'In Ukraine we have no time for democracy': Andrew Higgins in Kiev finds a mounting fascist backlash against President Kravchuk and his Communist cronies

As Ukraine went to the polls yesterday, the candidate for Kiev's Vatutin District No 2 sat in a dingy basement room with faded pink wallpaper and gushed about the 'aesthetics' of IRA attacks and explained what victory for himself would bring: 'We will have only one party. The others are not necessary. Democracy is very good in London. But not here.'

Dmytro Korchinsky, an ascetic-looking man of 30 with a handlebar moustache, is the new theoretician of Ukrainian fascism, a marginal but growing force in a stumbling nation plagued by economic ruin and deep disillusionment after only two years of independence.

There is an angry backlash across Ukraine against the established order of President Leonid Kravchuk and his mostly communist cronies. An opinion poll showed only 9 per cent ready to vote for the same candidates as in 1990 while 73 per cent believe power has not changed hands since independence.

Turn-out yesterday was strong, despite a low-key campaign and electoral rules designed by the outgoing parliament to blur party affiliations, blunt issues and favour big-wigs. It reached 67 per cent, well above the 50 per cent minimum required to make the poll valid, the head of the central electoral commission said. The highest turnout was in the west, where Ukrainian nationalism is strong.

But Mr Korchinsky is extreme in his cynicism: 'There is no time for democracy, constitutions and other such foolish things. We are not sure we will be alive in a year, or free in a week.' From the wall scowled the smudgy black-and-white faces of fellow candidates fielded by UNA- UNSO, one of a galaxy of fringe groups ranging from Ukraine-for-Ukrainians nationalists to pro-Russian empire-revivalists who want Moscow to retake Ukraine. The two ends feed off each other. The more Crimea (70 per cent Russian) and Russian-speaking regions of Ukraine (such as Dontesk), clamour for Russia, the more Mr Korchinsky thrives.

Crimea yesterday again thumbed its nose at Kiev by changing its clocks to Moscow instead of Ukrainian time and holding a referendum on more autonomy. The peninsula's pro-Russian president, Yuri Meshkov, urged voters to boycott a separate ballot for the national parliament in Kiev and vote only for a Crimean legislature. Turn-out was more than half but it was unclear how people voted.

UNA-UNSO and other groups, such as the Ukrainian Social-Nationalist Party and Sovereign Ukraine, say they will fight to stop secession. 'Muscovites should appreciate the full beauty of being at war,' said Mr Korchinsky, who fought in Abkhazia against Russian-inspired separatists.

'If they start bombing Kiev there will be explosions in Moscow.' His group copies the IRA. It has a political wing, Ukrainian National Assembly (UNA) and a paramilitary arm, Ukrainian National Self Defence. Its slogan is: 'Force, Order and Prosperity.' For the capital of a nation whose very survival is in doubt, Kiev can seem oddly prosperous. A bastion of largely unreconstructed Soviet apparatchiks, it keeps streets clean, the Metro running and serious reform at arms length. But people are fed up. 'This country is total bedlam,' said Larissa Stepanova, 80, who like many pensioners living on 460,000 Ukrainian coupons ( pounds 7) a month, remembers the Soviet Union fondly. She voted for a communist. His was the only name on a list of 18 she recognised. It is such instincts the old guard hopes will blunt what would otherwise be a full scale rout.

Politics are so fragmented, with 35 registered parties and nearly 6,000 candidates standing for only 450 seats, that the main issue in this election is whether a parliament will ever be elected. Bizarre voting rules, widely seen as sabotage, mean that voting will go to a second round in most districts and may never provide the 301 deputies needed for a quorum.

'Ukraine has a very sophisticated election law,' scoffed Danylo Yanevsky, a political scientist monitoring the polls, 'It is designed to prevent parliament being elected.' A non-result would provide Mr Kravchuk with an excuse to impose some sort of presidential rule.

'If it is clear that a parliament will not be elected and legislative elections are not working out then why should we waste our entire budget on elections?' President Kravchuk proclaimed yesterday after casting his vote at the Ukrainian Sugar Research Institute. 'Elections would become permanent elections and this would lead to political instability, chaos and political polarisation.'

Mr Kravchuk has slumped badly in opinion polls and would almost certainly lose if a presidential election were held today. The front-runner is former Prime Minister, Leonid Kuchma, director of the Soviet Union's biggest missile factory and now co-chairman of the Inter-regional Bloc for Reform, which was expected to do well in yesterday's election.