Yanukovich Stokes Backers' Fears

[Helga Scow Stern]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-yanu16dec16.story

Yanukovich Stokes Backers' Fears
At rallies, the premier says that foreigners will dominate Ukraine if his rival is elected president.

By David Holley, Times Staff Writer


KHERSON, Ukraine — At one campaign stop after another Wednesday, Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich hammered a new message in his presidential rematch against pro-Western opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko: Vote for me, or the foreigners will steal your country and make you slaves.

"We won't allow such a huge country as Ukraine to be humiliated," Yanukovich declared to a rally of about 8,000 supporters in this southeastern city, thrusting both arms into the air with clenched fists.
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"It's our duty, at this moment of truth, to do everything to prevent our country from being taken over by those who came with foreign money to enslave our people and make our country a foreign colony," he said. "This is a test for our generation, and we must pass it decisively. We have to win, and we will win."

As Yanukovich lambasted foreign interference in his speech at the Kherson rally, a woman in the crowd began to pray out loud: "God, please throw those foreigners out of this land."

Election observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and other groups said serious abuse of absentee and at-home voting occurred in the runoff. Loose controls on both meant that multiple voting and suspected computer manipulation of vote tallies could be more easily hidden, they said.

The new electoral law placed severe restrictions on absentee voting and limited at-home voting to categories of people least able to get to polling places.
--snip

[wordout]

1. There goes that Yanukovich stirring the soup again!