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Yushchenko confirms he’ll seek reelection
Journal Staff Report

KIEV, April 22 – President Viktor Yushchenko, defying his current low popularity, said Wednesday he will run for re-election later this year and promised to make sure the vote will be fair.

Asked by reporters whether he would run, Yushchenko, at a press conference, replied: “I will. This is so clear, this is obvious.”

Yushchenko will face an uphill battle as recent opinion polls suggest his rating ranges between 3% and 5%, which compares with 52% that had voted for him in December 2004.

Ukraine’s severe economic crisis, which resulted in hundreds of thousands of people losing their jobs since October, will dominate the mood of voters, benefiting opposition politicians, analysts said.

Opposition leader Viktor Yanukovych, who stands on a platform of increasing cooperation with Russia and whom Yushchenko had defeated in December 2004, now had emerged as the favorite, according to opinion polls.

Yanukovych leads with 37.9% public support, followed by Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko’s 21.3% and former Parliamentary Speaker Arseniy Yatseniuk’s 20.1%, according to the poll by the Kiev International Institute of Sociology.

Tymoshenko and Yatseniuk ratings are within the statistical margin of error, suggesting that both could make it to the runoff with Yanukovych.

Yanukovych would defeat both in the runoff, but his dominance over Tymosheko had a greater margin, the poll showed.

Yanukovych would defeat Tymoshenko by 52.6% vs. 42.5%, while his victory over Yatseniuk would come at 50.2% vs. 45.1%, according to the poll.

Parliament earlier this month set the date for the next presidential election on October 25, almost three months earlier than had been required by the constitution. Yushchenko, citing the constitution, said the vote should take place on January 17, 2010.

Analysts said the disagreement will probably be settled by the Constitutional Court later this year.

Yushchenko indicated he would accept the October 25 date if the presidential election comes on the same day with early parliamentary election, a plan that is rejected by Tymoshenko, who would lose her post as the prime minister in this case.

Yushchenko said the next presidential election will be a challenge for Ukraine. He also said that under his presidency Ukraine had made an important progress on many issues, including the freedom of speech.

“I am convinced that none of you can say that he wants to get back to 2004,” Yushchneko told reporters at a press conference. “That means that over the past four years we have gained something that you don’t want to lose. But the threat to lose it all is no less than it was in 2004.”

Yushchenko, a pro-Western leader who pushed hard for accelerating Ukraine’s accession to NATO, had lost much of public support due to politician infighting with Tymoshenko, his former ally.

Tymoshenko has been leading in opinion polls for most of the past two years, but the economic crisis that had hit Ukraine hard since October 2008 had reduced her public support, allowing Yanukovuch to take the lead.

Yushchenko urged for revision of election law to allow more competition between politicians within one party for seats in Parliament, and indirectly attacked both, Tymoshenko and Yanukovych.

“We have a democracy. But we do not have indispensable component of democracy: the responsible government,” Yushchenko said in an apparent reference to Tymoshenko.

“We elect [lawmakers] based on closed party tickets. That’s why a person with three jail sentences can emerge in Parliament,” Yushchenko said. “We already have a fan-club of people with two jail sentences.”

The comment is aimed at Yanukovych, who is thought to have two jail sentences – apparently for robbery and assault – dating back to 1969 and 1970. Yanukovych never publicly commented on his jail sentences, except that he had a rocky childhood. (tl/ez)




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