Ukraine's "Orange Revolution" Duo Fight Disillusion

TERNOPIL, Ukraine -- The leaders of Ukraine's "Orange Revolution" have set aside their differences but face a battle to win back voters disenchanted with progress since the mass protests of 2004.

Ukraine's "Orange Revolution" duo, President Viktor Yushchenko and former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko
President Viktor Yushchenko and former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko have been touring strongholds in western Ukraine urging voters to forget the disunity that toppled their first government and back their parties in Sunday's parliamentary election.

"Some of you may have given up the fight or have come with heads bowed, weary of quarrels. I understand how you feel," Yushchenko told 20,000 supporters at a weekend music festival in the tidy provincial town of Ternopil.

"Mistakes were made, humiliating, immoral actions committed. But our time has come. If we want the Ukrainian nation to win here we must overcome our own egoism. We must be united."

The pro-Western Yushchenko defeated his rival Viktor Yanukovich in the rerun of a rigged 2004 election after weeks of mass protests against vote rigging.

Tymoshenko, whose fiery speeches roused crowds during the "orange" protests, became prime minister. But infighting led to her dismissal and undermined plans to move Ukraine closer to the West and eventually join NATO and the European Union.

Defections among "orange" allies torpedoed a bid to form another liberal government after a parliamentary poll last year, allowing a resurgent Yanukovich to become prime minister.

Yushchenko blamed Tymoshenko for the debacle, but the two have since formed a tactical alliance. Both urge voters to elect enough "orange" members to enable them to form a government.

Yanukovich, backed by Moscow in 2004, now describes himself as pro-European and his Regions Party tops polls.

But the combined tally of the president's Our Ukraine party and Tymoshenko's bloc is close behind and tough post-election talks to form a coalition are certain.

Both back liberal ideals and market economics and promotion of Ukraine's language and national identity, though the campaign is dominated by talk of better living standards and benefits.

GOING TO RALLIES

Residents of the region - dotted by imposing eastern-rite Catholic churches - spent much of the weekend harvesting potatoes, many using a horse and plough. But hundreds boarded convoys of buses to attend the rallies in provincial towns.

Tymoshenko was more forthright in urging voters, who earn considerably less than the national average monthly pay of $250, to head to polling stations.

"No one who has Ukraine's interests at heart has the right to be disillusioned. We were simply too naive after the Orange Revolution," Tymoshenko, impeccably dressed and sporting her trademark braid, said in the brightly painted town of Kolomyia.

"Could we truly have expected to see results and a different country the morning after the revolution?" Of course not!"

Unlike Yanukovich, who uses blunt, homespun language in short addresses in his Russian-speaking industrial eastern strongholds, both "orange" leaders speak in Ukrainian for 40 minutes and more, referring frequently to Ukraine's history.

Crowds received them warmly, but without much of the fire of the 2004 rallies. And friction between the two leaders has yet to abate completely.

Yushchenko rarely refers to Tymoshenko by name and refuses to rule out a post-election "grand coalition" between his party and Yanukovich's Regions Party -- said by some to be a way of bridging the traditional gap between Ukraine's east and west.

Tymoshenko said she was disturbed by any notion that the president might agree to a deal with the man he beat in the turbulent 2004 presidential poll.

"You must never think that a broad coalition will unite east and west," she told supporters. "It is a betrayal of east and west. When you enter such a coalition the compromises imposed on you are incompatible with change."

Source: Reuters