Ukraine's Election Highlights Its East-West Divide

DONETSK/LVIV, Ukraine -- Two days before a presidential run-off vote, Ukraine's east-west divide remains a gulf as wide as the personal antagonism between frontrunner Viktor Yanukovich and his arch foe Yulia Tymoshenko.

Donetsk, Ukraine slum.
As the beefy, slow-speaking Yanukovich contrasts with the elegant and sharp-tongued Tymoshenko, so does the pro-Russian industrial city of Donetsk in the east differ from Lviv, a once-Polish town in Ukraine's nationalist west.

The programs of the two candidates include European integration and building pragmatic ties with former imperial master Russia, which supplies most of Ukraine's energy resources.

But the Russian-speaking Yanukovich, 59, is often berated by opponents as a "hand of Moscow," while the staunchly nationalist Prime Minister Tymoshenko, 49, who led the 2004 "Orange Revolution" street protests, is viewed widely as pro-Western.

Tired and grimy, coal miners in Yanukovich's native Donetsk region -- one of major donors of Ukraine's budget coffers -- said they more valued stability under Yanukovich's two past terms as premier than Tymoshenko's tirades on democracy.

"I've lived under these 'orange' guys for five years, and life has been only going from bad to worse. God forbid she (Tymoshenko) stays in power. I will not survive in this world," one 56-year-old miner, who gave only his first and middle names -- Nikolai Sergeyevich -- told Reuters.

"In Soviet days, I would never work underground at this age," he added glumly. "But now I just have to work to survive."

Yanukovich, who shunned a television debate with Tymoshenko this week, enjoys strong support in the east and south. He took a 10-percent lead over her in the January 17 first round of voting.

Tymoshenko, calling Yanukovich "a puppet of oligarchs who seek to plunder Ukraine," has accused the ex-mechanic of planning to rig election results and exploited his two criminal records as a young man. She is popular in the west and center.

EAST IS EAST, AND WEST IS WEST

Residential areas in Donetsk, a drab town of peeling Soviet-era houses amid a steppe landscape dotted with pyramid-like mounds of coal output waste, bear the names of Bolshevik leaders and prominent miners.

In Lviv just a few hundred kms (miles) away from Donetsk, streets bear the names of late Ukrainian nationalist leader Stepan Bandera, killed by the Soviet-era KGB and still vilified by Moscow, and Chechnya's late pro-independence leader Dzhokhar Dudayev who fought against Russian troops in the 1990s.

Like other parts of western Ukraine, Lviv changed hands in Europe before the Soviets annexed it from Poland in 1939. Strong anti-Moscow guerrilla warfare continued well into the 1950s, with pro-Soviet troops and activists often brutally killed.

"I'll vote for Yulia Tymoshenko because I like her policies and she is a strong woman," said Viktoria Lavrinchuk, a 21-year-old student of Arabic studies, sipping champagne with a friend in a cozy Lviv cafe overlooking elegant old buildings.

"I dislike the opposition -- we live in the West, after all. And I believe that under him (Yanukovich) life will only get worse in the west."

Oles Pishchak, a 26-year-old sales manager of a stationery firm, said he "shares Yulia Volodymyrivna's democratic values."

"I believe our choice is Europe, and this just where we must be heading. And I believe we will get there sooner than with the other candidate."

Alexander, a 29-year-old miner in Donetsk, said he mainly wanted stable prices, "because it's impossible for an ordinary person to survive, given today's shop and market prices."

"We still hope that our leader Viktor Fyodorovich Yanukovich will come and we will start living more or less well," he said.

Source: The Washington Post