Split threatens Ukraine amid autonomy calls

Deputies from the opposition jubilate during an emergency session of the Ukrainian Parliament in Kiev Saturday. Ukraine's parliament declared the nation's disputed presidential election invalid and called for the dissolution of the central election commission in an overall non-binding resolution. PHOTO: AFP

The November 21 election has polarized this former Soviet republic on Russia's western edge, with the nationalist Ukrainian-speaking west backing opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko while the industrialized Russian-speaking east supports pro-Moscow Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich.

Fears of a real split in this country of 48 million began to rise when western regions, citing widespread voting irregularities, refused to recognise the official results that handed victory to Yanukovich.

But as the political winds appeared to shift during the week in favor of the opposition, Yanukovich bastions started airing their own demands for autonomy and a refusal to accept a Yushchenko presidency.

Tens of thousands of people demonstrated Saturday in the east's Donetsk, a Yanukovich bastion, in support of a referendum that would declare the coal-mining center an autonomous region if Western-leaning Yushchenko becomes president.

"If someone tries to ignore our opinion then we will lawfully turn to the option of a referendum to change the (regional) constitution and make our region self-sufficient," Anatoly Bliznyuk, the governor of the Donetsk region, told the cheering crowd.

The calls for sovereignty in the east sparked anger among the region's Yushchenko supporters, who came out on the streets in the name of a single state.

In the eastern city of Kharkiv about 30,000 people, mostly Yushchenko faithful, demonstrated Saturday in favor of Ukrainian unity and against creating an autonomous area in southern and eastern Ukraine.

Meanwhile more than 3,000 people gathered in the Black Sea port city of Odessa, a Yanukovich stronghold, late Friday and threatened to declare independence if Yushchenko were to become president.

They also urged for an assembly to be called of representatives of southern Ukrainian regions to discuss the possibility of creating a "new Russian territory" that would be independent of both Moscow and Kiev.

The calls and counter-calls have sparked worries in the state government in Kiev.

Lawmakers held an emergency session Saturday in which parliament speaker Volodymyr Litvin warned of "a revolutionary situation" in Ukraine, with media "playing up the east-west divide."

He denounced "blackmail from local leaders who are manipulating separatist sentiment."

Lawmakers from both camps later joined together to declare the election invalid in a non-binding resolution, increasing the chances the supreme court will throw out the results when it begins to review Monday an opposition appeal.