Victor Yanukovych, who takes the oath of office on Thursday as Ukraine's fourth president since independence, has made a remarkable comeback since his humiliation in the "Orange Revolution."
Yanukovych was tagged a Kremlin stooge in 2004 after Russia congratulated him prematurely for winning a rigged election, only for a court to strip him of victory following mass streets protests.
Pro-Western Victor Yushchenko, then backed by the charismatic Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, went on to win a re-run vote and became president in early 2005.
Five years later Yanukovych returned to trounce Yushchenko and others in the first round of voting before winning the runoff on Feb. 7 by a narrow 3.5 percentage point margin over Tymoshenko.
Though she disputed the outcome and alleged fraud, Tymoshenko eventually abandoned a court challenge, leaving the way open for Thursday’s inauguration.
The 59-year-old ex-mechanic owes his comeback to financial support from wealthy industrialists in his home region in eastern Ukraine, for whom he became the only horse to back.
He played on popular discontent with Yushchenko and profited from the squabbling between the president and Tymoshenko, who once had been "orange" allies.
"I have done everything to stop this madness for the past five years," Yanukovych said in a television interview before the runoff vote. "The aim of the so-called Orange Revolution … was to weaken Russia but not to strengthen our state."
He built his domestic programme round the simple message of fighting poverty. "The utter poverty of millions of Ukrainians is the real enemy of Ukraine," he said last month.
Campaigning under the slogan: "There is a leader, there is a state", Yanukovych struck a chord with many voters by berating his "orange" adversaries for ignoring the people.
He says he favours a strong, independent and neutral Ukraine. Like Tymoshenko he has called for improved relations with Russia, Ukraine’s former Soviet master, and has rejected Yushchenko’s moves towards NATO membership.
Yanukovich, a tall, heavy-set man, is careful to avoid appearing too close to Russia and also calls for gradual integration into Europe, even though his Party of the Regions has an alliance with the Kremlin’s United Russia party,
But he is often ambiguous when he speaks on specific issues relating to Ukraine’s independent line from Russia.
A scheduled withdrawal of the Russian Black Sea Fleet from the Ukrainian port of Sevastopol in 2017 will be settled without harming Ukraine’s national interests, he says. But he adds that it will also be done without damaging strategic, friendly ties with Russia.
EU officials say he will visit Brussels on March 1, before going to Moscow also early next month.
"MISTAKES OF YOUTH"
Yanukovich was born on July 9, 1950 into a Russian-speaking, working-class family in the Donetsk region. His mother died when he was two and he had a rough childhood where his fists and physical size stood him in good stead.
He served time in jail as a youth for petty crimes involving assault but these were later struck officially from the record.
He himself refers to the "mistakes of youth" but says his hard background helped him to climb the political ladder.
Trained as a mechanical engineer, he rose eventually to become governor of the steel-and-coal-producing region Donetsk and soon after prime minister under president Leonid Kuchma in 2002.
As a public speaker, he is stilted and often stumbles over his words, particularly when speaking in Ukrainian. This plays badly in the Ukrainian-speaking west of the country.
He still sounds as if he were repeating a rehearsed script, although his performance has improved since a U.S.-based team of public relations strategists took him in hand.
His patchy education — publicly ridiculed by Tymoshenko — shows through and he once described Anton Chekhov, the Russian playwright and short story writer, as a Ukrainian poet.
He has promised to correct what he calls the mistakes of the past five years, which have seen repeated rows with Russia over energy supplies and a deep economic crisis.
Cast as the villain of the Orange Revolution, he began his comeback in 2006 when Yushchenko reluctantly appointed him premier after "orange" parties failed to form a coalition. But he left office after those parties beat his Regions Party and its allies in a snap 2007 election.
