UKRAINE….

Since a court ordered her release from detention on April 2, Yulia Tymoshenko, the former deputy prime minister for fuels and energy, has taken an ever larger role in rallying the opposition to President Leonid Kuchma. She and the National Salvation Front, of which she is a founder, are promoting a national referendum to vote “no confidence” in Kuchma. To secure a referendum. the constitution requires signatures from at least three million voters in 18 of the country’s twenty-seven regions, plus a presidential decree which seems impossible to obtain. Polls indicate that most Ukrainians disapprove of the president’s performance but fear demonstrations or other radical measures to remove him from office. Promoting a referendum, even if it cannot be realized, may help to make the idea of Kuchma’s ouster acceptable to ordinary Ukrainians.