Pro-Russian Eastern Ukraine Threatens to Secede if Yushchenko Wins

Moscow News | November 27 2004

Deputies from Russian-speaking eastern Ukraine, where the disputed winner of the country’s presidential poll Viktor Yushchenko gained much of his votes, have threatened to call a referendum on the formation of an autonomous republic if opposition protestors favoring pro-Western Viktor Yushchenko get their way.

Donetsk deputies pledged to form an “East-South” autonomous republic, along with the Crimea region, which already enjoys more powers than Ukraine’s 26 other regions, Reuters reported.

Hundreds of thousands of protesters are still in the streets across central and western Ukraine denouncing the official count which shows Yanukovich as the winner of last Sunday’s presidential election.

“If they don’t clear people out of Kiev squares on Saturday and Sunday, we should, in an orderly, constitutional way, stage a referendum of trust to determine this country’s make-up,” Donetsk Mayor Alexander Lukyanchenko told the assembly.

“We can live without that half (of the country), but can they live without us?” the mayor in this primarily industrial region was quoted by Reuters as saying.

The east, which generates much of Ukraine’s wealth with its coal, chemical and steel industries, has rejected opposition calls for a nationwide strike. Crimea, which already has its own parliament and government, is also Russian-speaking and for a time in the 1990s protested against rule by Ukrainian authorities.

The disputed election has highlighted Ukraine’s centuries-old divide between the Russian-speaking east and the Ukrainian-speaking west.

Ukraine’s constitution only allows for nation-wide referendums. To stage a referendum three million signatures are needed in two-thirds of the country of 47 million. Each region has to provide at least 100,000 signatures.

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