A Tale Of Two Elections

LONDON, UK -- Ukraine's voters go to the polls on Sunday to elect a new Parliament. With Viktor Yushchenko's erstwhile rival for the presidency, Viktor Yanukovich, leading in the campaign, and his party looking to become the largest in the new Parliament.

Viktor Yushchenko on television appealing to voters
Some Western commentators are already predicting a defeat for the "Orange Revolution."

But this misses the point. The Orange Revolution of 2004 was not a movement to get a particular party or individual into power in Ukraine. It was a popular movement that brought together people of different political persuasions united by one powerful idea - to end lies and falsification and to defend the freedom to choose their leaders.

The Ukrainian people chose a new direction that winter, one that took them toward a genuine European democracy. In that objective they have been and will be successful, whoever wins these elections.

We often forget that making such radical changes and reforms takes time. A new democratic system does not appear overnight.

Prime Minister Tony Blair summed up the view of the wider international community at the EU- Ukraine Summit in Kiev on Dec. 1 when he said, "I hope people in Ukraine are in no doubt of what a difference the last year has made to the way that the Ukraine is viewed in the world."

A lot has already changed in Ukraine since the winter of 2004. The international observers will give their verdict on Monday, but their initial reports show that the campaign has been free and lively. There has been debate and discussion among all the protagonists in Ukraine's news media, and rallies have been held by parties across the country. Ukraine's cities are festooned with the bright colors - blue, orange, green, white, yellow, red - of Ukraine's competing parties.

What a contrast with Ukraine before the Orange Revolution! The campaign for the 2004 presidential elections was a very different story. The opposition could not campaign in many areas of the country. It was excluded from most television channels.

Its leader was poisoned in the middle of the campaign. But ultimately the old regime in Kiev proved no match for the determination of ordinary people to express their choice freely and democratically. The rest, as they say, is history.

But it is also history in the making. Whatever the result in Sunday's election, Ukraine will have taken another step forward in its democratic development and therefore in its integration into the modern Europe.

Pluralism in politics, freedom in the media and the conduct of free and fair elections are key indicators in Ukraine's action plans with NATO and the EU.

A free election in Ukraine will have a profound effect on the region too. We have just seen the most appalling travesty of democracy in Ukraine's neighbor, Belarus. The conduct of the election there was characterized by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe monitors as showing "a disregard for the basic rights of freedom of assembly, association and expression."

Yet depressing as it is to see Aleksandr Lukashenko securing another term as president with an implausible 83 percent of the vote, there is still reason to be optimistic for Belarus. These elections showed that there are people in Belarus who are ready to unite in the fight for democratic values.

Lukashenko blames that on external interference. But in doing so, he misreads his people. Belarussians are not so different from people the world over. They expect honesty and accountability from their government. They expect to have the choice of who governs them. No government that ignores that can be sustainable. There's no place for dictatorship in Europe.

Ukraine's elections will be followed by a normal democratic tussle as parties seek to form a new coalition government. We look forward to working with whatever government emerges. We hope it will remain committed to President Yushchenko's reformist course, that it will vigorously pursue the fight against corruption and that it will continue Ukraine's remarkable democratic development.

As for Belarus, we won't forget the Belarussian people and their attempt to make their voice heard. We need to stand by them, as we did the people of Ukraine.

Source: International Herald Tribune