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Ukraine's East and West Are Miles Apart on Issues With economics dividing the nation, the political crisis is far from a simple contest between democracy and entrenched power.
By Kim Murphy, Times Staff Writer
Summary prepared by Hayk Sargsyan of CDI

The campaign spokesman in eastern Ukraine for presidential hopeful Viktor Yushchenko sits alone in a small office, barricaded behind double locks and closed blinds. Far off to the west in Kiev, the capital, Yushchenko has drawn hundreds of thousands of supporters into the streets to contest the results of the Nov. 21 presidential runoff, which gave a slim lead to Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich. In Kiev, where jubilant Yushchenko supporters have filled the streets for nearly two weeks and forced a review of the election he officially lost to Yanukovich, it is easy to assume that Yushchenko rides an overwhelming wave of popular support. Here in eastern Ukraine, though, the popular wave washes up on a different beach.

The vehement support for the Russian-backed politician among millions of Ukrainians in the east is a reminder that Ukraine's political crisis is far from a simple contest between democracy and entrenched power. And any court decision to annul the allegedly fraudulent results that led to Yanukovich's victory at the polls will surely leave large numbers of citizens in the east feeling angry, disenfranchised and perilously alienated.

Yanukovich, a former metalworker, was Donetsk's governor from 1997 to 2002. The region is also his home turf. But his popularity extends to a large swath of the countryside, geographically closer to Russia than Kiev. The rough, blue-collar workers here speak better Russian than Ukrainian, and many feel more at home with a Russian-style government, generous both with its authority and its dispensation of social benefits, than with European-style democracy. Large numbers of east Ukrainians credit Yanukovich with kick-starting one of the highest economic growth rates in Europe and funneling millions of dollars in federal aid to Ukraine's crumbling industrial infrastructure and paying hundreds of millions of dollars in pension and salary arrears. Nowhere is that more important than in eastern Ukraine, which produces 43% of the nation's metal products and half the coal that runs the steel mills and power plants. Now, industrial workers who voted to keep the factories running fear that their voice will go unheard.

The prospect of Yushchenko snatching victory from defeat has raised such alarm that several regional leaders in the east have launched a referendum campaign seeking to turn Ukraine into a federation with an autonomous republic in the east. Under their plan, endorsed by the regional parliament in Donetsk on Thursday, the east would retain 70% of the $1.5 billion a year in revenue generated in the region.

Most here seem to discount the allegations of vote fraud that center heavily on eastern Ukraine. Their fear is that the courts will set aside votes in areas subject to fraud complaints, in effect disenfranchising those, like them, who cast their ballots in good faith.