Ukraine’s election. The two Victors

The stealing of the Ukrainian presidency may yet be averted. But even if thieves prevail, the country has changed irrevocably

AT FIRST, it felt like a democratic fairy-tale. On the night of November 21st, after the polls had closed in the second round of the presidential election, tens of thousands of euphoric Ukrainians gathered in Kiev's Independence Square to celebrate what the exit polls suggested would be a victory for Victor Yushchenko.

Swathed in orange, the colour of Mr Yushchenko's campaign, they were entertained by rock bands and addressed by elated Yushchenko allies as a gentle snow fell. The flag of Georgia, where another corrupt government was toppled a year ago, flew among the orange banners.

As it turned out, it was too good to be true - or rather, for Ukraine's current rulers, too bad to be admitted. The official election results purported to show a victory for Victor Yanukovich, the prime minister and the heir-anointed of Leonid Kuchma, the country's president since 1994. On November 24th, the central election commission eventually announced what it said was the final tally: a Yanukovich victory, by 49.5% of the vote to 46.6%.

By then, there was even more orange on the streets of Kiev than there had been on election night. Mr Yushchenko's supporters, it turned out, were as ready to defend their expected triumph as they were to celebrate it. A makeshift encampment, with tents and field kitchens, sprang up on Kiev's main thoroughfare; its occupants vowed to stay put until their man was declared president. Meanwhile perhaps hundreds of thousands of demonstrators rallied in the nearby square and outside the parliament and the presidential offices.

On November 23rd, Mr Yushchenko had gone to the Rada, or parliament, and symbolically sworn a presidential oath. Two days later Ukraine was stuck in a giddy, perilous impasse: the Supreme Court gave Mr Yushchenko a fillip by delaying publication of the “official” result.

Early and often

Mr Yushchenko is no street-fighting man: a cerebral liberal economist, he used to head the national bank and was briefly prime minister. Neither is he a natural politician. In a televised debate on November 15th - to which his less cerebral opponent had only reluctantly agreed - Mr Yushchenko reeled off numbers. That thousands of Ukrainians later spent days in the snow for him says more about distaste for the old rulers than about his charm.

The election has been characterised as a choice between east and west: between one candidate (Mr Yanukovich) who represents the industrial, Russian-speaking east of the country and would cuddle up to Moscow; and another who champions the Ukrainian-speaking west, and who would take Ukraine into NATO and apply for membership of the European Union. The endorsement of Mr Yanukovich by Russia's President Vladimir Putin before the election reinforced this perception.

Mr Putin - a former KGB officer and hammer of Russia's oligarchs - and Mr Yanukovich, an ally of some Ukrainian tycoons with a murky past of his own, make an odd couple. Indeed, as president, liberal Mr Yushchenko might prove more accommodating to Russian business interests than Mr Yanukovich. But for a mixture of geopolitical and atavistic reasons, Mr Putin embraced the current prime minister, and hailed his “victory”. Kiev's streets were rife with rumours that Russian troops were lurking nearby.

For most Ukrainians, the election had been, above all, about two domestic concerns. One was the poverty that continues to blight much of the country, despite the recent economic growth (for which both Victors claim credit). The other was the corruption that has permeated Mr Kuchma's presidency, and which Mr Yushchenko, who has an unusually clean history, made the theme of his campaign.

It worked. In the approach to the first round, the media coverage was skewed sharply in Mr Yanukovich's favour. Mr Yushchenko's rallies were disrupted. Up close, Mr Yushchenko's face still looks disfigured after what he calls an attempt to poison him. Manifold abuses took place on the first polling day. Yet, even by the official count, Mr Yushchenko prevailed in the first round, though falling short of the majority needed for outright victory.

Between the two votes, Mr Yushchenko picked up endorsements from several of the other candidates. And even Petro Poroshenko, one of Mr Yushchenko's top aides and the owner of a television channel that has been systematically harassed, admits that the media climate improved - partly because of a revolt by journalists at other channels, some of whom were sacked. So it was no surprise when second-round exit polls suggested a Yushchenko win by up to 11 points.

Every trick in the book

Corrupt governments, however, do not often go quietly. The falsifications on November 21st were egregious. Russian observers were sanguine about the poll, but European and American monitors were outraged. Among many brazen abuses, they noted the impossibly high turnout in some regions, and incredibly big victories for Mr Yanukovich; a dramatic rise, in some areas, of people voting at home; the expulsion of monitors from polling stations, as well as violent seizures of ballot boxes; and the abuse of absentee ballots, which state employees had been pressed to obtain and then give to their bosses, letting some Yanukovich backers vote several times. Just before the polls closed, The Economist saw about a dozen men trying to use such ballots in central Kiev. They became aggressive when questioned.

Perhaps only Mr Kuchma can now broker a fair and peaceful resolution. His associates present him as a global statesman emeritus; given his alleged involvement in political assassinations and illicit arms sales to Iraq, that may be optimistic. Still, it is just possible that nothing in his presidency will become him like the leaving of it: he might, for instance, work out a sort of compromise involving a recount or fresh elections, perhaps in concert with constitutional reform that would dilute the powers of the presidency. There have been rumours that some of Mr Kuchma's associates, who do not fully trust Mr Yanukovich, always intended such an outcome.

On November 24th, Mr Yushchenko said he might accept fresh elections. Failing that, will there be a revolution? Mr Yushchenko himself, who has in the past been criticised for his hesitancy, has become more bellicose. Both he and Yulia Timoshenko, his glamorous demagogic sidekick, have called for a general strike. There are parallels with what happened in Georgia - but also big differences. The government is better prepared for protests than was Edward Shevardnadze, Georgia's ousted leader. And much of eastern Ukraine really does back Mr Yanukovich.

Keenly enough, indeed, to fill the buses that streamed into Kiev from the east as this week progressed. Mr Yanukovich's backers established their own camp, and began to encounter the orange brigades on the capital's streets. Meanwhile, several city councils in western Ukraine, as well as Kiev's, have already refused to recognise Mr Yanukovich. East and west Ukraine have always been different; pessimists now foresee a rift, even a schism.

The likeliest outcome is still - on balance - that the Yanukovich camp sits tight, hoping the snow will eventually drive Mr Yushchenko's people inside (though so far their ranks have been swelling). If he does manage to steal the presidency through this rigged election, Mr Yanukovich will also inherit two big problems. The first is hostility both from the European Union and from America, which says it “cannot accept” the result officially claimed.

Senator Richard Lugar, President George Bush's special representative, has vigorously denounced both the elections and the government. Ukraine is too important for relations to be severed entirely, but Ukrainian power-brokers who value their status in the West are sweating.

More important perhaps, Mr Yanukovich would inherit a very different country from the one Mr Kuchma took over in 1994. The crowd in Kiev included students from Belarus, opposed to their country's tyranny. One voiced envy of the protests: we have nothing like this, he said. After this week, Ukraine can never go the way of cowed Belarus, or even of Russia. And it may even win its democracy, as Mr Lugar hopes, “now, not in the hereafter”.

The stealing of the Ukrainian Presidency may yet be averted. But even it thieves prevail, the country has changed irrevocably.

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