A Bad Path for Ukraine
November 25, 2004
latimes.com Print
EDITORIAL
Ukraine's corrupt, thuggish government faces the choice
of retreating to the insular world it knew as part of the
Soviet Union or opening to liberalism, a free-market
economy and democracy. This week's stolen election
points in the wrong direction, but there is still time to
reverse the fraud and join the forward march of history.
To its credit, the Bush administration is not giving
outgoing President Leonid D. Kuchma and his minions a
pass because of their nation's membership in the
"coalition of the willing" in Iraq, where Ukraine has 1,600
troops. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell spoke
Wednesday of "consequences" if Kuchma's favorite,
Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich, was installed as
president over opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko.
The Ukrainian Central Election Commission declared
Yanukovich the winner Wednesday, but Sen. Richard G.
Lugar (R-Ind.) and other international monitors said
Sunday's balloting was farcical. Yushchenko backers
saw voters casting ballots twice and students being
forced to vote for Yanukovich. An exit poll partly
financed by the U.S. showed Yushchenko as the
landslide winner.
Powell telephoned Kuchma on Wednesday to warn
against using violence against the more than 100,000
Yushchenko supporters who braved snow to fill
Independence Square in Kiev, the capital. The protests
against voter fraud were a heartening display of freedom
that recalled the peaceful revolutions in the former Czechoslovakia and the onetime
Soviet territory of Georgia.
Powell also made an equally important call to the Russian foreign minister to urge
an investigation of the balloting. Russian President Vladimir V. Putin campaigned
for Yanukovich and congratulated him on his victory - two days before the results
were official. Putin's own consolidation of power is reminiscent of the days of the
Soviet empire. He fears what would happen under the pro-Western Yushchenko,
who favors membership in the European Union and NATO - changes that would
lessen Ukraine's dependence on Moscow. But even with Yushchenko in power,
Ukraine would need to maintain close economic ties with Russia. The population in
eastern Ukraine, much of it Russian-speaking, has traditionally looked toward
Moscow and provides the bulk of Yanukovich's support.
The EU strongly protested the election fraud and should be equally outspoken
during its summit with Putin today in the Netherlands. The United States and
European nations should remind Putin, Kuchma and Yanukovich of Ukraine's need
for foreign aid and the desire of its top officials for visas to visit other countries.
Ukraine stands to reap the benefits that other former Soviet territories or client
states have gained once out from under Moscow's yoke. The greatest of them is
the right to choose their own leaders and be governed by the people's legitimate
representatives.
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