Yushchenko sitting pretty

By Stephen Mulvey
BBC News, in Kiev

Yushchenko has a distinct advantage, analysts say

The decision of the Ukrainian Supreme Court to order a new repeat of the second round of the presidential election is seen by many in Kiev as a virtual guarantee of victory for opposition candidate Viktor Yushchenko.

The thousands demonstrating in the city centre have all along contended that Mr Yushchenko was the real winner, deprived of victory in their view only by massive fraud.

Exit polls commissioned by foreign embassies certainly suggested Mr Yushchenko had won a convincing victory on 21 November over the Prime Minister, Viktor Yanukovych.

And the Supreme Court in its judgement on Friday said it was possible that he had even won in the first round, on 31 October, by getting more than 50% of the vote - instead of the 39.8% he was awarded by the election authorities.

"If he could win before, why can't he win now?" asks Marta Dyczok, a Canadian academic from the University of Ontario, who followed the election closely.

"In fact I would think that he would get even more votes - from people who were sitting on the fence before; people who were taken in by advertising describing him as an American spy; or people who were intimidated in the workplace into voting for the prime minister."

Law changes

Parliament has voted in the last few days to dismiss the government, so Mr Yanukovych is likely to lose the control over state institutions which international monitors said had worked to his advantage in the earlier rounds of voting.

The Supreme Court has also ordered changes to the election law in order to tighten up on some of the abuses revealed, such as the use of absentee ballots to vote more than once.

The chances of democracy prevailing are significantly higher now. This is not, however, time to relax. More work needs to be done - in particular, the number of observers must be increased. Stanislav Thorovsky Lviv, Ukraine Court ruling: Your views Timeline: Ukraine crisis

Its proposal that criminal investigations should be launched into some of the worst violations ought also to act as a deterrent against anyone tempted to rig the vote.

So, in theory, the new round of voting should be fairer.

It would be wrong, however, to regard Mr Yanukovych as a completely dead duck.

Until this election, it was an axiom of Ukrainian politics that you could not win the presidency without the support of the heavily populated industrial eastern regions.

Mr Yanukovych's popularity in the east and south is unquestioned and the eagerness of his supporters to turn out and vote will only have been strengthened by the scenes in Kiev.

These are widely regarded, at least in Mr Yanukovych's home city, Donetsk, as an attempt to replace democracy with demagoguery and the rule of the mob.

Risk of separatism

People close to the Yanukovych campaign also envisage the possibility of a challenge in the Constitutional Court to the Supreme Court ruling.

Before the ruling, President Leonid Kuchma had described as unconstitutional the idea of re-running the second round of voting, instead of starting the election again from scratch.

However, the head of a Kiev legal practice, Dmitro Hrishchenko, says that the Constitutional Court would be "very unlikely" to intervene in either case.

Yanukovych's supporters will not go away quietly

Security expert and former Ukrainian MP Yevhen Zherebetsky does see certain dangers ahead for Mr Yushchenko.

One is that Mr Yanukovych might withdraw from the race, despite his declaration on Saturday that he would run again.

His nightmare scenario would be for Mr Yanukovych to withdraw, and then call on voters in the east and south to boycott the election, adding to the risk of separatism developing in these regions.

If Mr Yanukovych withdraws less than 10 days before the vote, Mr Yushchenko becomes the single candidate.

If he withdraws sooner, then the candidate placed third in the first round of voting, Oleksandr Moroz, will take his place.

Mr Zherebetsky says Mr Moroz, a Socialist, would pick up all Mr Yanukovych's votes and some more besides and could therefore be a formidable opponent.

However, the Yushchenko camp's opinion poll soundings predict victory against both Mr Yanukovych and Mr Moroz - and against the fourth-placed candidate, the Communist Petro Symonenko.