This is a guest post by Lucan Way, Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Toronto. Lucan originally posted this on Facebook, and I am reproducing it here with his permission.

I am in Kyiv right now. It is truly an inspiring scene. The level of spontaneous self organization is truly unprecedented. No one who is here can avoid rooting for those on the street fighting for their ideals. The protesters have been far less violent than other protests in the world – including the G20 protests in Toronto in 2010. Simultaneously, Yanukovych is weak. His support has plummeted such that just about any opposition candidate wins against him in polls inthe 2nd round. His oligarchic support is also soft – as evidenced by the relatively balanced coverage on oligarchic TV channels. In 2004, only channel 5 was presenting protests in a positive light. Now it is many channels. This suggests that oligarchs are reluctant to put all their chits behind Yanukovych.

Nevertheless, in my view a sober analysis of the situation suggests that Yanukovych has the clear advantage—despite reports that momentum is on the opposition’s side. He has the advantage (at least until 2015) for the following reasons:

1. The opposition lacks a plausible politician who can clearly claim leadership of the movement.

Most opposition is fairly close in the polls to Yanukovych. But first round polls are still fairly close to Yanukovych – who in many polls has a plurality of support. The important thing is that there is no clear consensus on who is dominant – the way that Yushchenko was sufficiently dominant in 2002/2003 to convince Tymoshenko to back him. This creates a situation in which too many cooks spoil the broth. Many complain that the opposition lacks a clear strategy. But this is not the opposition’s fault – there is simply no way any one of them can dictate such a unified strategy.

2. Civil society as great traffic cop but not a powerful mobilizer of crowds:

The opposition has limited control over the crowds. The opposition/civil society has done a miraculous job of organizing food etc. for the protests. But a survey of protesters by Democratic Initiatives suggests that a full 90% of protesters came to Kiev on their own – not as part of an initiative by civil society groups or parties. In other words, civil society is clearly good at organizing those who make it to Kiev. But it is less obvious that civil society is able to actually bring them here.

Partly as a result, the “leaders” of the protests seem to have limited central control over the crowds. Thus, an initiative by leaders to protest the Central Election Commission tonight (over 5 obviously fraudulent by-elections by the regime) resulted in a miserly 150-200 protesters maximum (I just came back from there).

3. Rats will only jump a sinking ship if there is another boat to go to.

In a nutshell, there is no viable force for the Party of Regions to defect TO. Right now, the oligarchs are obviously not enthusiastic about Yanukovych. Most people here think that oligarchs would jump ship. But the opposition is not a clear bet the way Yushchenko was in 2002/2003. History shows that autocrats can survive for a long time in this situation – when the regime has weak support within but the opposition is even more fragmented.

4. Yanukovych was democratically elected.

It is sometimes forgotten that Yanukovych was elected in a relatively fair election – and was in the opposition in 2010 – which meant that he had far less access to administrative resources as in 2004. This puts the opposition in a far less advantageous position than in 2004. Of course, Yanukovych has engaged in all sorts of serious abuse. But (as many admit), the opposition does not have a clear legal rationale for holding early elections This puts Western actors in a somewhat difficult position regarding the opposition and Yanukovych.

5. There is no obvious clear majority for Europe in Ukraine.

Polls vary but the most optimistic ones show just above 50% for the EU. Most recent respected polls (by Razumkov and the Kyiv Institute for International Sociology show about 40% for the EU and 30% for the Customs Union – an advantage for the EU but hardly a clear majority.

6. Protests can’t go on forever.

Protesters have been brought to the streets mainly by Yanukovych’s stupidity – violently clearing protesters on Nov 30 etc. However, in principle there is nothing stopping Yanukovych from sitting on his hands, not giving anything serious and letting the protests peter out. Right now, it seems impossible to imagine this happening – but comparative cases suggest that protests are likely to peter out if they aren’t either provoked or obtain clear victories. (think Serbia 1996/1997; Iran 2009)

In sum, I sincerely hope I am wrong. And this thing is clearly not over. But I think there are unfortunately a lot of reasons to be pessimistic.