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Ukraine opposition leader declares himself president Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
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Wednesday November 24, 7:52 AM
Ukraine in crisis as opposition leader declares himself president
Tens of thousands of opposition supporters surrounded Ukraine's presidential offices after their pro-Western leader declared himself president, defying the government after a weekend election they believe was rigged in favour of the Russia-backed candidate.
With the political crisis threatening to spiral out of control, hundreds of riot police cordoned off the building in the capital Kiev, pushing back demonstrators who shouted slogans and called on security personnel to join the protest, as the government met in emergency session.
Opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko had earlier declared himself president during an emergency parliament session attended only by his supporters and which lacked a quorom.
Outgoing President Leonid Kuchma warned that the act could have unforeseeable consequences but he promised his government would not be the first to use force against the uprising, sparked by accusations of irregularities during the weekend presidential vote.
As criticism of the poll gathered momentum in the West, two members of Ukraine's central electoral commission were reported to have urged their 13 colleagues not to approve the results because of major ballot violations.
Yushchenko called on Ukrainian civil servants and police to cross over and join the mass protests that have gripped the nation since the vote.
"Ukraine needs you, come over to our side," he urged, as protesters camped defiantly outside the assembly, many waving the signature opposition color of orange, before heeding a call to march on the president's office building.
Amid opposition fears that "government provocateurs" would mix in with the crowd and spark violence with police, Kuchma promised that the security forces would not launch an unprovoked crackdown, as he denounced Yushchenko's behaviour as a dangerous political farce.
"The authorities will never be the instigators of the use of force," he said in a national address.
But he warned: "The political farce acted out today by (Yushchenko's) Our Ukraine coalition, which has declared a so-called popular president... is extremely dangerous and can lead to unforeseeable consequences."
The election in Ukraine, pitting Yushchenko against pro-Moscow Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich in a run-off round, has been seen by some observers as the most important in eastern Europe since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.
A victory for Yushchenko would pull the strategically important eastern European nation of 48 million people out of Russia's age-old embrace and eventually put it into the fold of the European Union and maybe even NATO, shifting liberal Europe's center of gravity closer to Russia's borders.
The dispute has split this former Soviet republic down the middle, with the Ukrainian-speaking West mainly behind Yushchenko and the Russian-speaking east backing Yanukovich.
Yushchenko has called on "parliaments and people of the world" to recognize him as the real winner of the vote, which Western governments and observers have decried as massively flawed.
"In the 20th century, we are facing a threat to the will of a people of one of Europe's largest countries," he said in a statement.
Official ballot counts so far show 54-year-old Yanukovich won 49.39 percent of the vote compared with Yushchenko's 46.71 percent, with 99.48 percent of polling stations reporting. Most independent exit polls handed victory to Yushchenko, but some of those commissioned by Yanukovich's team showed the prime minister as the winner.
Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin called for a peaceful resolution to the crisis, but dismissed European criticism of the vote.
"We can't recognize or protest because no official results have yet been announced," he said during a visit to Lisbon. "I can advise others to follow our example."
Putin, who openly supported Yanukovich in the election campaign, contacted the pro-Russian leader Monday to congratulate him on his "open and honest" victory.
In Washington, the White House said it was "deeply disturbed" by the fraud accusations.
Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende, whose nation holds the rotating EU presidency, told Kuchma that Brussels had "doubts" about the result of the vote, while British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said it was "very difficult to argue that this was a free and fair election."
Ukraine now threatens to add to the strains already evident between Russia and the EU heading into a bilateral summit Thursday in The Hague between Putin and Balkenende.
Earlier in parliament, Yushchenko, a former premier, warned that Ukraine "is on the verge of civil conflict," as the western region of Lviv joined Kiev and five other opposition bastions in rejecting official results giving victory to Yanukovich.
Parliamentary speaker Vladimir Litvin refused to recognise the oath of office, and the assembly session was attended by too few legislators to make a resolution binding.
"There has been no inauguration," he said. "One must not provoke people."
In a further sign of the deep national split, the regional government of Donetsk, an eastern pro-Moscow fiefdom, denounced the protests in Kiev and the Ukrainian-speaking western districts.
And 150 Ukrainian diplomats, including the official foreign ministry spokesman issued a statement recognising Yushchenko as president.
The central electoral commission has until December 6 to announce the final vote count and declare a winner, but doubt shrouded the result late Tuesday after two members of the 15-member commission urged their colleagues not to validate it because of irregularities, Interfax news agency reported.
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