Tensions are rising in Ukraine ahead of Sunday's presidential contest, with both candidates threatening to send thousands of supporters into the streets of the capital after the balloting.
Kyiv authorities said Friday they have received a permit application from supporters of Russia-friendly opposition leader Viktor Yanukovych for a rally of up to 50,000 people around the city the day after the vote.
Meanwhile, incumbent President Viktor Yushchenko instructed Interior Ministry troops to secure the Central Election Commission, which was surrounded by some 250 burly Yanukovych partisans who said they were there to protect the integrity of the election.
Yanukovych's Kremlin-backed election as president five years ago was contested in the mass protests called the Orange Revolution, and his win was thrown out on grounds of fraud. He appears confident of victory and determined to protect it this time.
Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko accused Yanukovych Thursday of plotting to steal the vote and vowed to stage mass street protests in a replay of the 2004 Orange demonstrations.
The fiery and glamorous Tymoshenko helped lead the Orange revolt, which rallied hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians demanding economic and political reform.
Some analysts say Tymoshenko is trailing, and she is calling for demonstrations to protest the widespread fraud that she predicts will take place.
But it's not clear whether Ukrainians, exhausted by years of political turmoil, will answer the call of their bitterly divided political leaders and take to the streets.
"People no longer believe in politicians and they won't go to the Maidan," said 37-year-old businessman Pyotr Ridno, referring to Kyiv's central square where tens of thousands rallied for weeks in late 2004.
"Brazen and flagrant fraud by Yanukovych could rouse the Ukrainians, but they are unlikely to go for that after what happened in 2004."
Others said they would rally to defend the Orange revolt.
"If we do not help Yulia to win, then dark days await Ukraine and we will return to the past," said Nina Krikun, a 70-year-old retiree. "My whole life was spent in Soviet poverty. And I will do everything to ensure my grandchildren live in a different Ukraine."
Yanukovych won handily in the first round of voting last month, 35 per cent to 25 per cent. Tymoshenko is expected to close at least some of the gap by picking up votes splintered among candidates in the first round.
Political observers say that Tymoshenko isn't likely to concede the race easily.
"Regardless of what the gap between them is - one and a half per cent or 10 per cent - she will not accept defeat," said Mikhail Pogribinsky, director of the Kyiv Center of Political Research and Conflict Studies. "Then we will enter a new era of instability until a broad agreement is reached between the winner and the loser."
Both candidates have strong geographic constituencies. Tymoshenko is popular in western Ukraine, while Yanukovych is the standard-bearer for the east, centre of the country's large ethnic Russian minority.
"There remains a deep rift right along the Dnepr River - the southeast versus the northwest," said Sergei Markov, a Russian lawmaker and election monitor, referring to the river that runs through Kyiv.
"The new president will need to mend these two camps in order to become not just the president of western Ukraine but all of Ukraine," he said.
As opposing parties trade increasingly bitter accusations, Yushchenko expressed concern that Ukraine's democracy was eroding.
"With every passing day, the situation is becoming ever more intolerable. Unfortunately, we are moving away from European democratic norms," Yushchenko said Friday in an unscheduled government meeting attended by top security officials.
Ukraine's acting interior minister, a Tymoshenko loyalist, said Friday that about 2,000 former police and security guards have arrived in Kyiv to serve as muscle for Yanukovych. Acting Minister Yury Lutsenko said the massing of so many security veterans raises concerns about election unrest.
Yanukovych's spokesman declined to comment on Lutsenko's statement.
The campaigns of both candidates were to culminate Friday evening in rallies at two separate Kyiv squares one block apart. Both were expected to draw thousands of supporters, raising fears of clashes.
Each camp has accused the other of planning to steal or disrupt the election.
On Wednesday, Yanukovych supporters helped pass amendments to the election law repealing a requirement that representatives of both candidates be present to supervise the vote count.
Tymoshenko charged that Yanukovych will use the new law to eject her supporters from the polls, opening the door for ballot-box stuffing and fraudulent counts.
On Friday, Tymoshenko's camp appealed to the constitutional Court to have the law overturned, but no ruling is expected for several weeks.
The head of the European People's Party raised questions about the amendment.
"I am very concerned about the last-minute changes made to the electoral law of Ukraine," the party's president, Wilfried Martens, said in a statement Friday.
Martens said the new rules were likely to increase opportunities for fraud in Sunday's vote.
Yanukovych insisted the changes in the law were needed to prevent Tymoshenko's appointees from boycotting the count in Yanukovych's strongholds and invalidating the affected ballots.
Yushchenko, who signed the law Thursday, said Friday it would prevent any attempted disruption.
"I contend that this makes the electoral process more democratic," he said.
Source: Agencies
Kavkaz Center
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