He may not be the most popular man in the land, but when it comes to mathematics, President Leonid Kuchma of Ukraine comes out quite well.
On Tuesday, the country's Supreme Court ruled that although he was completing his second five-year term this year, he was exempt from the Constitution's two-term limit because the Constitution itself had only been in place for eight years.
"Limits envisaged by the Constitution are relevant to a person who occupied the presidential post for two terms and was given the powers in line with the existing Constitution," one of the judges, Volodymyr Voznyuk, told reporters.
In other words, Kuchma's first election, in 1994, does not count. His re-election in 1999 was in fact, under the Constitution, his first election.
Kuchma benefits from infighting among the country's fragmented opposition parties, but they joined in condemning Tuesday's ruling.
"The Constitutional Court has simply turned into an instrument to serve the authorities," said Ihor Ostash, a parliamentary deputy from the Our Ukraine faction, according to Reuters.
"The court decision is a cause for grave concern," he said.
"It shows once again what is the level of democracy in Ukraine," he said.
Some opposition members said they might hold mass rallies next month, inspired by a popular uprising last month in Georgia, another former Soviet republic, that forced President Eduard Shevardnadze from power.
"Georgia's precedent must be a lesson and a warning for the Ukrainian authorities," said one opposition faction, headed by Yulia Tymoshenko, in a statement.
Kuchma does not think much of that notion.
"First of all, I'd like to say that Ukrainians are not Georgians," he told a news conference this month. "I am positive this situation cannot repeat itself in Ukraine."
He added: "Does someone want to split Ukraine into two parts? Do not rock the boat that is already rocking on the waves battering Ukraine today."
Opposition forces, which range from communists to reformist liberals, have come together over the past three years in mass street rallies that have failed to shake the president's hold on power. They accuse him of human rights abuses, corruption, vote rigging and arms dealing.
The most emotional issue has been the widespread belief that he has been involved in the killing of journalists, particularly Georgy Gongadze, who campaigned against corruption and was killed in 2000.
In early 2001, a presidential security guard released secretly taped conversations that appeared to implicate him in the abduction and killing of Gongadze. Last year, more secret tape recordings seemed to link him to proposals to smuggle arms to Iraq and other nations, leading to strong condemnation from Washington.
Opposition groups say that in a fair vote he would not be re-elected, but they say he has a habit of rigging elections.
At his recent news conference, Kuchma, a former missile factory director, repeated his assertion that he would not stand again for president. But he jokingly warned his opponents not to urge him too strongly to run "because I'll go ahead and agree."
His spokeswoman, Oksana Kosareva, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that his position had not changed "yet." Kuchma was in Germany recovering from abdominal surgery last month.
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