unday, February 7 and the following Monday are bound to be pretty tense. It is highly probable that if the exit polls scheduled to be made public at 20:00 on February 7 show a slight edge of one candidate over the other, the country could be on the brink of a forceful resolution to the political standoff. It is said that Volodymyr Lytvyn stands to reap the most dividends from such a scenario

Photo: PHL

 

Apparently, the campaign headquarters of Viktor Yanukovych is so confident in its candidate´s victory that it is not making any striking moves, there is not much political advertising and the candidate himself is not showing any will to compromise with possible allies.

Yanukovych currently has one goal - to mobilize his voters to the maximum. Campaign managers say this will allow him to win enough votes to be named the de facto winner of the presidential race. 

In the meantime, Yanukovych´s victory may be nothing more than the dream of his spin doctors. All that is needed for such hopes to be dashed is supporters of Yatsenyuk and Tihipko giving their votes to Tymoshenko as the "lesser of two evils".

Judging from information leaking out from the headquarters of both parties, in the event of a loss both Tymoshenko and Yanukovych will act along very similar scenarios. The loser on February 7 will declare massive rigging of the ballot counting in the second round.

District commissions, where the two candidates have essentially 50/50 representation, will be blocked by representatives of the losing camp. According to effective legislation, the meetings of election commissions are legally competent if two thirds of their members are present. On February 8 the losing political force will occupy Independence Square and the police will not be able to counteract this act without a leader.

In short, this is a dead-end situation that can only be resolved by direct agreement between Tymoshenko and Yankovych. It is not difficult to guess what conditions the opponents will put to one another in this case. To be sure, the losing candidate will be nominated for the premier´s post.

According to information that Weekly.ua possesses, Yanukovych´s campaign managers refused to use the technology of mass canvassing and discrediting Tymoshenko at least in the regions where she has a clear advantage. No billboards, flyers or ribbons. Only newspapers are used in anti-Tymoshenko canvassing. No graft, food rations or gratuities for voters to swing their sympathy during the elections. The probable aim is to not raise the mercury on the political thermometer, which Yanukovych´s campaign team believes will not allow Tymoshenko to appeal to the masses alleging unfair elections.

This is precisely why the Regions have summoned an emergency session of the Verkhovna Rada during which Yuriy Lutsenko was dismissed from the post of interior minister. The BYT did not block the parliamentary rostrum as an objection to the minister´s dismissal upon the personal instruction of Oleksandr Turchynov.

Seeing as Lutsenko all too often changes his political sponsors, making him an acting minister is convenient for both presidential candidates. As long as events unfold along the crisis scenario and the threat of use of force becomes real, it is highly unlikely that the immediate heads of law enforcement bodies will obey the commands of the acting minister. After all, law enforcers cannot disobey the command of a full-fledged minister.

On the other hand, the main forces that can be activated during mass disorders are internal troops subordinated to their commander Gen. Oleksandr Kikhtenko. He is a protege of President Viktor Yushchenko and is unlikely to use force to sort out problems in favor a particular presidential candidate.

The second task that proponents of Yanukovych tried to fulfill after Lutsenko´s dismissal was to ensure the work of election commissions even if Tymoshenko orders a boycott of their activity. For this the supporters of Yanukovych managed to push through amendments to the law on the presidential elections in the first reading at an emergency session of the VR. If this law is adopted the limitation of the commission quorum to 2/3 of its members will be lifted. At present the commission is formed on a 50/50 basis. If the law is passed the technology of boycotting the work of the election commission of the losing team will become irrelevant.

Interestingly enough, the law was passed in the first reading with the support of the Lytvyn Bloc faction. But when the speaker put to vote the issue of accelerated drafting of the law and final voting last Tuesday, the deputies of his faction did not support his initiative.

As a result, a conflict arose where the law was passed in the first reading, but its entry into force is from time to time being postponed and will definitely not be voted in by the second round of the elections.

This implies the possibility of a third round of elections in which Lytvyn will once again play the lead role. Whether or not one of the sides will be able to independently announce the results of the elections will depend on the deputies of Lytvyn´s faction.

But before this happens, the people will once again have to hit the streets…

BLITZ INTERVIEW

MP Vladislav Kaskiv
(Our Ukraine - People´s Self-defense), one of the field commanders on the Maidan in 2004

 In the opinion of a person that five years ago controlled the course of events on the country´s main square, is there a possibility such events will be repeated today?
V. K. If the future winner is not guided by myths or phantoms, then any mass measures in 2010 will not be terrible, even if they are taken at the highest professional level. Even the most qualified managers will not influence the process. Real measures that have an impact on politics happen when the notion "for" not "against" exists. The "against" idea will not influence politics, though it can instigate uncontrollable processes such as massacres and unrest. This could happen when the central government is weak. And today this is precisely the case in Ukraine.

 Imagine that Yanukovych loses and brings several thousands of people from the Donbas to the nation´s capital. Is this possible? And what might happen?
V. K.We will see the same thing we saw in 2004. They will go back home the same way they came. And in the opposite case, we will see the same results.
 
So, what if boys are brought in from Western Ukraine?…
V. K. What should motivate a person to come to the central square in Kyiv, be they a blue collar worker or a businessman, and lie down under an armored personnel carrier or stand on the street all night long in temperatures of 15 below zero? In 2004 they stood for their future, to show pride in their homeland and for their children. What can be the motive today? Perhaps a staging of Maidain2010 or a brilliant show if there are top-notch managers. But there will be no revolution.
 
This is how a staging can be done a la the Hollywood film Wag the Dog…
V. K. I am happy about one thing in this election process. They can try as hard as they like, but they will not topple Ukraine. I say this for two reasons. Firstly, there is not such fierce confrontation between people that could split the country. Secondly, there is currently a diffusion of moods in society. The orange candidate has greater support in the east and the white & blue has more sympathies in the west. These people have become completely different from what they were five years ago. The Party of Regions has become public. After all, who of the leaders of the PoR would have appealed to the people from the Maidan in 2004? Today they are speaking on talk shows and going public. The competency of these politicians looks bad and even stinks, but it is becoming a foundation. We are in the final stage of the period of transition that has lasted almost 20 years. These people today have a totally different mindset. Even when they think about their own pockets they think about how to put hard earned money into them rather than the cash pilfered from the national budget.

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