Ukrainians cast ballots for a new parliament yesterday, with Russia-friendly forces poised to make a strong comeback in the first electoral test for the nation's bickering "orange revolution" leadership and its pro-Western drive.
The election, the first since President Viktor Yushchenko assumed power in late 2004, comes in a period of regional uncertainty amid unprecedented opposition protests against an authoritarian regime in neighboring Belarus.
Russia and the West, which wrangled over the bitterly contested 2004 campaign, are once again keenly watching the ballot in this strategic country.
While the Kremlin sees Ukraine as its historic backyard, the West has encouraged Yushchenko's drive to enter its ranks, safe from an increasingly confident and authoritarian Moscow.
Ukraine is deeply split along the divide, with the nationalist, Ukrainian-speaking northwest in favor of rapid European integration, but the Russian-speaking southeast keen to retain traditionally strong bonds with Moscow.
"The `oranges' are hated, they haven't fulfilled the hopes of those who came out into the streets, they've done nothing," said Olexander, a taxi driver in the eastern city of Donetsk.
Around 1,000km to the west in Lviv, 43-year-old Mykola disagreed.
"The president didn't have the opportunity in one year to do everything he promised ... We need Yushchenko because that's moving toward the future," he said after casting his ballot. "And the future of Ukraine is in Europe and NATO."
Yushchenko, who assumed power vowing to drive ex-Soviet Ukraine toward membership in the EU and NATO, needs his forces to gain a stable majority to back his reforms.
Slipping support
But support for him has slid over the past year, as the economy slowed and the "orange revolution" team broke up amid a power struggle and mutual accusations of corruption.
Meanwhile the Regions Party of Russia-friendly ex-premier Viktor Yanukovych, who lost the "orange revolution" contest to Yushchenko, has come back strong and was expected to get the most votes in yesterday's ballot.
Yushchenko, who has de-scribed the vote as a choice between "the past and the future," remained confident as he cast his ballot in central Kiev, near the Independence Square from which he led the "orange" protests.
"I am in a great mood, a mood that comes before victory," he told reporters, hailing the vote as a "day of first fair democratic elections in Ukraine."
A confident-looking Yanukovych, who has promised economic growth and stability if he returns to power, said after voting that he would maintain strong ties to Europe if he returns to power.
"We will have victory," he said.
The latest opinion polls two weeks before the vote suggested Yanukovych's Regions Party would receive up to 30 percent of the vote and Yushchenko's Our Ukraine up to 20 percent.
The bloc of Yulia Tymoshenko, the "orange revolution" heroine who split with Yushchenko six months ago and is battling him for the splintered "orange" electorate, is expected to receive up to 17 percent.
The campaign has been fierce, as whoever controls parliament will have expanded powers under constitutional changes that came into force this year, including the right to nominate the prime minister -- a prerogative previously held by the president.
But no single party is expected to get enough votes to secure half the seats in the 450-seat legislature and the power in the chamber will go to those who cobble together a majority coalition.
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