KIEV, Dec 5 (AFP) - The disfigured face of Viktor Yushchenko has turned into an unlikely icon for democracy in Eastern Europe.
For Ukrainian opposition supporters, it became the face of victory after the supreme court granted his appeal that a runoff vote that pitted him against Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich was riddled with fraud and ordered a new election.
Yushchenko will now stand again in a December 26 ballot.
The man who alleges he was poisoned -- turning his features into a puffy, pockmarked mask -- for trying to overthrow Ukraine's Soviet-era leadership now stands before a bitterly divided nation as a symbol of democratic reform to some and of Western imperialism to others.
Yushchenko is married to an American and Russian speakers who make up the eastern half of this former Soviet republic suspect his "orange revolution" is being sponsored by Washington -- perhaps even by the CIA.
When in government a few years ago, Yushchenko tried to slash the budget and fight corruption in a campaign that got him sacked by the Communist-leaning parliament and made him into an enemy of outgoing President Leonid Kuchma.
So people here either love him or hate him -- a Ukrainian-speaking nationalist who sees protection in the West from Russia and whose cause has frightened Moscow into a diplomatic dogfight with the West.
"Yushchenko is our last hope, we are his last hope. He is our leader and we are his instrument," said a jubilant Sergei, 27, as he marched with an orange-clad crowd in Kiev.
"In Kiev you are all fanatics with your orange clothes," countered a miner from the pro-Russia Donetsk coal mining region, who came to the capital to help make sure that Yushchenko never comes to rule his country.
For many here the quiet former accountant Yushchenko symbolizes a historic chance to link this Slavic state to western Europe -- adding a nation of 48 million people to the European Union's fold.
He officially lost the November 21 election against pro-Moscow Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich by less than three percent in results declared suspect not only by his fans but also by nations long skeptical of Ukraine's Soviet-era leadership.
He is championed more for his economic than his political credentials.
As head of the central bank in the first tough years of post-Soviet reform, he introduced the country's first stable post-Soviet currency, the hryvna, in 1996 to great fanfare, managing to keep the nascent unit stable while a similar experiment in neighboring Russia went through a roller-coaster ride.
Yushchenko had been head of the central bank for six years in 1999 when Kuchma -- eyeing his own re-election in 2000 -- dumped his prime minister and picked the little known but knowledgeable Yushchenko as cabinet chief.
He leapt at the chance, stacking his government with young liberals who now form the crux of the country's opposition movement, focusing his efforts foremost on breaking the powerful but invisible bond between the state and organized crime.
Over the next year Ukraine enjoyed its first rise in economic growth since the Soviet Union's collapse.
Yushchenko came up against ever more powerful enemies in both parliament and the government as his anti-corruption drive charged ahead.
Kuchma, bowing to an irate parliament that had earlier voted down an austerity budget proposed by Yushchenko, dumped him from office in April 2001.
Yushchenko enjoyed his first taste of popular success that day, as 15,000 people rallied in the streets in his support, turning him into an instant opposition leader at a time when Kuchma himself was fighting off allegations of being linked to the murder of an opposition journalist.
While Yushchenko's support remains high in Kiev and the western regions neighboring Poland, analysts agree that he is unlikely to win the trust of the Russian-speaking regions -- some of which have now threatened to secede should he be handed victory.
12/05/2004 01:52 GMT - AFP