Ukraine’s Kuchma Meeting Putin

While President Leonid D. Kuchma flew to Moscow today for quick consultations with Russia’s president, the opposition here pressed its demand that this country’s prime minister be replaced and that a repeat presidential runoff election be held.

In a brief meeting at a Moscow airport, Russian President Vladimir V. Putin backed Kuchma’s position by calling for an entirely new two-round election open to new candidates.

Putin ridiculed the idea of a revote between Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich and opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko as a solution to the political crisis that erupted over the disputed Nov. 21 balloting. Putin implied that the opposition leader would never accept defeat.

“A revote of the second round may also produce nothing,” Putin said. “And then what? Will it require a third, fourth, twenty-fifth revote until one of the sides gets the desired result?”

Yushchenko has claimed to be the legitimate winner despite official results — which he and foreign observers believe were marred by massive fraud — that put Yanukovich on top.

Opposition aides also discussed what shape an interim government should take after a Wednesday parliamentary vote of no confidence in Yanukovich — which the prime minister has called illegal and refused to accept.

Yulia Tymoshenko, a top Yushchenko associate, told a news conference that the opposition was considering pressing for treason charges to be filed against Kuchma for his alleged failure to take sufficient steps to resolve the crisis.

“He holds the settlement of the crisis in his hands, but he neither comes up with proposals about a new Central Election Commission, nor signs a decree on the government’s resignation,” she said.

On Wednesday, government and opposition leaders agreed to work for a rerun of a presidential election, moving closer toward ending a political crisis that for 10 days has brought this nation to a virtual standstill.

Details of a revote remained sketchy, but a deal appeared to hinge on anticipation that Ukraine’s Supreme Court would soon render invalid the official results of the Nov. 21 presidential runoff, which put Yanukovich ahead by a slim margin.

After several hours of mediation at the presidential residence, Yanukovich, Yushchenko, Kucha and European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana announced Wednesday that they had reached a broad agreement to resolve the crisis peacefully with some form of repeat election.

Kuchma said that “completion of the election of the president of Ukraine” would be based on pending action by the Supreme Court and parliament.

The high court, which is deliberating on opposition allegations of election fraud, was not part of Wednesday’s agreement. But Solana said it was “very unlikely” that judges would approve the disputed Central Election Commission tally.

Wednesday’s deal meant the crisis would be solved “by voting,” Solana said. The people of Ukraine “have shown their interest in free and fair elections, and this at the end of the day is what they’re going to have,” he said.

If the court quashes the election results, parliament will need to set the rules for repeat balloting.

Earlier in the day, parliament passed a resolution of no confidence in Yanukovich as prime minister, and the opposition immediately began calling him “ex-prime minister.”

But Yanukovich disputed the legality of the action, which was also aimed at ousting his entire Cabinet. “I will never recognize this decision,” he told reporters. “They approved the decision in political terms. But it is against the law, it is against the constitution.”

Kuchma did not take any immediate action to accept the parliamentary ouster of his prime minister or appoint an acting successor, which implied that Yanukovich could still exercise his powers as head of government.

Foreign observers, including many from Western Europe, said the election failed to meet democratic standards. EU mediators have been trying to help solve the crisis.

The outcome of the political struggle is likely to determine whether this nation of 48 million moves toward warmer ties with Western Europe and the United States or back into a tighter relationship with Russia. Yushchenko is widely seen as a pro-Western democratic reformer, whereas Yanukovich, whose power base is in the country’s largely Russian-speaking east, has Moscow’s backing.