The announcement late last Friday electrified the shivering crowd of over 100,000 demonstrators gathered on Independence Square in central Kiev. Cheers went up. Fireworks went off. Horns began honking throughout the city as the news was broadcast over the radio and the crowd -- which just moments earlier had been expectant and tense -- started dancing. The country's highest court had thrown out the fraudulent election results that indicated a victory in Ukraine's presidential run-off election for government candidate Viktor Yanukovych over his opposition rival Viktor Yushchenko.

And the announcement was unexpectedly strong; the run-off election, said the court, had to be run again, and quickly. The court set a deadline of Dec. 26 by which a new vote had to be held. Demonstrators, who had been on the streets virtually constantly since the original vote on Nov. 21, were elated. Their man, Yushchenko, had finally won.

Or so it seemed.

Now, three days have passed, and while things still look rosier for the massive, orange-clad crowds of the pro-Yushchenko camp than they did last week at this time, their ultimate goal of seeing Yushchenko in office is still a long way off. Yes, outgoing president Leonid Kuchma has said he will respect the Ukrainian Supreme Court's decision, but the noises coming out of the government camp -- and from Russian President Vladimir Putin -- haven't changed much. They may have appeared to soften, but they certainly haven't given up the fight.

"I think that the camp around Kuchma will continue to follow their aim and will continue to play for time and slow things down," says Juri Durkot, a Ukrainian journalist who writes about the country for a number of Western European newspapers. "We have seen this tactic before, especially in Kuchma's attempt to get the entire vote repeated. That would have meant a 90-day wait. But even with the recent remarks of Kuchma, I am far from convinced that the Kuchma camp will freely give up power."

Reforms needed

The issue now is a different one. Changes need to be made to Ukraine's election laws to avoid the same debacle of multiple vote casting and ballot box stuffing that torpedoed the Nov. 21 vote. The official results approved by the country's election commission showed Yanukovych winning the election, but exit polls indicated that challenger Yushchenko had actually won -- by up to 11 percentage points. Since then, the government camp has attempted to spin the ensuing protests as merely one side in an honest disagreement. In other words, the controversy needs a negotiated solution and both sides need to make compromises to reach that solution.

The compromise that Kuchma, Yanukovych and his powerful promoter (and financer) Putin are now looking for is a constitutional amendment. The powers of the president -- the office the opposition claims for its own -- should be weakened, says Kuchma. And these powers should be redistributed to the Prime Minister and to parliament. Kuchma is would like to bundle these two initiatives -- election reform and the constitutional amendment -- so that both are passed by the same parliamentary vote. The opposition isn't so hot on that idea.

"The governing powers have finally understood that they can't win," Yushchenko said, referring to Kuchma's demands. "And that's why they want to limit the powers of the president."

Negotiations to solve the disagreement lasted late into the night on Monday and into the wee hours Tuesday. They ended at 2 a.m. Kiev time with an earlier tentative agreement on the cutting room floor and talks are scheduled to continue throughout the day on Tuesday. Several hundred Yushchenko supporters, still gathered outside the presidential mansion where the talks were held, began shouting "Down with Kuchma! Down with Kuchma!" at the news.

Ironically, however, the issue of limited powers for the presidency is something that both sides actually agree on. Opposition members have long cast a suspicious eye on Leonid Kuchma's heavy handed ways as he instituted a security system that in many ways resembled a police state. Almost a dozen different secret service agencies, including a special tax police that was often sent after opposition voices in the media, shutting down newsrooms and destroying computers and other equipment, were controlled almost exclusively by him. The opposition would like to put an end to these almost dictatorial capacities.

Kuchma, on the other hand, now forced to step down as a result of term limitations, has also adopted the cause of constitutional limits on presidential powers -- but for different reasons. He is hoping that by shifting power to the prime minister and the parliament, his party, would keep its large say in Ukrainian politics. The party still maintains majority control of the parliament despite having lost a no-confidence vote for Kuchma's hand-picked successor, Yanukovych, last Wednesday.

Or even he, himself. One theory that had been coursing through Ukrainian politics for well over a year prior to the elections is that Kuchma had been hoping for a Yanukovych victory not only as a victory for his party, but so that he could continue to exert power from the parliament or, even, as Yanukovych's prime minister. In Dec. 2003, in fact, Kuchma even tried to push through a reform that would have made the position of president directly elected by the parliament, essentially making the president an extension of the legislative body.

Such scenarios of continued power for Kuchma are, given the developments of the last two weeks and the growing disgust for Kuchma and his candidate Yanukovych (recent opinion polls held by the Russian news agency Interfax indicates that Yushchenko would now defeat Yanukovych 53 percent to 38 percent) increasingly unlikely.

But the opposition sees a different danger now. If Yushchenko is sworn in to a weakened presidential office, he may not have the powers necessary to limit the powers of the country's economic oligarchs  who control vast swaths of Ukraine's economy. With their strong ties to lawmakers in parliament, it could mean business as usual even with a President Yushchenko in office. The opposition is hoping to delay the weakening of the presidency for at least two years -- hopefully enough time for Yushchenko to clean house.

"The most important thing is that the constitutional reform wouldn't be introduced immediately," said parliamentarian and Yushchenko ally Viktor Pynzenyk on Monday. "Otherwise there will be no sense in presidential election."

In the meantime, despite the ongoing negotiations, time is running short. Decisions and preparations need to be made to prepare for the December 26 re-run run-off to avoid a repeat of the falsification of the past two Ukraine votes. And delay, many think, is just what Kuchma wants. That and, as he and Putin have continually pointed out, limited outside influence -- from the West at least.