Ukrainian Elections: More a Victory or a Defeat?

Five years after the whole European Union emotionally followed the crowds protesting in the streets of Ukraine after a presidential that finished offering Ms. Yulia Timoshenko the throne of the Orange revolution, history repeats himself without anyone being too surprised.

The narrow victory that the Central Electoral Committee President Mr. Vladimir Shapoval awarded to the filo-Russian leader Viktor Yanukovich and which might lead to an unusual co-habitation between him and the pro-European Timoshenko, is the sign that something is broken that the apparently genuine enthusiasm of the blonde and active Prime Minister failed to become something more than simple words.

Right after the unsaid promises that followed the victory of the Orange revolution, Ukraine started to heavily suffer for the worsening of its economy witnessing an increase of a corruption that Ms. Timoshenko promised to make nothing more than a dark shadow of the past.

And once her people got tired of seeing fingers pointed against Russia and its desire of gaining again a significant political influence in the destiny of the country or the difficulties of the road to NATO, then the new version of Mr. Yanukovich found a fertile field for putting the basis of his victory.

Conscious of the fact that many voters did not like his being too Russian, both in his policies and in his manners, Yanukovich slightly changed his approach to the campaign and the debate managing to steal enough points to his rival to claim now the role of new President of Ukraine.

The victory of the pro Russian candidate Mr. Yanukovich opens many questions about the future of the country even if it appears obvious that one of the priorities in the national political agenda will become the restoring of cordial relations with Russia, something Ms.Timoshenko did her best to get rid of.

And this, consequently, means also that the country will steer away from its process for joining Nato choosing instead to turn its head again toward Russia and the comfortable umbrella of its sphere of influence.

Being this bad or not for a country too often randomly associated with any kind of Western political and military project it is unclear now, even if the decision of Mr. Yanukovich to give his first post-electoral speech in Russian might be a sign that the future of Ukraine looks a more like its past than like the project Ms. Yushenko failed to realize during the last years.

What is clear today is only that the manifestations we Europeans wanted to see as a real revolution back in 2004 did not manage to bring anything more than hopes of a change no one seemed to be willing to work for.

And this must be the reason why today, when Ms. Tymoshenko protests against the results – approved also by European observers – and asks to “fight for every result, every document, every vote”, most of the people from that Union that thought about including an Ukrainian star in the flag, prefer to turn the TV off.