Ukraine Voters Repudiate Orange Revolution

LONDON (Feb. 8) -- Almost six years have passed since Ukraine's Orange Revolution, during which hundreds of thousands of pro-democracy campaigners, with moral and financial support from the West, took to the streets and overturned the rigged election of the Kremlin's approved presidential candidate, Viktor Yanukovych.

But on Sunday, the once-vilified politician staged an unlikely comeback by winning the country's first presidential election since 2004, this time legitimately. His victory was widely seen as evidence of the Orange Revolution's squandered hopes and of declining U.S. influence in the region.

With more than 98 percent of ballots counted from Sunday's runoff, opposition leader Yanukovych has secured more than 48 percent of the vote, compared to almost 46 percent for his rival, Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. About 5 percent of voters chose not to back either candidate by ticking an "against all" option. European election monitors today said the vote was "professional, transparent and honest," unlike the fraudulent 2004 election, the result of which the U.S. refused to recognize.

Yanukovych, whose support is strongest in eastern Ukraine, said on Sunday night that he would govern so that all Ukrainians, "no matter where in the country they live, feel comfortable and calm in a stable country." In the same speech, he called on Tymoshenko to acknowledge her loss and resign her post as prime minister. She has so far refused to concede, but the election monitors' report of a clean contest may make it difficult for her to fight on without appearing to be desperately clinging to power.

Yanukovych's apparent victory is evidence of just how disillusioned ordinary Ukrainians have become with the discredited leaders of the Orange Revolution. When Tymoshenko and current President Viktor Yushchenko -- who was defeated in the first round of the election Jan. 17 -- took office, they promised their followers they would push Ukraine closer to the West, tackle rampant corruption and jail the "gangsters" running the country's industries.

But instead of improving the country, the pair spent much of the time sparring with each other and attempting to install favorites in key offices. In April 2005, about 53 percent of Ukrainians said their country was on the right track; in the run-up to Sunday's elections, 81 percent said they believe it was headed in the wrong direction.

It would be easy to paint Tymoshenko's loss as a defeat for U.S. foreign policy, too. The Bush administration strongly supported the Orange Revolution as a means of facing down a resurgent Russia, which was threatening Washington's allies in what then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld famously termed "New Europe."

However, in recent years the U.S. has attempted to pull back from Eastern Europe. Aid to Ukraine has been declining since 2005, and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton spoke from the beginning of her tenure last year of "pressing the reset button" on relations with Moscow.

When Yanukovych won the first round of the presidential poll Jan. 17, the State Department simply said it hoped for a "similarly successful conduct of the runoff election on Feb. 7 and with working with whomever the Ukrainians choose as their president."

That shift is partly a reflection of U.S. weariness over Ukraine's endless political infighting. But observers suggest it's also an admission that the West now needs Russia's help tackling Iran's nuclear ambitions at the U.N. Security Council, and can't afford to be seen meddling in its neighborhood -- which is one reason why President Barack Obama scrapped plans for a controversial missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic in September.

"It's not that the principles of the Obama administration have changed much, it's their priorities that have. If Iran is first then Russia is second," says Andrew Wilson, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. "Ukraine sees itself as having been deprioritized by Obama's 'reset' politics with Russia."

Unable to rely on the West, many Ukrainians were more willing to vote for the seemingly pro-Kremlin Yanukovych. But even if Tymoshenko had won, the country would almost certainly have turned eastward. She has built up close ties with her Russian counterpart, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who recently declared that Tymoshenko was someone he could "do business with."

Wilson also notes that while Yanukovych is often portrayed as Moscow's man, he has some close links with the U.S., too.
Consultant and lobbyist Paul Manafort, who worked on the White House bids of Ronald Reagan and Sen. John McCain, has overseen the Ukrainian's political makeover. And although Yanukovych has said he will stop Ukraine from joining NATO, he approved the leasing of much-needed heavy-lifting cargo planes to the alliance while serving as prime minister in 2006.