Pro-Russia politician Viktor Yanukovich was on course Saturday to sweep the first round of Ukraine's presidential polls, five years after vote-rigging by his supporters sparked the Orange Revolution. Polls showed Yanukovich with a clear lead going into the Sunday elections, albeit without the majority required to avoid a second round run-off against his main challenger, the glamorous Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.
The Orange Revolution protests of late 2004 swept Ukraine's old order from power and created hopes of a new era of prosperity and European integration for the country of 46 million people bridging the EU and Russia.
But amid grave public disillusionment after five years of botched reform and political stalemate, the Revolution's hero, pro-Western President Viktor Yushchenko, is set to be bundled out in the first round. With Tymoshenko making much of her warm ties with Russia's strongman Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, the outcome of the February 7 run-off is already being seen as good news for the Kremlin, which cut off all business with Yushchenko.
After a frenetic campaign that saw the main protagonists exchange stinging insults, Saturday was an official "day of calm" with all campaigning banned and posters supposed to be removed from the streets. Yanukovich was due to pray at Kiev's millennium-old Caves Monastery, one of the most revered sites of Orthodox Christianity. Yushchenko, an avowed history buff, was to attend a pan-Ukrainian meeting of Cossacks.
All the main candidates spent the final hours of campaigning Friday with appearances on Ukrainian political talk shows, while Yanukovich also held a glitzy rally in central Kiev attended by top Ukrainian pop stars. Related article: Glitzy rally for Yanukovich Tymoshenko, her voice hoarse from weeks of campaigning, issued a stern warning against the perils of voting for Yanukovich, saying the country risked becoming "internationally isolated, ruled by oligarch clans and criminals."
Yanukovich spat back: "What have the Orange leaders promised and not done over the last five years? They deceived the people." Yanukovich should win around 40 percent of the vote in the first round and Tymoshenko 23 percent, according to the latest polls by the Kiev International Institute of Sociology.
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