Ukraine’s election. Russian roulette

A genuinely democratic Ukraine would be a splendid example to others - including Russia

WEEK two in Ukraine's democratic revolution, and the protests in the streets of Kiev have grown. So has confusion over what happens next - and over the likely eventual outcome. But amid a welter of court hearings, parliamentary votes of no confidence, blockades of public buildings and (occasionally fraught) negotiations between the two camps in the disputed presidential run-off election that was held on November 21st, three things have become clearer.

The first is that most of those involved remain, thankfully, committed to eschewing violence and seeking a peaceful solution. The second is that it is highly unlikely that the purported winner of the fraudulent poll, Victor Yanukovich, the prime minister whose government lost a no-confidence vote this week, will ever be president. Instead, a compromise is likely to be struck between Victor Yushchenko, the opposition candidate, and Leonid Kuchma, the incumbent president and backer of Mr Yanukovich. That may lead to a fresh election, perhaps with different candidates.

The third thing to become clearer is that what happens now in Ukraine will crucially affect not just its own future, but that of all countries of the former Soviet Union - most notably Russia itself. The crisis in Ukraine may have been triggered by the blatant election fraud, most glaringly carried out in the country's eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk by supporters of Mr Yanukovich and Mr Kuchma. But its origins are in good measure of Russia's making.

The truth is that many Russians were never happy with the very notion of Ukrainian independence. Russians often look at Ukraine as Englishmen see Scotland: as a natural part of their domains. Eastern Ukraine, Russian-speaking and Mr Yanukovich's base, was the heart of the Soviet Union's coal and steel industries. Modern Russia grew out of Kiev's Rus. The Crimea was part of Russia until as recently as 1954, when Khrushchev capriciously transferred it to Ukraine. It is no surprise that not only members of Vladimir Putin's government in Moscow, but even many ordinary Russians, are angry over what is widely portrayed as the West's “interference” in their own backyard - and over the risk of “losing Ukraine”.

In fact Mr Putin has made a disastrous mistake in Ukraine, first by openly campaigning for Mr Yanukovich, and second by seeking to push him into the presidency even after the scale of the electoral fraud became obvious. The Russians could have worked quite happily with Mr Yushchenko, who was friendly towards them when he was prime minister in 1999-2001. The risk for them now is that either he or one of his close allies will emerge as a president who is far more hostile to Russia's interests and more openly committed to early entry into such western clubs as NATO and the European Union.

Mr Putin is right to see such an outcome as a threat, but not because it is one somehow aimed at Russia. In fact, Russia's interests are not well-served by fostering puppet dictators in its near-abroad. They seldom prove malleable to the Kremlin - consider Alexander Lukashenka in Belarus. And if and when they are overthrown by democratic protests, their successors are more likely to pursue anti-Russian policies - look at Mikhail Saakashvili in Georgia. But more broadly, the real reason why the emergence of true democracy in Ukraine is a threat to Mr Putin is that it will set an alluring example to would-be democrats in Russia as well. A successful, western-oriented Ukraine under a democratic government would give heart to Russia's liberals, who have been bitterly disappointed by Mr Putin's increasingly authoritarian and illiberal rule.

The risk of secession

Could Mr Putin still stop such a threat emerging? His misguided backing of Mr Yanukovich was designed to that end. But now that it has backfired, another possibility looms: that Ukraine might split apart. The presidential election confirmed that there is a divide between a Russian-speaking south and east that looks naturally to Moscow for leadership, and a Ukrainian-speaking north and west that looks to Warsaw and even Brussels. This week's threat by a few eastern regions to hold referendums on independence if Mr Yushchenko becomes president has been postponed. But Ukraine's borders are messy and fragile, and the risk of part of the country going its own way, or even of joining Russia, remains.

If an ethnically homogenous part of a country wishes to secede, should it not be allowed to do so? Yes, in principle. But it is seldom a wise response to the loss of an election (remember the American South in 1860). A split in Ukraine now would be unlikely to be peaceful, any more than was the break-up of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, not least because there could be bitter fights over Kiev. It would be better for all if the country held together, under a genuinely democratic government.

Editorial, which says that a genuinely democratic Ukraine would be a splendid example to other countries - including Russia.

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