Ukraine presidential elections provoke protests

AS THE socialist goes to our printers, a mass opposition movement is
developing in the Ukraine following last Sunday’s Presidential election.
Former prime minister Viktor Yushchenko, who claims to have been cheated of
victory, has called his supporters to gather outside the parliament building
in Kiev and to launch a campaign of civil disobedience.

Officials in several Ukrainian cities have refused to accept the election
result which gave prime minister Viktor Yanukovych a 49.4% vote to Yuschenko’s
46.7%.

With echoes of the Cold War, the US official observer and European Union
ministers have called the result a fraud, while Russia’s president Vladimir
Putin wasted no time in congratulating Yanukovych on his "victory".

Both candidates have pursued capitalist policies of privatisation etc (the
socialist has recently supported workers at the Galol plant in western Ukraine
whose factory is being asset stripped through privatisation). But Yuschenko is
pro-Washington and EU, while Yanukovych favours closer ties with Russia.
Yanukovych’s campaign relied heavily upon the Russian speaking population of
eastern Ukraine for support, promising them dual nationality.

Yuschenko is no doubt hoping that the mass protests will secure him the
presidency, similar to the events in the former Soviet republic of Georgia
last November. Then, protests in the capital Tbilisi followed the falsifying
of ballot results by the regime of Edouard Sheverdnadze. And although the
police, army and riot squads were mobilised they held back from attacking the
crowds. The opposition bloc led by Mikhail Saakashvili rode into power on the
back of weeks of mass protests.

Also, in October 2000, a mass movement of up to one million people
converged on Belgrade demanding an end to the Milosevic regime, storming the
national parliament and taking over the main government TV station. This too
was triggered by blatant government rigging in the presidential election.

It is not clear at this stage how the opposition movement will develop. But
whoever succeeds in taking the reins of power in the Ukraine, the working
class can expect more attacks on their living standards and rights. Workers
must raise an independent mass party with socialist policies, and struggle to
overthrow the corrupt capitalist politicians and their rotten system.

More next week