Orange Revolution fades

KIEV - Fifteen months ago, Natasha Diman, then 24, looked every inch the "Orange revolutionary", camping out in sub-zero temperatures on Kiev's main square in a display of people power that redrew the geo-political map of Europe.

However, as Ukraine went to the polls yesterday, Natasha, like many of her compatriots, said she was disillusioned with the orange revolution to the point where she felt unable to vote for Viktor Yushchenko, the man she helped to power.

It is this kind of apathy and disappointment that saw Yushchenko's party beaten into second or possibly third place, depending on final results, in the country's first national elections since December 2004. Disillusionment has sealed the unlikely victory of the man it was once believed could never come back from the defeat inflicted on him by the Orange Revolution, the pro-Russian Viktor Yanukovych.

Yushchenko will keep his job as President, as the elections are parliamentary not presidential, but the results will again redraw the political map of Ukraine, this time possibly tipping it towards the country it so dramatically turned its back on: Russia.

If a week is a long time in politics, in Ukraine's case 15 months has turned out to be an age.

Before the revolution was assured, Natasha Diman said she felt highly politicised and hopeful. But now she wonders what it was all for.

"We still hope for the best but nothing has really changed," she said. "Yushchenko is a decent man but too soft. He says good things but does nothing when people around him do the opposite. He has forgotten that, unlike the people, politicians come and go."

Whatever happens, Yushchenko, whose personal popularity rating has crashed to about 20 per cent from 70 per cent, will be forced to compromise.

Last night the final results were yet to come in but the overall outcome did not seem in doubt. All exit polls suggested Yushchenko's party would be soundly beaten by Yanukovych.

With the help of American spin doctors, Yanukovych has come back from the political grave, reinventing himself as a man who can do business with Brussels and Moscow.

His Party of the Regions is expected to win about 30 per cent of the vote, giving him almost half the seats in the 450-member Parliament. Conversely, Yushchenko's Our Ukraine party is forecast to come second or third, with about 17 per cent of the vote.

Ironically, Our Ukraine is up against the political bloc of Julia Timoshenko, the Ukrainian nationalist who stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Yushchenko during the revolution and was one of his closest allies.

Timoshenko is banking on a comeback that could push her one-time ally's party into third place, strengthening her demand that Yushchenko reinstate her as Prime Minister.

If that fails, Yushchenko may look to forming "a grand coalition" with Yanukovych. That will lead to claims of "selling out".

- INDEPENDENT