Reformers vow poll unity

KIEV - Ukraine's dismissed Prime Minister yesterday called for unity among the authors of the country's Orange Revolution after polls for next years general election showed their conservative opponents in the lead.

One year after protests led to the fall of President Viktor Yanukovich, former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko told a crowd of 100,000 in Independence Square that only unity could win the March election to a Parliament led by a Prime Minister with expanded powers.

Tymoshenko had vowed to campaign against incumbent President Viktor Yushchenko after she and the rest of his Government was dismissed in September over corruption.

Her impassioned 20-minute address, delivered without notes, clearly won over the crowd marking last year's mass protests, which helped propel Yushchenko to power.

"I am certain that just as we supported Viktor Yushchenko in the presidential election, we must now unite to elect a Prime Minister who will embody everything we fought for," Tymoshenko, tears welling in her eyes, told the crowd.

"I want to dismiss rumours that it is Tymoshenko versus Yushchenko. This cannot be so, because this is the President that you and I helped bring to power. We did it together."

Tymoshenko's speech on what the liberal Administration has proclaimed "Freedom Day" was clearly aimed at the March election campaign.

It also sought to justify her eight months in charge of a Government that blew apart into rival camps, each accusing the other of corruption.

She told supporters: "My heart is with you. If it didn't work first time, it will next time round. We cannot stop with things half finished."

Yanukovich's Regions Party leads polls with more than 20 per cent support. Tymoshenko's Fatherland Party lies second with 17 per cent and the pro-presidential Our Ukraine commands about 12 per cent.

At the rally, Yushchenko looked distinctly uncomfortable, issuing a similar call for unity at the end of an hour-long speech interrupted periodically by hecklers shouting "Yulia!"

"Do we want to win the 2006 parliamentary election? Yes, we do!" the President, accompanied on stage by his wife and children, said to modest applause from the crowd.

"This team standing behind me must be united, must work together and extend a hand to one another."

Recent polls show 70 per cent of Orange Revolution supporters are now disillusioned with the way its leaders have guided the country.

Many are dismayed that no prominent members of the old regime have been brought to trial and many, including Tymoshenko, allege that Yushchenko has made a secret deal not to prosecute them.

One of Ukraine's most revered politicians, a former Soviet-era independence spokesman who spent 27 years in the Gulag, said that if Yushchenko's answers to the country's problems were not satisfactory, "It could be time for another revolution". 


 
PATH TO POWER

* 'Official' results from the November 21, 2004 Presidential election differed from exit polls that gave Viktor Yushchenko a large lead over PM Viktor Yanukovich.
* Massive protests began after Yushchenko presented evidence of electoral fraud by his rivals.
* The Supreme Court ruled the poll invalid, and Yushchenko was the clear winner in a rerun.
* Yushchenko fired his first Govt in September, citing corruption.
* His PM, Yulia Tymoshenko, vowed to run against him in the next poll.


- REUTERS, INDEPENDENT