
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, July 12, 1994                   TAG: 9408030016
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: KIEV, UKRAINE                                 LENGTH: Medium

LEADERS UNSEATED IN UKRAINE, BELARUS

Angry voters here and in the neighboring republic of Belarus have cast their leaders out of office, registering strong protests at the corruption and economic hardship of post-Soviet life, officials said Monday in releasing results of Sunday's elections.

The presidents-elect of Ukraine and Belarus both swept into office with promises to impose order, crack down on corruption, improve living standards and broaden economic ties with their giant neighbor to the east, Russia. Their victories dramatically shifted the political landscape between Russia and Central Europe and heralded a period of change and potential instability in two nations that have been more timid than Russia about embarking on free-market reforms.

Ukraine, the larger of Russia's two Slavic neighbors with 52 million people, chose as its next president Leonid Kuchma, a former prime minister and engineer. Kuchma, 55, who once headed the Soviet Union's biggest missile factory, vowed to maintain Ukraine's independence but said the nation must turn to Russia for economic ties. With more than 52 percent of the vote, according to preliminary figures, he defeated president Leonid Kravchuk, 60, who many politicians here believe enjoyed the tacit support of the United States and other Western countries.

Belarus, which has 10 million people and was electing a president for the first time, gave a whopping 80 percent of its vote to populist Alexander Lukashenko, a former collective farm director, who ran against prime minister Vyacheslav Kebich. Lukashenko, 39, promised to find ``simple answers to complicated questions,'' including a rollback of prices and more state control of the economy.

Asked whom he would nominate to replace Kebich as prime minister, Lukashenko said, ``It's no problem to find a prime minister. It's easier than finding a milkman.''

Kuchma, a sober-minded industrialist who alternates free market rhetoric with nostalgia for the Soviet era, could hardly be more different from Lukashenko in personality and experience. But the presidents are similar in that both their countries ``voted for change,'' Russian reformer Yegor Gaidar said Monday in Moscow. Both nations had opted for a ``slow route'' to economic reform, hoping to avoid the disruptions and unpredictability evident in Russia, but in both cases ``the results were disastrous,'' Gaidar said.

The elections also showed that, as in Eastern Europe, the old system's collapse and the difficulty of moving to a new one imposes ``a burden too great for any politician'' to survive, a Western diplomat here said.

by CNB