is impacting Ukraine's economy.

The December 02, 2004 edition of the Christian Science Monitor reports on the economic stress caused by the continuing political crisis:

Monday, President Kuchma spoke darkly of the consequences of continued turmoil. "In a few more days, the financial system will fall apart like a house of sand and neither the president nor the government can be held responsible for that," he said.

An international economic analyst, speaking off the record, said panic must be nipped in the bud. "Unfortunately, Mr. Kuchma may have generated a self-fulfilling prophecy," he said.

"When the president of a country speaks of financial collapse, people run for the exits, and a run on the banks can be provoked," he continued. "Things are now on a knife edge. There could be a self-perpetuating downward economic spiral whose initial spark was political. There is a real danger that Kuchma might have provoked the very thing he was warning against."

Indeed, there were reports of people in industrial regions of the east lining up to make withdrawals from cash machines, fearing a collapse of Ukraine's banking system similar to the great crash and national default in Russia in 1998. There was no such panic in Kiev, but the US dollar was becoming harder to obtain in some downtown currency-exchange kiosks.

There are many encouraging signs that Ukraine's election crisis may be resolved by political compromise. Yushchenko and Yanukovych are willing and able to meet face-to-face and can even make agreements. The two sides are utilizing Ukraine's legal system. As long as the economy holds up, and the dialog continues things can be worked out peacefully.

UPDATE: At Captain's Quarters, Captain Ed links to this Agence France Presse article which reports that both Yushchenko and Yanukovych now concede the vote was mired in fraud. I wonder if both sides took that position before Ukraine's Supreme Court.

At Outside The Beltway, James Joyner posts that a new election isn't as good a solution as simply declaring Yushchenko the winner, it should avoid a violent outcome.

Ukraine Partition Feared

Agence France-Presse reports with apparently events shifting in the opposition's favor, fears rose of a partitioned Ukraine as the eastern Russian-speaking regions warned they would split off into an autonomous territory.

Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev criticized the parliamentary vote, which reinforced the opposition's call for a re-run election to be held on December 12.

"This decision could lead to a split" in Ukraine, he said. "The goal is to establish order and not to lead the country into chaos," he added.

The BBC reports that officials in eastern Ukraine say they will split their region from the rest of the country if opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko becomes president:

After meeting in the power base of Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, governors vowed to hold a referendum if Mr Yanukovych's win was overturned.

Mr Yushchenko has already warned that this threatens the future of Ukraine.

[. . .]

Mr Yanukovych met about 3,500 local officials from 17 of Ukraine's 25 regions in the eastern city of Severodonetsk.

He told delegates the disputed presidential election had pushed Ukraine to the "brink of catastrophe".

He said: "There is one step to the edge. When the first drop of blood is spilled, we will not be able to stop it."

Later, he looked on as delegates voted for "a referendum to be held in December this year to determine the region's status" and said he did not support the move.

Tens of thousands of protesting supporters of pro-Western Mr Yushchenko remain on the streets of the capital, Kiev.

Addressing them earlier, Mr Yushchenko said "those people who will raise the issue of separatism will be held criminally responsible under the Ukrainian constitution".

There is a lot at stake when Ukraine's Supreme Court considers the election result tomorrow.

Russian Street Reaction To Ukraine's Election Chaos

Considerettes asked its correspondent in Russia what the "Muscovite street" thought about the Ukrainian election situation. I found the response disappointing:

The Russian people despise these protests currently taking place in the cities of Ukraine. As always, Russians fear the West encroaching on their borders. If Ukraine had a Western loving president that would be a real threat to Russia. Xenophobia is not cured in one (nor two) generations. There are 1000 years of fear, loathing, and sometimes both for the West. The fact that we're on the same side now won't be discovered at any level of depth anytime soon. Also keep in mind the recent pro-Western president elected in Georgia. That did not go down too well in Russia. The West is fine as long as they stay in the west!

Read the whole thing.