Orange Revolution left indelible mark on Ukraine

THE Orange Revolution may be dead after the Ukrainian parliament turfed its leadership last week, but its pro-democracy ghost will haunt Ukraine for a long time, says a Winnipegger who helped nudge the country in that direction.

"Ukraine is developing -- warts and all -- as a democratic system where everyone more or less plays by the rules," said Ostap Skrypnyk, who was among hundreds of Canadians who served as election observers in Ukraine in 2004.

"I think five years ago was the first time people really took charge of their lives and played a really active role in the political life of the country and that probably hasn't changed," said the former executive director of the Winnipeg-based Ukrainian Canadian Congress.

The 2004 vote was held after Ukrainian citizens took to the streets en masse wearing bright orange scarves to protest the fraud-tainted presidential election of pro-Russian, Kremlin-friendly Viktor Yanukovych.

Ukraine's Supreme Court overturned his election. A new vote, with more than 500 election observers from Canada, ended in defeat for Yanukovych and a win for pro-Western reformer Viktor Yushchenko.

Yulia Tymoshenko became his prime minister, but their relationship eroded and nearly paralyzed Ukraine's government as it struggled with the global economic downturn.

The Ukrainian parliament ousted the government of Orange coalition leader Tymoshenko in a non-confidence vote last week.

She lost last month's presidential election to the Orange coalition's foe, Yanukovych. He narrowly won the presidential election, which international observers called mostly free and fair.

"That's one of the legacies," said Skrypnyk, who believes the Orange Revolution deserves some of the credit. "On the whole, (the election) was more or less free and open."

Orange may be out, but it left an indelible mark on Ukraine, he said.

"There's an active civil society in Ukraine. Freedom of the press was one of the major achievements of the revolution... Some of these things are still with us -- they're not going to go backward with that."


Source:winnipegfreepress.com/

Ukraine PM attacks 'coward' rival

Ukraine's Yulia Tymoshenko relished a solo performance on television last night, heaping insults on arch foe Viktor Yanukovych after he shunned a prime-time debate with her ahead of a presidential run-off.


Facing an empty rostrum where Mr Yanukovych should have stood in their scheduled 100-minute duel, the Prime Minister Ms Tymoshenko branded him "a common coward" for not turning up. "I believe that an empty spot is exactly what he is," said Ms Tymoshenko, wearing her trademark braids. "And although he is absent from here, I can feel his smell. This is the smell of fear. I do not want a common coward to become the next leader of our nation," she said.

Opposition leader Mr Yanukovych, the frontrunner in next Sunday's poll, yesterday declined to take part in the debate with Ms Tymoshenko, calling her election vows "dirt and evil".

The Prime Minister's personal attack on her 59-year-old rival appeared to rule out any alliance between them after the election.

Mr Yanukovych, whose support base is in the east and south, won the first round of the election with 35 per cent of vote, 10 per cent ahead of Ms Tymoshenko. But she can make up this ground if she strengthens her position in western and central regions.

Mr Yanukovych, who often stumbles over his words and prefers scripted speeches to project himself, told voters he would abstain from a public debate to avoid Ms Tymoshenko's "torrents of dirt and evil". "I believe that concrete deeds and the word that one gives is more important than sweet and pleasing phrases. This is why I deem it indecent to be dragged into empty talk and compete in lies in the run-up to the election," he said.

Ms Tymoshenko led the 2004 "Orange Revolution" sparked by a rigged election in which Mr Yanukovych was denied victory

Source:independent.co.uk/

Crimea's loyalty split in Ukraine election

As Ukraine prepares to vote in a new president in an election run-off on Sunday, the BBC's Jamie Coomarasamy reports from Crimea, where people are ambivalent about their Ukrainian nationality.

It is easy to mix up Russia and Ukraine when you are in Crimea.

Just ask Viktor Yanukovych.

The Ukrainian presidential candidate made a faux pas last week, when he referred to the Russian writer Anton Chekhov - a long time resident of the peninsula - as Ukrainian.

But in this part of the country his gaffe is unlikely to benefit his opponent on Sunday, Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.

At least, that is what I was told - by a multitude of voices - when I took a ride on the form of transport known locally as "Hyde Park on wheels"; the old, rickety, Soviet-era trolley bus that lurches around town.

The nickname comes from their elderly passengers, who like to leap onto their metaphorical soap boxes - such as those found in Hyde Park's Speakers Corner - whilst sitting comfortably in their seats.

'Ukraine for the people'

A basic question about the election, on route number 10, unleashed a torrent of comments.

All of them were anti-Mrs Tymoshenko.

"You can't trust someone who changes her opinions as often as she changes dresses" and "she should be in jail" were typical.

Source:news.bbc.co.uk/

MP heads to Ukraine as election observer

Parkdale-High Park MP Gerard Kennedy is among hundreds of Canadians who will be in Ukraine working as election observers this weekend as Ukrainians go to the polls Sunday, Feb. 7 to elect a new president.
No stranger to the mission, Kennedy was on hand for the parliamentary elections in Ukraine in 2007.

"The real story, as far as I'm concerned, is Canadians have been deployed as experts since the Orange Revolution. They're very knowledgeable," said Kennedy in an interview two days before his Feb. 4 departure. "They really embed themselves."

Kennedy will be there to lend some official support to workers on the ground. Organized by the Canadian Ukrainian Foundation in partnership with the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, the election observer mission supports transparency and democracy by assessing the election process. These volunteers are there to monitor the process and by their presence, encourage a fair and democratic election.

Kennedy commended the volunteers whom he has seen in action.

"What they do is very, very admirable," said Kennedy. "They get up at 7 a.m. and work until midnight before they go back to their motel."

People who have been there, said the MP, know there are "real advances" going on in the country.

"Ukraine wants to prove to the world they can conduct their election," said Kennedy. "If they don't have credibility with citizens there, the country can't move forward."

The first round of elections took place Jan. 17, a process that was reported to have been 'adequate' in its attempt to meet international election standards. However, Canadian observers uncovered several irregularities, including an attempt to sabotage the election in 28 small communities around the Kyiv region, said Kennedy. The politician said he came across similar situations on his visit three years ago. The group he was with "intruded upon" a number of people illegally distributing ballots.

He said police were brought in by those trying to give out illegal ballots because they represented the dominant party and the local government in the region.

“We observers had our passports taken and were detained,” said Kennedy. “We got out after a five hour standoff after a combination of persuasion and the fact we had a couple of members of the national police show up based on a friendship by the Canadian leader of the local observer group with the president’s wife.”


"You come to take for granted the regular conduct of election. It reminds you how important it is," said Kennedy. "There is no independent election commission in Ukraine. The parties get to run the election."

Kennedy, who happens to be of Ukrainian heritage - his mother is Ukrainian - will be in Ukraine for five days.

Source:insidetoronto.com/

Did Georgian Leadership Try To Influence Ukraine Presidential Election?

Several prominent Georgian oppositionists have expressed concern at the political implications of two telephone conversations, posted first on Ukrainian then on Georgian websites, which could be construed as evidence that the Georgian leadership sought to influence the January 17 Ukrainian presidential election to secure a victory for Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.

Relations between Tymoshenko and Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili have been haunted by rumors of a torrid love affair between them. Saakashvili denied those rumors as early as 2005, but that did not prevent the production of a movie chronicling the alleged romance.

The first conversation posted online was apparently between Saakashvili and Tymoshenko, who thanks him for sending a team of election observers. Saakashvili's administration responded on January 15 to that recording by denying that Georgia supports any of the presidential candidates.

The second conversation purportedly took place on January 14 between all-powerful Georgian Interior Minister Vano Merabishvili and Givi Targamadze, chairman of the Georgian Committee on Defense and Security, who at the time of the conversation was in Donetsk. Merabishvili tells Targamadze that Akhalaya (Georgia's defense minister) has promised to provide personnel; Targamadze replies that they have already arrived in Donetsk. Merabishvili then orders Targamadze to impress upon his Ukrainian contacts the need to provide air transport for additional Georgian observers prior to the second round of voting.

The Georgian authorities have not formally denied the authenticity of either conversation. Targamadze was quoted on January 20 as saying "I think Ukraine now needs to be focused on a more important issue [meaning the second round] rather than wasting time listening to my mobile phone conversations."

The Ukrainian Central Election Commission (CEC) refused on January 11 to register 2,011 would-be election observers from Georgia, having already registered a total of 3,149 from other countries. Targamadze was quoted as saying that CEC members from presidential candidate Viktor Yanukovych's Party of Regions were behind that refusal, and that the 300-plus Georgian election observers already in Donetsk were being hindered in their activities.

The Yulia Tymoshenko bloc (BYuT) appealed the CEC decision to the Kyiv Appellate Court on January 13 and demanded that the Georgian contingent be accredited. The BYuT subsequently alleged that members of Yanukovych's campaign staff beat up two Georgian journalists in Donetsk on January 16.

Saakashvili told journalists on January 18, the day after the election, that the dispatch of 2,000 Georgian election observers was agreed in advance "with all Ukrainian political parties" and that the objective was "to express solidarity and provide assistance to Ukraine," not to "interfere in politics."

But prominent Georgian opposition politicians have argued that whatever Saakashvili's intent, his apparent meddling in the Ukrainian presidential ballot could negatively affect relations between the two countries. Eka Beselia of the Movement for a United Georgia argued that in any other country, an interior minister or prominent parliamentarian would have resigned if such damaging allegations came to light.

Former Foreign Minister Salome Zourabichvili argued that "it is not the business of an interior minister to deal with the sending of election observers -- assuming that the persons in question were bona fide observers" and not, as some have alleged, Georgian Interior Ministry personnel.

Former Georgian Prime Minister Zurab Noghaideli, for his part, was quoted by Caucasus Press as telling journalists on January 21 that a formal investigation should be launched and that Merabishvili and Targamadze should be held criminally responsible if that probe yields evidence that they violated the law.

Source:rferl.org/

Ukraine's Orange Revolution sours

2005 saw euphoric celebrations in Independence Square when Viktor Yushchenko was inaugurated Photo: AFP/GETTY
Victor Yushchenko is trailing far behind in the current election contest Photo: EPA
Mr Yushchenko's glamorous blonde ally, Yulia Tymoshenko, is now seen as a quarrelsome opportunist Photo: AFP/GETTY
FIVE years after Victor Yushchenko became the disfigured face of the Orange Revolution, it is tempting to believe the conspiracy theories that he was never actually poisoned at all. The skin that was once hideously pockmarked is gradually recovering, and with the help of make-up, there is little sign of the attack that nearly killed him back in 2004. Indeed, were it not for the blood tests that confirmed the presence of lethal dioxin poisons, the wear and tear on his cheeks might be simply the strains of steering Ukraine away from Russia's grasp and towards the West.

To this day, though, the Ukrainian president remains "vigilant" about his personal security - not that he thinks there was anything particularly personal about the original attack, which was blamed on pro-Kremlin political rivals. Whoever wins next month's presidential elections will find themselves in the firing line, he says, if they try to take Ukraine down the same path he has done "It was not about me, Yushchenko," he said in an interview with The Sunday Telegraph last week. "Ukraine was proving a bad example for Russia, and a good example for Europe, and that was the problem. Irrespective of the name of the next president, if he or she is a democrat, a pro-European politician, they will have similar problems."

One other thing, however, also looks certain - that new president is unlikely to be Mr Yushchenko. The man once hailed as democracy's battle-scarred posterboy is trailing far behind in the contest, scraping just single figures in some polls. After personifying the hopes of the Orange Revolution five years ago, he now symbolises the way its glow has faded, having failed to secure either European Union or Nato membership.

It marks a sour end to what began as a Christmas political fairy tale five years ago, when Mr Yushchenko and his glamorous blonde ally, Yulia Tymoshenko, formed a kind of "Beauty and the Beast" alliance against the Moscow-favoured Viktor Yanukovych. When Mr Yanukovych triumphed in what was seen as a rigged presidential election, Kiev's Independence Square filled with half a million protestors, who camped out night after night in sub-zero temperatures. People power finally triumphed when Ukraine's supreme court ordered the vote to be re-run on Boxing Day, ushering in Mr Yushchenko as president and Ms Tymoshenko as prime minister.

Last week, though, the unusually early cold snap that covered the square's Stalinist-era architecture with thick snow was the only reminder of those euphoric days. Mr Yushchenko and Mrs Tymoshenko, once iconised in Time and Elle magazines respectively, have proved unable to get along, leading the government into paralysis. That, in turn, has stymied efforts at economic and political reform, and convinced Brussels bureaucrats - already suffering from enlargement fatigue - that Kiev's government is far from ready for EU membership. To complete the drift back to square one, Mr Yanukovych - the man painted as the pro-Kremlin villain from the last elections - is favourite to win again this time, with or without fraud. Moscow, which viewed 2004's turmoil as a Western-inspired coup d'etat in its backyard, looks on gleefully.

If it is dispiriting for the Orange Revolution's figureheads, it is even more so for its student-based grassroots support, who were originally denounced as CIA-backed subversives when they threw their weight behind Mr Yushchenko's moderate Our Ukraine party. Nazar Pervak recalls how he was shown on government television as an aggressive young rabble-rouser, causing a rift with his father, a judge.

"It was extremely cold, like it is out there now," said Mr Pervak, 27, sipping coffee in an Independence Square cafe. "But it was very exciting - shopkeepers gave free food and clothes, businessmen even paid for hotels for protesters who came in from outside Kiev.

"Today, though, I feel very disillusioned, because we didn't use the great chance we had properly. Integration with Europe did not come true either. Now Western Europe simply accepts that Ukraine is now under Russia's influence."

So what went wrong? Critics pin some blame on Mr Yushchenko, who failed to use his momentum to give the Augean stables of Ukrainian politics the Herculean spring clean it needed. Parliament remains full of corrupt, criminal MPs, whose punch-ups in the chamber rival those of Ukraine's legendary boxing duo, Klitschko brothers. Thanks to constitutional wrangling and a problem with "electoral tourism", whereby politicians switch allegiances in exchange for favours, it is also hard to get much done.

The Yushchenko-Tymoshenko alliance was also forged more on a mutual dislike of Moscow than on any common policies, and over time, they have even parted company on that. Ms Tymoshenko now favours patching things up with Russia, a move seen as a betrayal by Mr Yushchenko, whose relations with the Kremlin are worse than ever. In August, Russian President Dmitri Medvedev withdrew Moscow's ambassador to Kiev, accusing Mr Yushchenko of being "anti-Russian". In an echo of the Litvinenko case in Britain, Moscow also refuses to extradite a suspect in the poisoning plot who moved to Russia.

Many Ukrainians also question whether Ms Tymoshenko or Mr Yushchenko really merited their Orange halos in the first place. Ms Tymoshenko, despite her pretty face, is seen as a quarrelsome opportunist, while Mr Yushchenko, although viewed as competent and honest, comes across as slightly plodding. Certainly, interviewing him is not like meeting some Eastern European Tony Blair - he is prone to monologues rather than soundbites, and reluctant to concede fault.

Asked why his popularity has slipped so badly, he responds firstly by insisting that he is still going to win, and then by reciting economic growth statistics at length. When The Sunday Telegraph tries to interrupt after five minutes, he tuts and continuing regardless. "Last year 23 million tourist visited Ukraine. This figure was 21 million for Turkey. One million Ukrainians travelled to Europe last year, two times more than 2007..." The list goes on and on, reminiscent - to Western ears at least - of Communist-era reports on annual tractor production.

Mr Yuschchenko is also under fire for campaigns to demolish all Soviet-era monuments, and to get the Ukrainian famine of the 1930s, when up ten million Ukrainians died, recognised internationally as a Stalin-sponsored genocide. Not only does it seem like a diversion from more immediate problems, it alienates some of the 20 per cent of Ukrainians who are ethnic Russians, who do not share his anomisity to Moscow anyway.

"The nationalist Ukrainians are trying to divide people into Ukrainian and Russian," said Viktor Knyazev, 31, an adviser in an import-export firm. "Other people died in that famine too, not just Ukrainians."

"Both Stalin and Lenin were negative figures, but at least they managed to keep order," added his wife Larisa, 28, who, like her husband, wants Mr Yanukovic back in power. "Why can't we have good relations with Russia?"

As things stand, the vote on January 17 is expected to end in a run-off between Mr Yanukovych and Ms Tymoshenko, heralding a gradual thaw with Moscow. Yet despite having the same old faces to vote for, the youthful Orange Revolutionaries are not entirely despondent. "There is a total disbelief in these candidates," admitted former activist Dmitry Yurchenko, 27. "But the Orange Revolution did at least change attitudes to politicians - there is a free media now, and people realise they can demand things if they want."

What is really needed, they argue, is for a new post-Orange Revolution generation of voters, devoid of the "Post-Soviet" mentality that does not readily question political leaders, and expects them to be omnipotent. "Once Yushchenko was in power, Ukrainians thought everything would simply change," said Mr Pervak. "They don't take responsibility themselves."

Mr Yushchenko, meanwhile, may have more time to spend beekeeping, a hobby he has enjoyed since childhood. Compared with running the affairs of 47 million Ukrainians, managing the industrious populations of his hives is a relaxing task. Yet for a man who detests Stalin, it is perhaps a strange choice - after all, with their armies of loyal workers, are bees not natural communists?

"No," he replies firmly. "Communists lose their ideals, they are people who bring injustice, who killed tens of millions of my people."

With that, the world's only apiarist-president is off, pausing only to show an advice note from one of his junior civil servants on constitutional reform. It probably won't solve his electoral ills, but that isn't the point. In the old days, he says, no lowly functionary would dare tell the president how to do his job. "That's the Orange Revolution for you."

Source:telegraph.co.uk/