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20-12-2004 23:05 Maidan-INFORM
Yushchenko Wins TV Debates

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The first TV meeting of the two Ukrainian presidential candidates in real debate format has ended.

Analysts already point to a stronger performance by Vkctor Yushchenko. According to Ukrainska Pravda, political analyst Viktor Nebozhenko said Yushchenko won 3:1.

Yulia Tymoshenko, the co-leader of People Power coalition, said that Yushchenko bested Viktor Yanukovych.

Unsurprisingly, Yanukovych's camp believes their candidate won. Yanukovych's chief of staff, Taras Chornovil, said that Yanukovych is the politician who can save the nation from division.

The first half of the debate was uneventful, but Yushchenko later spoke about the flawed morality of the old guard, which he does best, and he sounded impressive.

In response to questions about election fraud Mr. Yanukovych repeatedly brought up his 15-million strong electorate, and said that Yushchenko has to learn to respect that. Yushchenko failed to point out that in fact there were far fewer than 15 million people who voted for Yanukovych, but on several occasions he noted that Yanukovych, Kuchma and Medvedchuk stole 3 million votes.

For his part, Yanukovych asked Yushchenko several times if he wants to negotiate, change the new electoral law (dubbed anticonstitutional by Yanukovych, and work on a common strategy. Yushchenko finally replied that he does wish to work together towards united Ukraine, and as for the law, it was designed to give people the right to vote freely, and reminded Yanukovych that people have the right to vote for whomever they want, even if he doesn't like it.

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