profiles in lunacy

bila tserkva, ukraine – campaigning in bila tserkva, a sprawling town 100 kilometers south of kyiv, victor yanukovych gave presents to orphans and promised to restore law and order, if elected.

and that prospect -- of becoming ukraine’s fourth president – is looking likelier now for the burly ex-premier who returned from orange revolution-imposed disgrace and political oblivion only five years ago to become the 2010 election’s undisputed front-runner.

the orphanage in bila tsirkva was the first stop of the day for the party of regions leader, who danced with pre-school children around a brightly decorated christmas tree. the candidate handed out a small bag of presents to the little ones and a movie camera to the orphanage director.

then yanukovych’s entourage moved to a restaurant, where he regaled more than 100 senior citizens about how government has bungled everything from snow removal to health care.

“i will impose order,” yanukovych said. “democracy is when people’s rights are respected. it is when laws work and there is stability in the country.”

the senior citizens, who weathered a blizzard to be in the audience, applauded and ukrainian pop star taisiya povaliy sang. the last campaign stop was kyiv’s pecherska lavra, where his beatitude vladimir, metropolitan of kiev and all ukraine ushered yanukovych into the cathedral’s inner sanctum.

the candidate listened to the choir, lit candles and prayed.

rough-and-tumble start

yanukovych says his life’s dream was to rise out of poverty and get an education. he usually skips the part about serving nearly three years in jail for theft and assault. genial but blunt, the 59-year-old candidate remains popular in ukraine’s industrialized eastern and southern oblasts, where people grow up near coal mines, chemical factories and metallurgical plants.

yanukovych’s life has been chronicled in articles and booklets since he ran for president five years ago. the story that emerges is inspiring: a street kid who is raised in a violent town by his grandmother and achieves success and enlightenment.

yanukovych was born on july 9, 1950, to a working-class family in a village near yenakievo, a heavily industrialized city in southeastern ukraine. his mother died two years later from unknown causes and his father remarried, leaving him in the custody of his belarusian paternal grandmother, kastusya. the pair lived in a clay-walled house so small it only fit one bed. they tended livestock and grew vegetables. according to his biography, victor walked 12 miles to school every day and celebrations – even for his birthday – were non-existent or rare.

yanukovych joined the pivnovka street gang (named after a local beer brewery) in his teens. he was arrested, tried and convicted on theft charges at the start of his first year of technical school in 1967, serving seven months of a three-year prison term. the sentence was commuted to 18 months in honor of the 50th anniversary of the communist revolution. yanukovych returned to yenakievo and met his future wife, lyudmila, whom he married in 1972 after serving a second two-year prison sentence for assault.

rising star, education

yanukovych had influential patrons who turned him around. the first was georgiy beregovoi, the hero-cosmonaut and soviet parliament deputy who helped the 22-year-old yanukovych re-enroll in technical school and get a job. his criminal record was reportedly “expunged” during the 1970s. that allowed him to join the communist party youth organization komsomol and get a job running a motor depot at the ordzhonikidze coal production plant. he moved on to bigger jobs at other major transport enterprises during the next 20 years, earning a reputation as a hard worker and good manager. yanukovych also got help along the way from father zosima, a ukrainian orthodox priest, credited with renewing his christian faith.

yanukovych entered donetsk politics by the 1990s, becoming governor of the oblast in 1997 and prime minister in 2002. his ascent coincides with the ruthless wars waged by heavily armed organized criminal groups to take control of government-owned and newly privatized industries in donetsk oblast.

akhat bragin, a tatar businessman and president of the shakhtar soccer club, emerged victorious from the ensuing bloodbath – until his own spectacular assassination in october 1995. bragin’s protege, rinat akhmetov, took over the soccer club that year and created a holding company for an industrial empire that now has made him ukraine's wealthiest individual.

donetsk remained a rough place. in 1996, in a donetsk residential courtyard, six bullets were pumped into oleksandr momot, the director of the non-profit industrial union of donbas and a former deputy governor of donetsk oblast. and in november 1996, on the tarmac of the donetsk airport, machine gun fire mowed down influential parliament deputy and businessman yevhen scherban, along with his wife. the three murder cases are among dozens from that era and place which remain unsolved.

when not rebuilding churches, combating crime and reviving the economic and social problems of donbas, yanukovych studied international law and economics. perhaps. he later received a master’s degree from the kyiv-based foreign trade academy and a ph.d. in economics.

loyal to kuchma

as governor of donetsk oblast, yanukovych helped to intimidate critics of ex-president leonid kuchma and deliver votes during the incumbent’s 1999 re-election campaign – even in what should have been a stronghold for communist party candidate petro symonenko.

after installing yanukovych as prime minister in 2002, kuchma a year later annointed him as his successor. akhmetov and billionaire industrialist victor pinchuk, kuchma’s son-in-law, openly supported yanukovych’s presidential candidacy. so did then-russian president vladimir putin.

these powerful supporters welcomed yanukovych’s victory in the second round of the 2004 presidential election. the victory was subsequently overturned by the supreme court after millions of ukrainians took to the streets to demand a free and fair vote. yushchenko won a repeat run-off handily on dec. 26, 2004.

yushchenko re-appointed yanukovych as prime minister following the strong showing of the party of regions in the 2006 parliamentary election. but he gave the job back to tymoshenko a year later, after a new majority coalition called for her reinstatement.

since then, yanukovych has mostly sniped from the sidelines while leading the party of regions, which has the largest faction in parliament.

yanukovych has consistently denied rigging the 2004 presidential election and called the orange revolution that overturned his election “victory” a failure.

“so what did it give us?” yanukovych asked in a recent interview on dec. 27. “freedom of speech? that’s very good. but what price did the ukrainian people pay for this? for the development of this democratic principle in our country, the price was too great.”

democracy is “above all the rule of law,” which the orange revolution has failed to bring, he said.

caught on tape

many illegal activities discussed in recorded conversations between kuchma and yanukovych 10 years ago corresponded to actual events, including the rigging of the 1999 presidential election in donetsk and the punishing of judges for not cracking down on presidential critics.

one of the infamous examples involves the incarceration of donetsk lawyer serhiy salov, then a supporter of presidential candidate oleksandr moroz. months earlier, voices resembling those of kuchma and yanukovych discussed the case. here is the purported transcript:

kuchma: “so what’s going on with the salov case?”

yanukovych: “the judge is on it. he went through the paperwork.”

kuchma: “went through the paperwork . . . press criminal charges against him for spreading libelous information.”

yanukovych: “ok.”

kuchma: “nothing has happened since december. one of your courts said he should not be charged with distributing [false information], but for insulting the president. they are assholes, your judges. i have to travel there and testify as a witness! string that judge up by the balls and let him hang overnight.”

yanukovych: “i understand. we’ll take care of it.”

kuchma: “judges are the worst.”

yanukovych: “yeah, well they are assholes. the chairman of one of our courts is not reliable. he has to be replaced.”

kuchma: “i see. well, you understand how it is. i think now that you will take care of this matter in such a way that the judge will remember for the rest of his life.”

salov spent eight months in pre-trial detention and was sentenced in july 2000 to five years in prison for “interfering with the civil right to vote for the purpose of influencing the presidential election results.”

the european court of human rights in 2005 issued a judgement finding that salov had not been brought promptly before a judge or other judicial authority in order to have his arrest reviewed, and he was denied his right to receive and give information. salov said had not changed “one bit” since then.

(december 2010)