Yushchenko's party 3rd as Orange Revolution fractures

[malaise]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4846006.stm
The pro-Russian opposition party led by Viktor Yanukovych is set to win the most seats in Ukraine's parliamentary elections, exit polls suggest.
----------------
I'm trying real hard not to laugh.

[Kagemusha]

1. I have no such compunctions.

:rofl:

...Sorry, couldn't help myself. The Orange Revolution was such a sanctimonious event. The powerful dislike of Russia blinded a lot of people (especially outside the Ukraine) to the flaws in the people replacing the pro-Russian faction.

And history will not end with this election either. Ukraine will not just go into a deep dark hole never to be seen again. It's not as simple as people want that place to be.

[TankLV]

26. Yeah - being thoroughly upset with the RUSSIAN OCCUPIERS

of a sovereign nation and under the DOMINATION OF THE RUSSIAN BOOT where the speaking of the UKRAINIAN language and mention of UKRAINIAN culture was forbidden by the brutal russian colonial occupiers kinda makes some people mad. Go figure.

That poor country has a lot to sort out.

It will take time.

Exchanging one lessor gang of thugs for an even worse gang of criminals is not something to cheer about.

This is NOT a good development for the UKRAINIAN people.

It is good for its RUSSIAN OCCUPIERS, tho.

The Ukrainian people are impatient for change - GOOD SOLID UNCORRUPTED change.

That they didn't get it in a YEAR? What ever could it take so long?

I smell a rat, and this time it's the RUSSIAN RAT.

[ButterflyBlood]

43. Don't worry

The pro-Russian party has from a majority. The other parties should be able to work out a coalition government.

Since Yuschenko's party has been losing votes, but that's mostly to the Socialists (who supported him) and splinter parties, this shows that the people are disappointed in Yuschenko, but don't want to turn back to Russian hegemony.

[tocqueville]

2. Orange Revolution was a CIA op

Activists in each of these movements were funded and trained in tactics of political organization and nonviolent resistance by a coalition of Western pollsters and professional consultants funded by a range of Western government and non-government agencies. According to The Guardian, these include the U.S. State Department and US AID along with the National Democratic Institute, the International Republican Institute, NGO Freedom House and billionaire George Soros' Open Society Institute. The National Endowment for Democracy, a U.S. Government funded foundation, has supported non-governmental democracy-building efforts in Ukraine since 1988 <3>. Writings on nonviolent struggle by Gene Sharp formed the strategic basis of the student campaigns.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_revolution

[malaise]

3. That's why it's so funny

Bushco has created more enemies than Genghis Khan.

[Tempest]

12. $65 million of your tax dollars created the Orange movement

That's how much Bush gave to the Orange party movement in 2005.

[ButterflyBlood]

17. I don't see what's wrong here

Since as even you admitted, it was NONVIOLENT resistance.

Should the Ukrainians just have rolled over and let Yankovich steal the election like Bush did?

[Karmakaze]

31. Maybe, just maybe...

The stories that he was stealing the election were paid for by the same people who paid for the "leaders" of the "Orange Revolution"? Did you ever consider that? Is it possible the media lied to you about what was really happening, the same way they lied about 2000 and 2004 in the US? Of course not, because those evil Russians were involved, so they HAD to be to blame!

Notice only a few short years later that "thief" is now getting the most votes! Why would that be? Why would the poeple vote for someone they thought was a thief? Could it be that the REALITY of the US controlled government (rather than the propaganda fed IDEA) showed the people they backed the wrong horse?

[ButterflyBlood]

42. Your logic doesn't hold up in the face of math

In this poll, Yankovych only has around a third of the vote. He has a plurality, but far from a majority. In the last election in the first round before the runoff, he got 39.32% and got around 51% in the first run off and around 44% in the rerun. In other words, he is still polling below what he got in the presidentials and has actually LOST support. He still has only his traditional support base. So the idea that the people have decided he didn't attempt to rig the first election and flocked to him doesn't hold any water.

As for the theory that there was nothing wrong with the first election and the media just spread propaganda that it was rigged, if you're going to believe that, then you're going against what pretty much every international observor of the election said, as well as the Ukrainian Supreme Court which invalidated the first runoff. and Elections Board, which certified the rerun. Even the observors from the CIS, who mostly backed Yankovych, declared the rerun but not original run off as fair. So Occam's Razor tells that while the media may have given a rather biased portrayal of the events there, the status of the validity of the elections was largely true.

[MrPrax]

4. Very Strange...

If one discounts the BS 'tone of the reports', one can be very impressed by the fact that Ukraine DOES appear to have a very dynamic healthy democracy with an extremely active population.

Most western gov'ts should be so lucky; very strange that credit isn't given to the Ukrainian people for keeping both sides honest and expendible.

[NorthernSun]

5. Bush kiss of death

Looks like Bush is the kiss of death round the world. Most of South America has voted against his monopoly policies.

[Lexingtonian]

6. Betcha Yanukovych lasts as long

Sure, it's ironic. But Yanukovych can't solve the country's massive problems either. Ukrainians are doing it just like Americans- using up their old politician class like Kleenex.

[Johnyawl]

7. I believe you're right...

...the Ukrainian people don't seem to want American pawns running thier country, anymore than they want the Russian pawns in control. What they really need is a Kirchner, ala Argentina, that will tell everybody, including the IMF and World Bank, to get stuffed, and do what's right for the people of the Ukraine. And it ain't like we're gonna help THAT person get elected.

[malaise]

9. Bingo

You hit the nail on the head.

[TankLV]

27. You are so totally correct on that one.

Plus they are tired of the corruption on ALL sides.

It looks like it will take more than a single year or a single election to sort it all out.

I will agree with one thing - everything - EVERYTHING bunkerboy and the REPUKES touch turns to shit.

[liberalpragmatist]

8. Why the laugh?

I have a hard time falling into this "enemy of my enemy is my friend"-mentality that so many DU'ers get into. So what if the US prefers Yuschenko? Certainly there may be much genuine discontent with Yuschenko and the reformers - nobody sounds like saints in all this. But I hardly think the opposition is any better and I do think they are far worse. Putin and the Kuchma/Yanukovich are no democrats but old-school quasi-fascist autocrats. Personally I think a more European-oriented government in Ukraine is preferable to a pro-Putin polity.

[malaise]

10. The US must stop

meddling in other people's homelands. You have no idea about the strife it has created across the globe.

[liberalpragmatist]

14. I'm quite aware of the strife it has caused in other lands

I think the US should not be in the business of replacing regimes we don't like simply because we don't like them. I think other countries should have a government of their own choosing and the US should deal with the representatives of those governments rather than meddling and trying to engineer a government more to our liking. Iran is the perfect example, what with the removal of Prime Minister Mossadeq in the 1950s.

But I hardly see how this applies to Ukraine. Especially when it was the people of Ukraine that put reformers in office over massive fraud and a botched assassination attempt. And frankly, the results bear this out, as the pro-Russian faction got the largest faction but did not get a majority. The two reformist parties collectively got well over the 50% threshold. While his government may well be bad (a 13% return for his party signifies that Ukrainians are unhappy), it doesn't logically extend that it is bad because the US supports him.

[ButterflyBlood]

15. It has caused strife yes, but that was when the actions involved violence

But there was no coup or military action in Ukraine. Just the nullification of some fraudulent election results. I see nothing wrong there.

[malaise]

19. Deal with the fraudulent elections

in your own country. Any help offered is always for self interest. History shows that the US dos not give a damn about democracy just controlling other people's resources.

[ButterflyBlood]

20. Of course the motives are far from pure

But in this case, the cause is not wrong, and unlike in Iraq, it's not going to kill anyone.

I really just can't buy the logic that Ukraine would be better off letting Russian puppets rig elections as long as it spites the US.

[malaise]

22. I don't buy that either

but assistance with ulterior motives is just as bad.

[ButterflyBlood]

23. That's where I have to disagree

Look at it this way, during WWII the major concern of the US was not the horrific atrocities the Japanese were performing against the people in their occupied territories rather than the threat to its own colonies in the Pacific which is what caused the showdown leading up to Pearl Harbor. But that certainly doesn't mean the US was wrong to put an end to the Japanese Empire. The same could be said of the British in Europe against Germany.

[LisaL]

29. So it's better if US puppets rig elections?

[ButterflyBlood]

36. If this election was rigged, you wouldn't have Yushenko in third place now

Regardless of what you think about Yuschenko otherwise, as long as he is more democratic than his opponents, he's the better guy.

[bemildred]

37. If the poll was rigged (by Yuschenko) he would not be in 3rd place.

The outcome of the election is still being studied.

[ButterflyBlood]

39. Well the results are coming in now

You can watch them here: http://www.cvk.gov.ua/vnd2006/w6p001e.html

Only 5.62% so far, but they don't seem too far off from the exit polls, with Yuschenko's party in third. Tymoshenko, his sacked former ally is in first.

We'll have to wait until everything is counted, but so far I don't see anything too fishy going on.

[bemildred]

41. There you go, just like I said, nt

[daleo]

11. Time for the CIA to move to a fresh color

A fair bit of the palette has been exhausted, but there must be some left. Perhaps magenta.

[ButterflyBlood]

16. A few points to make

First, while Yankovich's party is in first, it only has a small plurality, less than 30%. All this means is that the base here is more unified, which makes sense as it probably has almost all Russian-speaking Ukrainians.

Second, the second place party is the bloc led by Yulia Timoshenko, the former PM and an ally of Yuschenko during the Orange Revolution. Even though they later fell out of favor when he sacked her and her government, this does show that more people are backing OR players rather than the old autocratic pro-Russian regime.

I'll admit Yuschenko has been quite a disappointment since he has taken power, but the fact remains, in the 2004 election, he won and Yankovich lost. The fact that the West prefers Yuschenko is hardly enough reason to insist that fraudelent election results should stand. As if Putin and old Soviet autocrats are far superior anyway.

[daleo]

24. It is more a comment on how it was all portrayed here in the west

We got a very black and white (or black and orange if you like) analysis of the situation in the Ukraine. Yuschenko was portrayed as all good, Yankovich as all bad. The CIA, among others, bankrolled part of that perception. The fact that Yuschenko got a spanking so quickly from the electorate shows how simplistic all that was.

This latest election result shows the complexity of the situation, I suppose. We will see whether western propaganda accepts that, or begins a process of casting doubt on these elections too.

There are a lot of balls in the air right now, when it comes to the west and Russia (Iraq, Iran, Russian gas, nuclear weapons, etc). How the Ukraine election is portrayed here in the west will have more to do with those matters than anything connected with the election itself.

[IndianaGreen]

13. George Soros ran out of money!

There was more to the Orange Revolution that meets the eye!

[ButterflyBlood]

18. Should the Ukrainians have rolled over and let the election be stolen?

We'd sure as hell be a lot better off now if the US had in 2000 acted the same way Ukraine did in 2004.

Sure, Yuschenko's government has failed to deliver on most of its promises and he was bankrolled by Western interests, etc. But the fact remains, the first election was fraudulent, and thus it should've been overturned. The right things all happened in that election, it's a shame that didn't happen in the US.

Don't cut off your nose to spite your face. Western support for one guy is no reason to sell a country out to election-rigging pro-Putin autocrats.

[malaise]

21. No they should not n/t

[LisaL]

28. How on Earth do you know who actually won, and who actually

lost?

[TankLV]

35. We read, we know people in the Ukraine.

Try it.

[ButterflyBlood]

38. Well let's compare the two elections

The first had almost 100% turnout in some very pro-Yanukovych regions. Actually above 100% in some. In some cases this almost was double the turnout of the first round. Ukraine's own Supreme Court analyzed this and determined the election was fraudulent. Hmmmm....

The second election under much more international supervision, saw the turnout in this odd Yanukovych regions go down to normal levels, about the same as in the first round, while the Yuschenko ones remained the same.

If you want to argue that the first election was not stolen and the second one was, you're basically arguing against what every international observer and Ukraine's own Supreme Court and Electoral Commission.

[TankLV]

30. That is correct.

Thank you for your assessment, from this Ukrainian American.

[Karmakaze]

32. Can anyone PROVE Yankovich tried to steal the election?

See all I remember is media reports from the same organisations that said Bush won. Even the protests in the street wer not THAT large, and were funded by the US. The poisoning story itself was rather phony. These so called brutal dictators decided to poison the opposition leader with a poison not gauranteed to kill and that causes symptoms obviously NOT natural, when they could just as easily have used a drug that would induce a heart attack and leave no traces? Sorry that smells fishy to me.

In fact, the only thing about this story that doesn't smell of bullshit is the accusation that came out after the "revolution" showing that its leaders, far from being the upright concerned "everyman" the press portrayed them as, were in fact crooked corporatists who wanted to sell out the Ukraine to further enrich themselves, and who eventually turned on each other because they weren't willing to share the spoils.

Sounds awful familiar doesn't it?

[LisaL]

33. Yea, and considering they used exit polls to

declare that election was stolen-hello, the very same exit polls apparently don't mean shit when it comes to election in the US.

[TankLV]

34. Nope - try reading all the accounts from the UKRAINIIANS themselves.

and other organizations.

Not that hard to prove, if you actually do some READING.

There was NO DOUBT as to the validity of the FACT that the ELECTIONS were stolen by that RUSSIAN.

[Posteritatis]

44. "No mere fact can convince me!"

I really, really don't get the fact that Yanukovych still has cheerleaders here. Hell, I could've sworn I'd seen people talking about Lukashenko in a positive light too, which is even more baffling.

[Karmakaze]

45. Lol - would these be the Ukranians that recevied MILLIONS

in funds from the US?

[cal04]

25. Ukraine's Orange revolution turns blue

· Comeback for Yanukovich after his opponents split
· Nato membership at risk if MPs turn back to Moscow
The divided leaders of Ukraine's orange revolution were beaten into second place in parliamentary elections yesterday, less than 18 months since jubilant crowds swept them to power.

Early exit polls suggested the former prime minister, Viktor Yanukovich, was likely to seize between a quarter and a third of parliament, raising the possibility he could take back his post. That would put him in an uneasy cohabitation with Viktor Yushchenko, the president and his opponent during the falsified election which gave birth to the revolution in late 2004 and early 2005.

Mr Yanukovich's Party of the Regions led with 33% in a nationwide independent exit poll published as polling stations closed at 10pm local time. Mr Yushchenko's erstwhile ally Yulia Timoshenko appeared to have made a surprisingly strong finish with 23% for her bloc. The president's Our Ukraine party, which had been expected to come second, came third with less than 14%, according to the exit poll.

This suggested a humiliating defeat for the president and other leaders of the revolution, although Ms Timoshenko will be in a strengthened position to take the premiership in the case of a revived orange coalition. Mr Yushchenko's post was not at stake, but a big win for the Party of the Regions could allow it to deflect the country from its pro-western course, reject Nato membership, and switch its trajectory back towards Russia. But the outcome still depends on intense horsetrading between the three main parties which could last for weeks after the vote. Whether Mr Yushchenko and Ms Timoshenko's supporters can reunite their orange team remains in doubt. She took her party into opposition in September after she had been sacked from the premiership when corruption allegations between senior officials came into the open.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/ukraine/story/0,,1740427,00.html

[ButterflyBlood]

40. You can watch the results come in here

http://www.cvk.gov.ua/vnd2006/w6p001e.html

So far it appears to match the exit polls somewhat closely, although with the first and second places flipped. However a closer analysis shows the more pro-Yankovych areas have not reported yet.

At first glance though, it appears we are seeing a rejection of BOTH Yuschenko and Yankovych.

[Odin2005]

46. I can't beleive that people think the Orange Revolution was a bad thing.

Yes, there was Western help, SO FUCKING WHAT? That doesn't dispel the fact that Yanukovych is Putin's bitch and that he tried to rig the election. Ukraine is a country that definitely needs to split, it is a cleft country, laying on the boundary of the West and Orthodox Christendom. The east of the country is Russian, it should go to Russia. The western part of the country are where most of the ethnic Ukrainians live and they have been Westernized from being under Polish rule before Russia conquered them.

[ButterflyBlood]

47. Unfortunately, there's a knee-jerk tendency among some on DU...

to support anyone whose against Bush, no matter how odious they are otherwise. Tin-pot dictators, insane Muslim fundamentalists and in this case Russian autocrats all apparentely can get a free pass just because Bush doesn't like them. Unfortunately this goes even further with people defending folks like Robert Mugabe or that insane Holocaust denier president of Iran. Quite disgusting. Believe it or not folks, Bush is not the only bad world leader out there. The enemy of your enemy is not always your friend.

[Strelnikov_]

48. Gets Pretty Whacky, Doesn't It n/t