Yanukovich retreats to safe ground

It’s a 4am start to catch a flight to Eastern Ukraine where we’re planning to meet Victor Yanukovich, the presidential election front runner on the campaign trail.

 

Ten hours later, after a series of snowy delays we pull into the town of Sverdlovka just as Yanukovich enters a windswept main square under a looming statue of Lenin.

 

Hundreds of elated supporters, mostly pensioners, have gathered to rapturously greet him. For many in this ethnic Russian speaking part of Ukraine, Yanukovich is nothing short of a superstar.

 

This is coal country, Ukraine’s industrial heartland. Here road signs, shop fronts and campaign posters are all written in Russian. This is where Yanukovich started his political career and where a number of his wealthy backers are based.

 

His campaign team has arranged a series of live link-ups with supporters all over the region.  From the comfort of a local TV studio Yanukovich is lauded with praise by groups of his adoring fans in return for the promise of a bright future free from the political turmoil of recent years.

 

Yanukovich has decided to spend the last few days before Sunday’s second round run-off on safe ground, galvanising undecided voters to support him. But in the process he’s ignoring crucial voters in the capital Kiev and the west of the country who, for the main part, eye Yanukovich with suspicion especially after news of his criminal record became public.

 

 

He lacks the eloquence of his political rival Yulia Tymoshenko and even struggles to speak Ukrainian fluently. He’s also made a series of well publicised gaffes. On the 150^th anniversary of Anton Chekov last week, he called, perhaps Russia’s most famous playwright, a "great Ukrainian poet."

 

The blunders have already prompted many to compare Yanukovich with the former US president George W Bush and his Party of Regions with the Republicans. Yanukovich’s campaign has even been helped by a US political consultant whose business partner worked on John McCain’s campaign.

 

 

“Yanukovich may not be the most attractive leader,” one analyst told me “but he offers security and stability…and after years of uncertainty that’s what most Ukrainians want".