Kuchma and Symonenko to face off on November 14
by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau
KYIV - Although almost entirely locked out in the east, overwhelming electoral support in the western regions of Ukraine allowed President Leonid Kuchma to take more than a third of the popular vote in the October 31 presidential election, far ahead of the 12 other candidates. Because he failed to reach the threshold of 50 percent plus one vote, however, he will face second-place finisher Petro Symonenko of the Communist Party in a run-off slated for November 14.
On November 1, with 99.9 percent of the vote counted, Ukraine's Central Election Commission announced that Mr. Kuchma had gathered 36.48 percent of the vote, followed by Mr. Symonenko with 22.24 percent. The results show that the president took 17 of the 25 regions of Ukraine, while Mr. Symonenko won five oblasts and Crimea. Socialist Party candidate Oleksander Moroz received a majority in two oblasts and Progressive Socialist Natalia Vitrenko took one. Mr. Moroz and Ms. Vitrenko each received just over 11 percent of the electoral vote.
On a clear and warm autumn day, voters turned out in large numbers, but the local election precincts were prepared for them and the voters were able to cast their ballots in minutes. There were few problems, and the thousands of foreign and domestic election observers located throughout all of the oblasts of Ukraine recorded no major voting irregularities, although minor violations abounded.
With 69.82 percent of the electorate voting, the turnout was higher than the 68 percent recorded in the 1994 presidential elections and the 64 percent that cast ballots in parliamentary elections in 1998.
The CEC said that 3.95 percent of the ballots were invalidated because they were improperly filled out, and that 1.8 percent of voters who claimed ballots at polling stations decided to vote for nobody.
In a reversal of his fortunes in the 1994 elections, the president showed the most strength in the western regions. In 1994 the west voted heavily against him, favoring Leonid Kravchuk, then the incumbent. Mr. Kuchma had spent much time in the Ternopil, Zakarpattia and Lviv oblasts in the months before election day, and it seems his efforts paid off.
In both Ternopil and Ivano-Frankivsk some 70 percent of voters supported the incumbent, while in Lviv that number was only slightly less, 64 percent.
Also unlike in 1994, President Kuchma did very poorly in the heavily populated eastern and southern regions. He took a single oblast, barely managing a majority in his home region of Dnipropetrovsk. The other eight oblasts and Crimea were divided among the three leftist candidates who followed Mr. Kuchma in the final tally.
Two days after the results were tallied, the president dismissed his regional heads in two eastern oblasts, Kirovohrad and Poltava, as well as the Vinnytsia Oblast leader. Vinnytsia was one of only two central regions (Mykolaiv Oblast was the other) where the president couldn't claim a victory.
Oleksander Martynenko, the president's press spokesman, confirmed that the firings were directly related to the president's poor showing in those oblasts.
"The support the president received in these regions in the election reflects the performance of the local administration heads," explained Mr. Martynenko.
Another surprise in this election was the poor showing by Ms. Vitrenko. Polls had indicated that she would finish a strong second behind the incumbent president, but she managed only a poor third and received barely 11 percent support, far below the 17 to 18 percent she had been expected to garner.
Neither the bombastic and controversial Ms. Vitrenko, who had said during her campaign that she would send many of the current government leaders to work in uranium mines after her victory, nor most of the other defeated candidates had much to say after the results were in.
President Kuchma met briefly with television journalists on November 1 to thank his supporters, and to note that he was pleased that the first round finally was over.
"I am happy that the days of the dirty campaigns are finally over," said Mr. Kuchma. "I am confident of that. This will be preserved for history as an example of how one should not run a campaign race."
He had good words for his Communist opponent in the upcoming run-off, which was a bit of a change for a candidate who had aggressively attacked most of the leftist challengers he found politically most threatening. He said that Mr. Symonenko and the Communist Party had "carried on a worthy campaign."
In the first round Mr. Symonenko was rarely the target of political attacks by the president's election team, and had run a quiet campaign in return. Most experts have agreed that the Kuchma team wanted a showdown with the Communists, in the belief that a majority of Ukrainians would opt for the incumbent with all his shortcomings in a run-off with a Communist who proposes radical and uncertain changes.
The Kuchma campaign had directed its sharpest volleys at the Kaniv Four, a group ideologically much closer to the president.
During a press conference after the results were announced Mr. Kuchma said the first round had ended as he had expected. "Yet, I cannot relax. On the contrary I must concentrate on the remaining days [to the run-off]," said the president.
Mr. Kuchma also invited defeated presidential candidates and political parties from the democratic camps to join him in the run-off. He said that his "doors are open" and expressed hope that many of his competitors would now become his allies.
So far, none of the defeated candidates have thrown their support to the victor, although it is expected that many of the lesser presidential pretenders, most of whom received less than 1 percent of the vote, would line up behind the incumbent.
The strongest finishers on the right - Yevhen Marchuk, who was aligned with the predominantly leftist Kaniv Four group and took 8.13 percent of the vote, and Yurii Kostenko of the splinter Rukh organization, who managed only 2.17 percent - were unabashedly anti-Kuchma in their pre-election rhetoric, to such an extent that experts believe it will be difficult for them to endorse Mr. Kuchma in the November 14 run-off. Both candidates also have said they would not support the Communists in any case.
On the left, Mr. Moroz said on November 2 that he is negotiating with Mr. Symonenko on an endorsement. He downplayed rumors that the talks concerned the possibility that Mr. Symonenko might step down in favor of Mr. Moroz, who as the third-place finisher would move into the run-off in such a scenario. There is a good deal of speculation on the left that Mr. Moroz, even with his relatively poor showing in the first round, could beat the president in a run-off. Mr. Moroz said that a victory by Mr. Symonenko over the president "is possible in principle."
Ms. Vitrenko, the other major leftist candidate, said she would support the Communist candidate only if she were assured the post of prime minister. She gave Mr. Symonenko until November 7 to put it in writing.
"By the appointment of Natalia Vitrenko to the office of prime minister we wish to guarantee society the prevention of mistakes previously made by the Communist Party," read a statement issued by the Central Committee of Ms. Vitrenko's Progressive Socialist Party.
ELECTION RESULTS AS OF NOVEMBER 1 FROM 27 REGIONAL DISTRICTS
WITH 99.9 PERCENT OF THE RESULTS RETURNED
There are 37.5 million registered voters in Ukraine. In this election,
26.296 million received ballots,
or 70.17 percent of the total registered. Of those that received ballots,
26.283 million voted.
| Candidate | Votes received |
% of votes cast |
| Leonid Kuchma | 9,587,575 | 36.48 |
| Petro Symonenko | 5,846,171 | 22.24 |
| Oleksander Moroz | 2,969,205 | 11.3 |
| Natalia Vitrenko | 2,885,010 | 10.98 |
| Yevhen Marchuk | 2,137,247 | 8.13 |
| Yurii Kostenko | 570,477 | 2.17 |
| Hennadii Udovenko | 319,491 | 1.22 |
| Vasyl Onopenko | 123,901 | 0.47 |
| Oleksander Rzhavskyi | 96,418 | 0.37 |
| Yurii Karmazin | 90,449 | 0.34 |
| Vitalii Kononov | 76,734 | 0.29 |
| Oleksander Bazyliuk | 35,975 | 0.14 |
| Mykola Haber | 31,756 | 0.12 |
| Number of voters that did not support any candidate: 476,184 or 1.81 percent. | ||
| ||||
| Oblast | Winning candidate |
Total votes |
Winner's votes |
Winner's % of total |
| Crimea | Symonenko | 898,118 | 337,878 | 37.62 |
| Vinnytsia | Moroz | 1,061,785 | 359,306 | 33.84 |
| Volyn | Kuchma | 608,238 | 313,193 | 51.49 |
| Dnipropetrovsk | Kuchma | 1,932,953 | 756,148 | 39.12 |
| Donetsk | Symonenko | 2,434,445 | 959,139 | 39.4 |
| Zhytomyr | Kuchma | 823,703 | 254,751 | 30.93 |
| Zakarpattia | Kuchma | 544,086 | 296,878 | 54.56 |
| Zaporizhia | Symonenko | 1,024,290 | 316,002 | 30.85 |
| Ivano-Frankivsk | Kuchma | 810,624 | 570,541 | 70.38 |
| Kyiv | Kuchma | 1,041,428 | 380,067 | 36.49 |
| Kirovohrad | Symonenko | 651,702 | 182,666 | 28.03 |
| Luhansk | Symonenko | 1,351,906 | 637,490 | 47.15 |
| Lviv | Kuchma | 1,579,940 | 1,012,067 | 64.06 |
| Mykolaiv | Kuchma | 646,550 | 217,510 | 33.64 |
| Odesa | Kuchma | 1,060,355 | 390,207 | 36.8 |
| Poltava | Moroz | 1,009,038 | 264,063 | 26.17 |
| Rivne | Kuchma | 654,643 | 299,201 | 45.77 |
| Sumy | Vitrenko | 822,723 | 243,498 | 29.6 |
| Ternopil | Kuchma | 715,480 | 496,384 | 69.38 |
| Kharkiv | Symonenko | 1,560,733 | 512,994 | 32.87 |
| Kherson | Symonenko | 621,346 | 218,125 | 35.11 |
| Khmelnytskyi | Kuchma | 882,522 | 266,963 | 30.25 |
| Cherkasy | Kuchma | 846,176 | 174,615 | 20.64 |
| Chernivtsi | Kuchma | 467,866 | 238,628 | 51 |
| Chernihiv | Kuchma | 792,539 | 202,640 | 25.57 |
| Kyiv City | Kuchma | 1,252,872 | 486,887 | 38.86 |
| Sevastopol | Kuchma | 165,266 | 57,037 | 34.51 |
| Out-of-country | Kuchma | 23,178 | 12,516 | 54 |
Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, November 7, 1999, No. 45, Vol. LXVII
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