The Curtain of the Yulia Tymoshenko Project Goes Down

The presidential election in Ukraine will most likely end with another huge fight. Viktor Yanukovych, a pro-Russia candidate, the leader of the Party of the Regions, is less than three percent ahead of Ukraine’s sitting Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. All international observers from the OSCE, PACE and other Western institutions acknowledged that the presidential vote in Ukraine did not violate any international democratic standards. The media already refer to Yanukovych as Ukraine’s next president.

Photo: The Curtain of the Yulia Tymoshenko Project Goes Down

Yanukovych received 48.27 percent of votes, whereas Tymoshenko won 46.1 percent. Yanukovych was 13 percent ahead of Tymoshenko in the beginning of calculations, but the gap decreased to less than three percent several hours later.

The biggest intrigue of the presidential vote in Ukraine is Tymoshenko’s further action: whether she recognizes her defeat or decides to go to court. Both Tymoshenko’s and Yanukovych’s election headquarters accuse each other of falsifications.

The official result of the vote will be announced before February 17, which will be the deadline, an official with the nation’s Central Electoral Committee said.

In the meantime, the media refer to 59-year-old Viktor Yanukovych as Ukraine’s fourth President.

Spokespeople for the Party of Regions said that “Tymoshenko must recognize her defeat and congratulate Viktor Yanukovych on his victory, if she considers herself a European politician.”

“She once said that even ten votes could help a candidate win, but we have 1.5 million votes here instead of ten,” a spokesperson for Yanukovych’s headquarters said.

Tymoshenko’s followers have already said that they were not going to sit on their hands. They will use the remaining ten days (before the official results are announced) for preparing lawsuits. Tymoshenko is not going to lose her last chance .

Outgoing President Viktor Yushchenko voted against both Tymoshenko and Yanukovych. He stated that the Ukrainians would be “ashamed for their choice,” RIA Novosti reports.

As soon as it became known that Viktor Yanukovych was winning the election, he stated that Yulia Tymoshenko would remain the Ukrainian prime minister for the time being. It is not known whether the two candidates are going to join forces in the future. A source from Yanukovych’s election team said that the name of the new prime minister would be announced in the nearest future.

If Yanukovych is the president, the new Ukrainian administration would most likely stop any discussions about the nation’s membership in NATO.

One may not resort to Yanukovych as a public politician. He is not really good at picking the right words in his communication with political opponents or journalists. This has been his weak point for long. Even his closest followers can not imagine Yanukovych as a man who quickly finds right and witty answers to questions. He can make funny mistakes when he says something in public . For example, he recently called Anton Chekhov a “Ukrainian poet,” Pravda.Ru reports.

Yanukovych is a man of his team, and he can always count on his people. His rival, Yulia Tymoshenko, is a one woman business. Needless to say that this is a very vulnerable kind of business. As a public figure, Tymoshenko is a lot brighter, but her bloc differs a lot from Yanukovych’s team. Her bloc is mostly made of businessmen, who fund the Yulia Tymoshenko project and hope to receive good profit in return.