Turning the pages back... July 17, 1994 (07/11/04)

Turning the pages back...

July 17, 1994

Ten years ago, on July 17, 1994, The Ukrainian Weekly carried a news story about the election of Ukraine's second president. Marta Kolomayets, then of our Kyiv Press Bureau, wrote: "... In an upset victory, Leonid Danylovych Kuchma was elected Ukraine's second president on Sunday, July 10, beginning a new era - for better or worse - in this country of 52 million people. Mr. Kuchma, 55, who is the former director of the world's largest rocket factory and the ex-prime minister of Ukraine, is scheduled to be inaugurated on Tuesday, July 19, in Ukraine's Parliament."

On July 13, during his first press conference, the president-elect said: "As president of Ukraine, I will always work in the interests of Ukraine as a whole, not in the interests of separate regions" - this in an effort to quell fears of a split between Ukraine's eastern and western regions. "The first thing I want is national reconciliation. ...To say there is confrontation between the west and east is a political game."

Voter turnout in the election was high - more than 71 percent. And it was a close race to the end. Over 14 million, or 52 percent, of Ukraine's citizens cast their ballots for Mr. Kuchma; his opponent, incumbent Leonid Kravchuk got 45 percent of the vote, or a little over 12 million votes. About 644,000 voters, or 2.4 percent, crossed out both candidates on the ballot.

Most of western Ukraine voted for President Kravchuk, where he received between 94 and 95 percent in the Galician oblasts of Ternopil, Ivano-Frankivsk and Lviv, because western Ukrainians perceived him as the guarantor of Ukraine's independence, even though he once was the ideology secretary of the Communist Party of Ukraine.

In the eastern oblasts of Luhansk and Donetsk, Mr. Kuchma received 88 and 79 percent of the vote, respectively, while in Crimea, he got close to 90 percent of the vote.

Mr. Kuchma attributed his victory to Mr. Kravchuk's failure to tackle Ukraine's economic decline since independence was declared from the Soviet Union in December 1991.

Mr. Kravchuk sent Mr. Kuchma a congratulatory telegram on Tuesday, July 12. Mr. Kravchuk noted that he hoped Mr. Kuchma would help promote Ukraine's democratization, economic reforms and international prestige.

On Thursday morning, July 14, Mr. Kuchma received his certificate from the Central Election Commission, confirming his victory in the July 10 election. Obviously moved, Mr. Kuchma solemnly promised to build one "united, sovereign democratic state of Ukraine."

Although he had been perceived as a pro-Russian politician, in his first days after being elected Mr. Kuchma gave no such signs; he spoke only in Ukrainian and only of working for the good of the Ukrainian nation.

On Wednesday, July 13, Mr. Kuchma was visited by U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine William Green Miller, who congratulated him and underscored that the United States hopes for a productive relationship with Ukraine. Ambassador Miller was the first foreign diplomat to meet with the president-elect.

Source: "Ukraine elects Leonid Kuchma president; Eastern industrialist is second president of post-Soviet Ukraine," by Marta Kolomayets, The Ukrainian Weekly, July 17, 1994. Also in "Ukraine Lives!" - published on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of Ukraine's independence (Parsippany, N.J.: The Ukrainian Weekly, 2002).

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