Ukraine voters have modest hopes for Sunday ballot

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KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — Five years after the Orange Revolution inspired hopes for broad economic and political reforms, many Ukrainian voters seem to expect little from Sunday’s presidential election.

One recent poll showed a majority of voters are concerned the election could be rigged. Some wonder whether even an honest vote can make life here better after years of political paralysis and a severe economic recession,

Elena Galitskaya, a Kiev psychologist, said Ukraine’s presidential hopefuls demonstrated their “scorn” of voters during the acrimonious campaign. “I don’t know if I go to vote tomorrow, because, speaking honestly, I think that the elections won’t give anything to our country,” she said.

Former Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych is expected to top Sunday’s election, but with 18 candidates taking part he is likely to fall short of the 50 percent needed for overall victory, forcing a runoff with the second-placed finisher.

In a December opinion poll, only 34 percent of Ukrainians said that they expected the election to be fair overall, while 57 percent said the results could be manipulated or were certain to be stolen. The rest couldn’t say.

Many analysts and candidates this week warned of potential large-scale voting fraud.

As part of an international effort to bolster confidence in the election, foreign observers have fanned out across Ukraine to monitor the balloting in this country of 46 million people with 36.6 million registered voters.

Jens-Hagen Eschenbacher, a spokesman for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, said Saturday that about 600 OSCE election monitors are in place, in addition to thousands of other foreign observers.

Allegations of widespread fraud in Ukraine’s 2004 presidential election led to the mass protests of the Orange Revolution. In the wake of those protests, Ukraine’s Supreme Court threw out the results of the ballot and ordered a revote.

At least one of the presidential candidates has sought to capitalize on voter disenchantment.

The Ukrainian presidential ballot allows voters to choose “Against All.” Vasily Gumenyuk, a former mayor from western Ukraine, legally changed his name to Vasily Protivsikh, which translates as Vasily Againstall, and appears on the ballot under that name.

In an interview with AP Television News, Protivsikh attacked the leading candidates, Yanukovych and current Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.

“Why are you lying?” he said. “You are making promises to the people, but why weren’t you doing anything before?”

Like the other candidates, Protivsikh’s $300,000 filing fee is non-refundable if he fails to finish first or second in the first-round ballot Sunday.

Yanukovych, a former factory manager, appears likely to win a plurality of the votes. He opposes NATO membership but supports integration with the European Union, rejecting charges he is too close to Russia.

Tymoshenko, a one-time wealthy energy trader, is thought to be running second. She was a leader of the Orange forces and has warned of Russia’s imperial ambitions. But in the past year, she has made peace with Moscow, winning Russia’s tacit support.