By MARA D. BELLABY, Associated Press Writer
KIEV, Ukraine - Like most Ukrainian university students, Olena Prokhorova can earn a passing grade two ways: by slogging through the books or by paying a $20 bribe. Traffic cops are notoriously on the take, and Ukrainians say they don't give it a second thought when they can bribe their way out of a traffic infraction — real or not.
It is not surprising then that Viktor Yushchenko, the opposition leader whom preliminary results show to be the victor, has pledged to fight corruption as the first task of his presidency.
"We almost don't even consider it corruption," said Prokhorova, a 19-year-old university student from the western city of Lviv.
There's evidence the plague of corruption spawned the fraud in the second-round presidential vote on Nov. 21. Hundreds of thousands of opposition supporters like Prokhorova massed in Kiev to protest not only their stolen votes, but also the underlying corruption. The Supreme Court later annulled the results, citing mass fraud, and ordered last week's revote.
By all accounts, Yushchenko's task won't be easy. According to Transparency International's 2004 ranking of corrupt nations, Ukraine was one of the worst — No. 128 out of 146, nestled between Sudan and Cameroon.
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Yushchenko Pledges to Fight Corruption
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