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Reforms Defuse Crisis in Ukraine

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Times Staff Writer

The political crisis that has gripped this nation for more than two weeks eased dramatically Wednesday with parliament’s overwhelming approval of a compromise package of laws strengthening safeguards against electoral fraud while weakening presidential powers.

The new political consensus, which brought together outgoing President Leonid D. Kuchma, opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko and a huge majority of lawmakers, appeared to eliminate any risk that the confrontation triggered by a disputed presidential election could spin out of control and end in violence.

Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich faces Yushchenko in a repeat presidential runoff set for Dec. 26 after the original one, held last month, was ruled invalid due to fraud. Speaking to supporters in eastern Ukraine, Yanukovich, whose Nov. 21 victory was overturned by the Supreme Court, denounced the day’s developments in Kiev, the capital. He is on leave from his post for the duration of the campaign, leaving him isolated from the top levels of power and without authority over police and security forces.

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Further easing the crisis, Yushchenko and his supporters said they would relax their blockade of government buildings and downsize a protesters tent camp in the city center, though they said some picketing would continue.

The reforms appeared to leave the pro-Western Yushchenko well positioned in his rematch against Yanukovich, who has been backed by Moscow.

The constitutional changes approved Wednesday mean that whoever wins the revote in this post-Soviet nation of 48 million will exercise significantly less power than that enjoyed by Kuchma. The core of the compromise was that Yushchenko agreed to the reduction of presidential powers in return for passage of reforms that severely restrict the use of absentee ballots in the revote. Abuse of absentee ballots has been blamed for fraudulently boosting Yanukovich’s tally in the November vote.

Speaking Wednesday evening to tens of thousands of exuberant supporters gathered in central Kiev’s Independence Square, Yushchenko said they had won all their key demands. “I congratulate everybody on a great victory, after a long 17 days of peaceful protest,” Yushchenko told his supporters, many sporting orange, his official campaign color. “In these 17 days, the country has changed. We’ve felt ourselves to be a European nation. The ‘Orange Revolution’ happened thanks to you.”

Yushchenko thanked the mayor of Kiev for backing his supporters’ protests, police and soldiers for making it clear they would refuse to use force against peaceful demonstrators, musicians and sports figures for expressing support from the stage where he spoke, Western politicians who declared the initial balloting fraudulent and pressed for a revote, and students who provided the driving energy for the citizens revolt.

“The authorities have done so many terrible things, but nothing worked for them,” he said. “They couldn’t break us apart.... We’re confident that this country will not be ruled by gangs. They will not make us live by criminal rules. It will never happen!”

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Yushchenko advised his supporters that they must work hard in the campaign, turn out to vote and guard against fraud, but he spoke like a man who had already won.

Yanukovich, campaigning in his eastern Ukraine stronghold of Donetsk, defiantly rejected the events in Kiev, where he had seen a string of former supporters turn against him, including now, it would seem, Kuchma himself.

The prime minister, who has presided over two years of rapid economic growth, has tried in recent weeks to reverse prevailing images by presenting himself as the candidate of change, and Yushchenko, a former prime minister, as a representative of the old guard. He pressed an effort Wednesday to distance himself from the Kuchma-centered government.

“I am not a candidate representing these cowardly and shameful authorities, this power structure that betrays,” Yanukovich said in televised remarks. “I’m the candidate of 15 million voters who voted for me. I will never betray you. I would rather die than let them break me.”

Yanukovich was particularly critical of parliament’s decision Wednesday to create a new Central Election Commission without any members nominated by his party. “The country is witnessing a slow coup today,” Yanukovich said in remarks reported by the Russian news agency Interfax. “A presidential candidate who received a majority of votes ... has been left without his representatives at the CEC.”

Yanukovich also declared that “lawlessness has taken over the country.”

“I could not do anything to stop mob rule, or the sweeping orange and brown plague that had joined forces with the authorities,” he said, referring to Yushchenko’s campaign color and charges by his own camp that neo-fascist forces, symbolized by the color brown, back the opposition leader.

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Parliament’s approval of the compromise package came after days of political maneuvering.

“Let us congratulate each other,” centrist parliamentary speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn said after the reform bills passed on a 402-21 vote with 19 abstentions. “The act which has just taken place is an act of consolidation, reconciliation, and an act that proves Ukraine is one and indivisible.”

Everyone in the chamber stood and applauded, with both Kuchma and Yushchenko among those who smiled as they clapped. Lytvyn and Kuchma immediately signed the bills into law, then held up the documents to display the signatures.

“Today was the day for critical compromise,” Yushchenko told reporters after the session. “Tomorrow could have been too late.”

Kuchma, who is stepping down after a decade in power, pleaded before the vote for a deal acceptable to all.

“Throughout its modern history, Ukraine has lived through crisis situations more than once,” he said. “But there was always enough political will and common sense to find the right solution. Recently we have many times heard the expression that there should be no winners or losers, that Ukraine has to win.”

Under the constitutional reforms, the president will nominate the prime minister, defense minister and foreign minister, subject to parliamentary approval, and the prime minister and parliament will have the power to select the rest of the Cabinet. The president also can nominate the nation’s top prosecutor and the head of its security services, again subject to parliamentary approval.

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On balance, the changes give Ukraine less of a French-style presidential system and more of a parliamentary system such as in Germany and Poland.

The reforms are to take effect no later than Jan. 1, 2006. They will come into force earlier, on Sept. 1, 2005, if amendments to the constitution strengthening local self-government are approved by that time. Such changes are favored by Yushchenko’s camp.

That means the winner of the Dec. 26 revote will retain the presidency’s current powers for nine months to a year, which some supporters of Yushchenko have said is too little time for him to carry out his campaign pledges to crack down on corruption in Ukraine’s government and economy.

Some in the opposition camp, however, believe that in the long run a broader distribution of powers, with a stronger role for parliament, is good for Ukrainian democracy.

Kuchma and pro-government deputies are generally seen as having backed a strengthened parliament because that could give them greater influence than they otherwise could hope for under a Yushchenko presidency.

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell praised the compromise while on a visit to Brussels, and took a jab at Russian officials who have resisted the idea of a presidential revote. “Ukrainian and Russian authorities are hearing a clear message from North America and Europe, in diplomatic stereo, and that stereo sound makes a difference,” Powell said. “And what do we say? Let the people decide.”

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Kuchma’s willingness to compromise drew praise from Oksana Plakhotna, a doctor from the western city of Lviv who was among the Yushchenko backers gathered in Kiev’s central square.

“It’s a great day, and it’s a historic day, because our president

In his speech at the square, Yushchenko said the riveting events here had enormously boosted Ukraine’s global image.

“All over the world, people who didn’t know geography, who didn’t know where Ukraine was or what continent it was on, have now had that gap in their knowledge filled,” he said. “Now in China, in South America, people know what kind of country Ukraine is -- and where it is.”

Yushchenko also bid for the support of voters in largely Russian-speaking eastern Ukraine, Yanukovich’s stronghold.

“We are not separate from you,” he said. “We live in one country. We breathe one air.... Nobody will be discriminated against. Everyone can speak the language they wish, go to the church they wish. We’ll make sure the rich support the poor. We’ll fight crime. It will be easier for an honest person to live.”

Henadiy Kryshko, 52, a farmer from the Odessa region in the south, was in the square with two daughters, a son-in-law and a small grandson.

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“Today is the victory of the soul,” Kryshko said. “We still have to work hard, and the new president will have to work hard, to keep up the spirit of unity seen here on Independence Square.”

Kryshko said he had no problem with seeing Yushchenko trade away some of his potential power to win legal protections against electoral fraud.

Having a stronger parliament “is good for our country,” he said. “It gives more power to the people to influence how the country is governed.”

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