Ukraine’s supreme court was to decide today whether to make official the disputed results of the November 21 presidential runoff election.

Yesterday, the Donetsk province called a referendum on autonomy, one of a series of recent reports out of Ukraine that seemed to bode ill for a nonviolent end to the country’s election crisis. Pro-democracy activists expressed optimism, however, for the nation’s political future.

Donetsk is Prime Minister Yanukovich’s native region and part of the eastern territory that provided much of his electoral support. Suggesting Russian interference, the Interfax news agency reported that the pro-Yanukovich mayor of Moscow, Yuri Luzhkov, was expected to participate in the discussions of secession.

On the same day in Kiev, before a crowd of 100,000 gathered in the city’s main square, Yulia Tymoshenko – a prominent ally of the opposition candidate, Viktor Yushchenko – declared that the movements of the outgoing president, Leonid Kuchma, would be obstructed if he did not strip Mr. Yanukovich of his office within 24 hours. According to the Associated Press, Ms. Tymoshenko said of the president: “We know where he is, and we can prevent him from making a single step if he doesn’t fulfill our demands.”

The supreme court acted last week following allegations of massive voter fraud, and a senior scholar at the Manhattan office of Freedom House who participated in recent election-monitoring efforts, Adrian Karatnycky, said yesterday that the political momentum heavily favors a rejection of the November 21 results.

For one thing, he noted, the Ukrainian Parliament declared Saturday that the results were not representative of the will of the people. While that determination has no legal standing, it does carry the legitimacy of popular sentiment, Mr. Karatnycky said. Also on Saturday, the Associated Press reported that the Dutch foreign minister, Ben Bot, speaking on behalf of the European Union, said new elections would be the “ideal solution” to Ukraine’s political dilemma. America, along with several other Western nations, has characterized the elections as being stained by widespread electoral fraud.

Mr. Karatnycky estimates that, while the current tally places Mr. Yanukovich ahead of Mr. Yushchenko, 49% to 47%, Mr.Yushchenko actually won by 53% to 44% – because, in the present count, Mr. Yanukovich benefits from roughly 3 million fraudulent votes, according to Mr. Karatnycky. For example, he said, eastern Ukraine experienced 97% turnout, with 97% of the vote going for Mr. Yanukovich. The results, Mr. Karatnycky added, “strain credibility.”

In light of widespread Ukrainian and international dissatisfaction with the fairness of the November 21 election, along with the differing counts from independent monitors, Mr. Karatnycky said the Supreme Court is already “behind the curve” in addressing the election’s legitimacy. According to Nadia Diuk, director for Europe and Eurasia at the National Endowment for Democracy in Washington, the court must also catch up and contend with a major shift in the political culture. Also moving away from government control is the Ukrainian press. While a few outlets, most notably TV’s Channel 5 and ERA channel, “never fell in” with government control, they reached only about 15% of the Ukrainian people, Ms. Diuk said.

“But people have been suppressed, manipulated, downtrodden for so long, that this is resulting in an explosion of their best instincts,” she said. “People are saying, ‘We’re not going to take the manipulation of the media, and its control of the citizens, anymore.'”

In response to the popular outcry, many journalists went on strike, and separated themselves from government control last week. Ms. Diuk cited as an example the TV channel 1 + 1, which, over the past year, had been “very much in support of the government and the government’s candidates.”

“But last week,” she said yesterday, “news readers and news anchors decided they were not going to read the news just as it was handed down to them.” According to Mr. Karatnycky, only two employees – the news director and a cameraman – refused to participate in the strike. The owner of 1 + 1, Alexander Rodnyansky, flew to Ukraine from Moscow to read a statement, promising “that they were going to give the news truthfully, as it happened,” Ms. Diuk said.

The newfound independence of the courts and the media corresponds to an increased independence among the Ukrainian public. The atmosphere in Kiev, Ms. Diuk said, is of a “general euphoria.” She spoke of “glowing faces, people really happy to be taking their own fate into their own hands. … in the sort of opportunity that comes along only once in a lifetime.”

That, she said, is because the election marks a “make-or-break” moment in determining whether the Soviet Union will be reconstituted, “as Vladimir Putin wants it to be.”

Mr. Karatnycky and Ms. Diuk said the popular uprisings in Kiev – and the vociferous demands for fairness and democracy there – have established Ukraine conclusively as a Western nation in its character and outlook. That, Mr. Karatnycky said, will aid Ukraine in its efforts to be integrated into Europe, while dealing a decisive blow to Mr. Putin in his continuing attempts to interfere with elections in former Soviet republics. Remaining obstacles aside, Ms. Diuk expressed skepticism that the “outcome could be anything else but a victory for democracy.”