Court puts Ukraine result on hold
Thursday, November 25, 2004 Posted: 1836 GMT (0236 HKT)
Lech Walesa joins Yushchenko during a rally Thursday in Kiev.
KIEV, Ukraine (CNN) - "This is only the beginning," Ukraine's opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko told tens of thousands of cheering supporters after the country's Supreme Court barred publication of disputed presidential election results until his appeal hearing. The court will conduct its examination on Monday, the Interfax news agency said.
Thursday's decision will delay any formal inauguration of Viktor Yanukovych and keep outgoing President Leonid Kuchma in power for the time being. "The court ruling bars the Central Election Commission from officially publishing the results of the election and proceeding with any other action connected with this," a statement from the court said. Yushchenko immediately hailed the ruling as a victory.
"This is only the beginning. It is proof that it is society that always wins. It is small compensation for the suffering that we have endured," he told tens of thousands of supporters on Kiev's Independence Square to wild cheering. The supporters had turned out for a fourth day in the bitter cold, and opposition leaders pressed ahead with plans for a nationwide strike to protest the election outcome amid allegations of vote rigging.
Yushchenko called for an "all-Ukrainian political strike" after election officials on Wednesday declared Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych the winner of Sunday's presidential runoff. An ally of liberal opposition chief Viktor Yushchenko urged supporters on Thursday to begin blockading Ukraine's government building and parliament to press demands to overturn the results of a presidential election. "We are setting up a peaceful blockade of the government building and the Verkhovna Rada (parliament) and will strengthen our blockade around the presidential administration building," Yulia Tymoshenko told a vast crowd in Independence Square, Reuters reported.
"We are launching a siege of the authorities." Another Yushchenko ally, Oleksander Zinchenko, also announced that the opposition chief had issued a half dozen "decrees" on behalf of a newly-created Committee for National Salvation to uphold public order and guarantee media freedoms. Ukrainian legal experts told CNN that Yushchenko could not appeal the results of the election.
But he could appeal the actions of the election commission, arguing that it acted too quickly in declaring a winner in the vote without investigating allegations of fraud and abuse.In an exclusive interview with CNN's Jill Dougherty earlier Wednesday, Yushchenko said the commission should set aside the results and call new elections in districts where documented irregularities took place.
Yushchenko said he had proof that at least 3 million votes were falsified. He said his supporters have amassed more than 11,000 complaints about the voting and considered 200 of them serious. In one region, he said, turnout increased by a half million voters after polls closed. "How can that be? It was a massive injection of the ballots in favor of the other candidate," he said.
Nelson Ledsky, the National Democratic Institute's regional director for Eurasia and one of the international observers, said the observers noted cases of ballot stuffing, more votes recorded in some areas than registered voters, and some employees being threatened with losing their jobs if they did not mark ballots before the election. "There is an understanding widespread over the country that the vote was rigged," Ledsky said. The United States, Canada and the European Union denounced the vote as rigged and refused to recognize the results as legitimate - putting the West at odds with Russia.
The Ukraine crisis dominated a post-summit news conference with EU leaders and Russian President Vladimir Putin in The Hague. Although the EU said it could not accept the results of the vote, Putin said that only Ukrainians could decide the winner of their election. Putin, who congratulated Yanukovych on his victory even before final results were announced, sent another telegram of congratulations Thursday. In Kiev, former Polish leader and Solidarity founder Lech Walesa addressed the thousands of protesters gathered in the capital's main square.
"I am amazed with your emotions and your enthusiasm. I am deeply sure that it will lead to your victory," The Associated Press quoted Walesa as saying. Thousands of demonstrators, wearing the orange colors of Yushchenko's campaign, spent a fourth night in giant tent encampments in the center of the capital. Smaller groups of pro-government demonstrators have rallied nearby, waving blue and white flags in support of Yanukovych.
Socialist Party leader Oleksander Moroz said the opposition would attempt to halt transport and close schools, universities and factories. The opposition said some roads had already been blocked and workers had gone on strike, but there was no way of independently verifying the claims, AP reported.
Workers from several factories in the western opposition stronghold of Lviv were reportedly leaving their jobs to come to Kiev, AP said. But it was a different story in the pro-Russian, heavily industrialized east, where coal miners pledged to support Yanukovych, Reuters reported. "The miners will work and will continue to work. They know that without our labor the country cannot exist," Reuters quoted trade union chief Igor Strelchenko as saying. "The miners are for Viktor Fedorovich (Yanukovych)."
A widespread strike would risk provoking a crackdown by outgoing President Leonid Kuchma, who has accused the opposition of trying to carry out "a coup d'etat." On Wednesday, the election commission announced Yanukovych won Sunday's hotly contested presidential runoff with 49.46 percent of the vote to Yushchenko's 46.61 percent.
But international observers said the voting was riddled with irregularities, and four of the panel's 15 members voted against the final report in a raucous meeting that was broadcast live on Ukrainian television. U.S. and British officials have called for an investigation into the election. In Washington, Secretary of State Colin Powell said the United States does not accept the results of Ukraine's presidential elections as legitimate, citing "extensive and credible ... reports of fraud and abuse." The United States has issued a travel alert about the "potential for civil unrest and disturbances" in Ukraine. Canada, with 1 million residents of Ukrainian background, also said it did not accept the results.
(or is that a false assumption?). Although I want to look at it out of a positive prospective, I do fear the worst, as you point out: civil war. Yushchenko does not accept the outcome of the elections (which is logical, with the alleged massive fraud during the elections), but it seems Yanukovych does not want to give up his "victory" either.
