Georgia: Tbilisi Anxious Over Ukrainian Election

Tbilisi's archenemy Moscow is shaping up as the potential big winner in Ukraine's presidential election

Ukraine under outgoing President Viktor Yushchenko served as a firm friend for Georgia after relations between Tbilisi and Moscow soured, then disintegrated completely following the South Caucasus state's 2008 war with Russia. Yushchenko and Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, former university classmates, both came to power through popular uprisings, and shared aspirations to align their respective countries more closely with the West.

But that cooperation may soon come to an end, many Georgians fear. Pro-Russian opposition leader Dmitri Yanukovich received over 35 percent of the vote in the first round of the poll. In sharp contrast, Yushchenko was eliminated from the election, finishing the first round with just 5.45 percent of the vote. If Yanukovich holds his 10-percentage-point lead over nationalist Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko in the February 7 run-off, Ukrainian analysts contend, Kiev's Georgian sympathies may experience a sudden reversal.

Yanukovich, who lost a 2004 bid for president amid widespread protests over election fraud, has indicated that he would recognize the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent countries, as well as halt Ukraine's integration campaign with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

Saakashvili stated in televised comments on January 19 that Ukraine's pro-Western direction is "irreversible" and that friendly relations between the two countries will survive any change in government. Georgian television channels have provided daily vote tallies and heavy coverage of the treatment of Georgian election observers and journalists, who left Ukraine after a series of alleged attacks by Yanukovich supporters.