Ukraine votes for president
Monday, 18 January 2010
KIEV, Jan 17 (Reuters): Ukraine voted for a president Sunday in an election marked by widespread disillusionment as an economic crisis grips, but one which is crucial to its relations with Russia and the European mainstream.
It is the first presidential election in the former Soviet republic of 46 million people since the "Orange Revolution" mass street protests in 2004 broke the grip on power of a sleazy post-Soviet leadership.
In an ironic twist, the frontrunner in Sunday's vote is opposition leader Viktor Yanukovich, once seen as a pro-Moscow stooge, whose rigged election in 2004 sparked those protests.
Opinion polls up to the start of the year, when their publication ceased under local law, consistently put the 59-year-old Yanukovich, a towering, barrel-chested man backed by Ukraine's wealthiest industrialists, out in front.
Behind him, the polls showed, was Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, a style-conscious, sharp-tongued populist who has been accusing him of preparing election fraud.
Neither is expected to win an outright victory on Sunday and a second round of voting is expected on February 7.
It is the first presidential election in the former Soviet republic of 46 million people since the "Orange Revolution" mass street protests in 2004 broke the grip on power of a sleazy post-Soviet leadership.
In an ironic twist, the frontrunner in Sunday's vote is opposition leader Viktor Yanukovich, once seen as a pro-Moscow stooge, whose rigged election in 2004 sparked those protests.
Opinion polls up to the start of the year, when their publication ceased under local law, consistently put the 59-year-old Yanukovich, a towering, barrel-chested man backed by Ukraine's wealthiest industrialists, out in front.
Behind him, the polls showed, was Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, a style-conscious, sharp-tongued populist who has been accusing him of preparing election fraud.
Neither is expected to win an outright victory on Sunday and a second round of voting is expected on February 7.