KIEV, Ukraine — Five years after the Orange Revolution inspired hopes for broad economic and political reforms, many Ukrainian voters expect little from today’s presidential election.
One recent poll showed a majority of voters are concerned the election could be rigged. Some wonder whether even an honest vote can make life here better after years of political paralysis and the country’s deep economic recession.
Elena Galitskaya, a Kiev psychologist, said Ukraine’s presidential hopefuls demonstrated their “scorn” of voters during the acrimonious campaign.
“I don’t know if I’ll go to vote tomorrow because, speaking honestly, I think that the elections won’t give anything to our country,” she said.
Former Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych is expected to top the first-round ballot today, but with 18 candidates taking part, he is likely to fall short of the 50 percent needed for overall victory.
That would force him into a runoff with the second-place finisher, who is expected to be Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.
Yanukovych and Tymoshenko have spent much of the campaign attacking each other on personal and policy grounds.
In a December opinion poll, only 34 percent of Ukrainians said they expected the presidential election to be fair overall, while 57 percent said the results could be manipulated or were certain to be stolen. The rest couldn’t say.
As part of an international effort to bolster confidence in the election, foreign observers have fanned out across Ukraine to monitor voting in this country of 46 million people with 36.6 million registered voters.
