Opponents Press Demands on Ukraine Regime

Opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko on Sunday pressed for the prime minister’s removal from office, dismissal of electoral officials and new laws to guard against fraud in a repeat presidential vote, warning that his supporters’ blockades of government offices would continue until outgoing President Leonid D. Kuchma meets those demands.

Speaking to a massive rally in central Kiev’s Independence Square for the 14th consecutive evening, Yushchenko declared that the protesters’ presence showed the determination of “millions of Ukrainian citizens to defend their choice” in a presidential election.

The officially declared victory of Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich in a Nov. 21 runoff with Yushchenko was ruled invalid Friday by Ukraine’s Supreme Court, which cited evidence of massive fraud. The court scheduled a rematch for Dec. 26.

“Today we are witnessing how two forces are competing, which often happens in life: the force of good and the force of evil,” Yushchenko said. “The victory we have achieved already in these 14 days is clear. The whole world is applauding this victory.”

Yushchenko said that Kuchma, who is stepping down after 10 years in power, must immediately remove the prime minister from office to comply with a parliamentary vote last week. The pro-Western opposition leader also demanded that Kuchma appoint a new Central Election Commission following last week’s parliamentary vote of no confidence in its current membership. Parliament, Yushchenko added, must swiftly enact legislation to guard against fraud in the runoff, and Kuchma must sign it.

“With these demands we will go to the parliament and to the presidential palace, and we want to state that until they are solved, there cannot even be a discussion about lifting the blockade of government buildings,” Yushchenko said.

Though most demonstrators have assembled around the city’s central square, thousands have been blocking access to the Cabinet building and other government offices, with thousands more maintaining a vigil outside parliament.

Yushchenko’s stance appeared to reflect confidence within the opposition camp that it could win its key goals without agreeing to a political reform proposal backed by pro-government and centrist parties. The proposal would transfer most presidential powers to the prime minister. Some observers believe that Kuchma hopes to hang on to power by moving to a newly strengthened prime minister’s post.

Opposition supporters say they back the transfer of some powers from president to prime minister, but on a smaller scale and at a slower pace -- and that they would vote on the issue only after the runoff. Disagreement on this point led Saturday to a breakdown of efforts to win parliamentary approval of anti-fraud legal safeguards that the opposition had demanded.

In effect, Yushchenko was being offered a relatively clear path to the presidency as long as he agreed to it becoming a less powerful post. But he turned down that deal Saturday.

Before Yushchenko’s address Sunday, a key associate, Yulia Tymoshenko, said during a news conference that if necessary, the opposition would campaign and win without new legal safeguards to protect the integrity of the runoff vote.

Even if an electoral reform law were passed, there is no guarantee that Kuchma would sign it or that local officials would obey it, she said.

“The thing is that this government simply ignores all the laws, and if it wants, it will try to find ways to get around the laws and ignore them,” she said

It is not worth it to the Yushchenko camp to trade away the president’s powers in return for strengthened legal guarantees against fraud, she said.

The opposition is banking on a changed mood across Ukraine, greater neutrality seen recently in major television networks and plans for the massive mobilization of supporters to guard against abuses in local voting districts, she said.

“Under the pressure of honest journalists ... television channels started to show more honest news than they had before people came out to the streets,” Tymoshenko said. “Due to the changes in the journalists’ positions, many people in Ukraine, for whom these channels had created a terrible, negative image of Yushchenko, now have seen him as a normal person.”

Tymoshenko also confirmed that the opposition had offered Kuchma guarantees of a safe retirement if he ensured a fair electoral process.

“I know that the whole team of Viktor Yushchenko, and Yushchenko himself, have had talks on several occasions with Kuchma, so that he could see some safe and calm future for himself and so that he would not destroy a normal and democratic election now,” she said. “ ... But the thing is that Kuchma does not want to lose power. He does not want to become a pensioner.”