Europese Unie bezorgd om tumult voor verkiezingen Oekraïne (en)
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - EU diplomats at internal meetings in Brussels and Kiev on Thursday (4 February) have raised concerns about the potential collapse of Ukraine's election process.
Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and rival candidate Viktor Yanukovych are due to face off against each other in the second round of the presidential vote on Sunday.
But a last-minute change to the country's electoral law, signed into force on Thursday morning, has seen Ms Tymoshenko threaten to declare the poll invalid and to bring thousands of her supporters onto the streets on Monday.
The legal change means that local election commissions in charge of the country's 38,000 or so voting stations will be able to sign off on the results without the approval of commission members loyal to Ms Tymoshenko.
The new law was pushed through parliament by a coalition including Mr Yanukovych's party and MPs loyal to the outgoing president, Viktor Yushchenko, who has grown to become a bitter personal enemy of Ms Tymoshenko over the past five years.
The move has drawn criticism from international election observers stationed in Ukraine.
"It is not in line with good practice to make last-minute changes to the electoral law, unless this is not based on a broad political consensus," Jens Eschenbacher, the spokesman for the ODIHR monitoring mission, told EUobserver.
The prospect of deepening instability threatens to undermine EU attempts to negotiate a new Association Agreement with Ukraine and to ensure the steady flow of Russian gas exports through the transit country to EU member states.
"We need to keep an eye on this, as it could be very negative. Tymoshenko has threatened to withdraw from the elections. It's a serious development," an EU diplomat said following the Brussels colloquy on Thursday.
"Of course, it is worrying," Spanish foreign minister Miguel Angel Moratinos told MEPs the same day. "We want to work with a legitimately elected government ... towards the political stability of Ukraine."
Tensions in the Ukrainian capital are set to run high on Friday when the rival camps hold rallies at sites within 500 metres of each other in the Mykhailivska Square area.
Oleksandr Sushko, the director of the Institute of Euro-Atlantic Co-operation thinktank in Kiev, said the potential for violent confrontations is low.
"People just don't feel that emotional about these elections," he said.
Mr Sushko warned however that both sides have contacts with groups, such as football supporters clubs, which could be mobilised to stir up trouble on the streets in the wake of a disputed result next week.
The electoral law controversy is the latest in a series of disruptive events in the run-up to the second round.
Last week, MPs loyal to Messrs Yanukovych and Yushchenko voted to remove the pro-Tymoshenko interior minister, Yuriy Lutsenko, from his post. Mr Lutsenko, who is in charge of policing any street protests, refused to go however, calling himself the "acting" interior minister for now.
Mr Yushchenko also ordered the secret services to take control of the state printing house responsible for churning out ballot papers after allegations that Ms Tymoshenko had arranged for 1.5 million extra sheets to be printed in order to falsify votes.