KIEV, Nov 24 (AFP) - Ukraine appears headed toward a split as pro and anti-Russia forces in this former Soviet republic bitterly contend a weekend presidential election, analysts say.
A deep schism in the strategic nation emerged after Sunday's vote -- with the nationalist Ukrainian-speaking west backing opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko while the industrialized Russian-speaking east supports Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich.
Whoever eventually emerges as the winner of the contested poll will have a hard time being accepted by the other side, analysts say.
"This crisis has a revolutionary character," said Andrii Ermolayev, of the Sofia Center for Social Studies. "It is no longer a conflict between elites but a social conflict."
Ermolayev said a recount would legitimize the winning candidate and provide a breathing space. Both sides had to agree that there would be no political reprisals, he added.
He warned that a winner-take-all attitude by either side would split the country and that whichever candidate emerged would not survive for long.
Ermolayev said outgoing President Leonid Kuchma should have brought the sides together earlier to discuss a power-sharing arrangement and avoid a split.
Mikhail Pogrebinski, a Ukrainian analyst closely linked with Kuchma, said the ball was in the court of the "revolutionaries" backing opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko.
He said the pro-Russian communities in east Ukraine "will not recognize a candidate placed in power with the help of the European Union."
Pogrebinski said a power-sharing arrangement, with the pro-Moscow candidate as president and Yushchenko as prime minister could be a compromise in a situation in which neither leader could expect to obtain much power on his own.
Without such a compromise, he warned, "it's a civil war."
Ukraine's former deputy defense minister Vadim Grechannikov agreed with those who fear such a conflict.
"I am afraid that the government will use every means at its disposal to hang onto power," he said.
But "many people in the military command are pro-opposition," Grechannikov added, "especially in the regions where Yushchenko won. It is possible that he could take power in part of the country and assume control over state structures, including the army."
Writing in the daily Den, commentator Volodymyr Malinkovitch said a compromise was urgently needed to avoid a split that represented a "mortal danger" for the country.
"The winner must offer the loser the possibility of participating in power," said Malinkovitch, urging a political reform changing the president from head of the executive power into chief of state.
This, he said, would enable the country to hold parliamentary elections that would no longer polarize the country between a pro-Russian east and a pro-European west.
Stanislav Belkovsky, a Moscow-based political analyst, said a real revolution was taking place in Ukraine, but that the hundreds of thousands of people out on the streets were demonstrating not so much in favor of Yushchenko as against Moscow's interference in the election.
"In that sense, Russia has contributed a lot to Yushchenko's success," he said, adding "I do not believe Yanukovich will become a legitimate president."
He said Russia's only hope of rescuing its reputation was to renounce support for Yanukovich and offer itself as a mediator in the conflict."
Volodymyr Polokhalo, editor of the review Political Thought, said Ukraine's political leaders "are today hostages of a scenario made in Moscow."
Grechannikov, the former deputy defense minister, said Moscow was acting "in a destructive manner," but that it was up to Yushchenko to reach a diplomatic compromise with the Russians, "to assure them that Ukraine will maintain normal relations with Russia."
11/24/2004 17:51 GMT - AFP