Yushchenko calls for electoral changes

Shrugging off a parliamentary setback and seizing on his Supreme Court victory, opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko pushed for quick passage of anti-fraud legislation to ensure a new vote is fair against his Moscow-backed rival, who has fallen out of public view.

While Yushchenko called on supporters to continue their siege of official buildings until parliament passes the electoral reforms, Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych remained out of sight yesterday, two days after Friday’s Supreme Court decision cancelling his November 21 run-off win.

An ally of Yanukovych today said the prime minister had the flu and was taking a day or two to recover. Yanukovych was helping prepare for the campaign, the politician said.

Orange-clad pro-Yuschchenko protesters who have been blocking entrances to the Cabinet offices for more than a week braced themselves for a counter-picket of government employees announced earlier by Deputy Prime Minister Andriy Klyuev.

“They can picket as long as they want. We will never let them through until we win,” said Yuriy Bohuslavsky, a protester from the western city of Rivne.

Yushchenko told throngs of chanting supporters who gathered at Kiev’s main square yesterday evening that “the entire world is proud of Ukraine”.

“We are witnessing a struggle between forces of good and forces of evil,” he said.

Yushchenko said little about his campaign proposals, but repeated accusations that outgoing President Leonid Kuchma had blocked key electoral changes through his loyalists in parliament.

He demanded a parliamentary session that would resolve the issues that are key for “a fair, transparent and democratic vote on December 26”.

The election has led to a tug-of-war between Moscow and the West, which bristled at Russian President Vladimir Putin’s heavy-handed support for Yanukovych.

Moscow, which considers the nation of 48 million people part of its sphere of influence and a buffer between it and Nato’s eastern flank, fears Ukraine will tilt further to the West under Yushchenko.

On Saturday, the parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, adjourned for 10 days after the opposition blocked discussion of government-demanded constitutional changes and pro-government factions blocked opposition-demanded electoral changes.

Yushchenko said the amendments must ban voting by absentee ballots and voting in people’s homes, which he said was used by Yanukovych supporters to rig the November 21 vote. The changes must also ensure opposition supporters are represented on election commissions across the nation, he told the rally yesterday.

Yushchenko’s fiery ally Yulia Tymoshenko said the public protests that have swept Ukraine had had an impact on officials, leaving less room for official fraud even without legal amendments.

Demonstrators on yesterday signed up for jobs as campaigners, monitors or election commission members. Thousands volunteered to work as monitors and activists in the Yanukovych stronghold region of Donetsk, said Mykola Moskovsky, a Yushchenko campaigner.

Western observers have documented evidence of massive election fraud in the east in Yanukovych’s favour. Yanukovych’s camp claimed they had evidence of voting irregularities in Kiev and some western regions.

The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe and Canada have already said they will deploy full-fledged observer missions for the December 26 re-run.

Kuchma has blamed the opposition for reneging on a European Union-brokered compromise that called for parliament to vote for electoral and constitutional changes all at once.

Another round of talks with international mediators was tentatively expected today, but without European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana, Ukrainian media reported, citing Solana’s spokeswoman Cristina Gallach.

Communists, socialists and pro-government factions in parliament refused to back electoral changes when pro-Yushchenko lawmakers balked at constitutional reforms that would transfer some of the president’s powers to parliament.

Yushchenko accused his government foes of trying to trim presidential powers, fearing his victory in the rerun. He also accused Kuchma of blocking changes in the electoral laws.