Ukraine - Botched election - this could mean war

[THE KOD]

KIEV, Ukraine - Ukraine?s opposition leader raised the stakes in his electoral standoff with the Kremlin-backed prime minister on Thursday, emboldened by the staying power of thousands of supporters who endured a fourth night outside in the bitter cold.

Victor Yushchenko sent word to the masses in Kiev?s Independence Square that the opposition intends to blockade several international highways in western Ukraine, where his support is running high.

?More and more people gather on the main streets of Ukrainian cities,? Mykola Tomenko, a lawmaker and Yushchenko ally, told the crowd of 15,000.

The Western-leaning candidate called earlier for a general strike to protest authorities? decision to name Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych winner of Sunday?s presidential election denounced by Western observers as fraudulent.

On Thursday, Yuchchenko filed an appeal in the Supreme Court against the election results, the Interfax news agency reported.

Meantime, Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated Yanukovych on his win despite the fraud allegations and U.S. and European criticism of the result, the second time he has congratulated the pro-Kremlin candidate.

In a telegram, Putin said that Yanukovych?s election would help ?bring the Russian-Ukrainian strategic partnership to a new level.?

Poland's Walesa to mediate
With the gulf deepening between the opposition and the government, a key mediator ? Lech Walesa, the founder of the Polish Solidarity movement ? arrived in Ukraine to try to help pull this deeply divided nation of 48 million back from the brink of conflict.

The opposition?s threat to shut down factories, schools and transportation risked provoking a crackdown by outgoing President Leonid Kuchma, who accused the opposition of trying to carry out ?a coup d?etat.?

A strike could also further divide the country: Yanukovych drew his support from the pro-Russian, heavily industrialized eastern half of Ukraine, while Yushchenko?s strength was in the west, a traditional center of nationalism.

To prevent the crisis from widening, Yanukovych said negotiations with Yushchenko?s team would begin Thursday. The opposition has said, however, that it would talk only about a handover of power to Yushchenko, and would only negotiate with Kuchma.

The election officials? decision to declare Yanukovych the winner ?puts Ukraine on the verge of civil conflict,? Yushchenko told hundreds of thousands of his cheering supporters on Wednesday.

 

[THE KOD]

The commission said Yanukovych got 49.46 percent of the vote and Yushchenko 46.61 percent.

Protestors brave sub-zero temperatures
Thousands of supporters spent the night in the capital, staying in giant tent camps set up along Kiev?s main street and near the presidential administration building. As the sun rose, groups huddled together, drinking hot tea and breaking into regular chants of ?Yushchenko! Yushchenko!? They stamped their feet to keep warm as the temperatures plunged well below freezing.

The police presence around the presidential administration building was reinforced Wednesday night, with about 40 buses disgorging well over 1,000 officers with helmets and shields who stood in phalanxes up to eight deep outside the building.

The building became the site of the most tense standoff yet in the five days of protests when some 15,000 Yushchenko supporters faced off against riot police on Tuesday night. Ukraine?s Interior Ministry said Thursday that it opened a criminal investigation into what it called an attempt to seize the building.

Sunday?s runoff was denounced as fraudulent by Western observers, who cited voter intimidation, multiple voting and other irregularities. U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said Wednesday that the United States cannot accept the result.

?With this decision, they want to put us on our knees,? the Western-leaning Yushchenko, who took a symbolic oath of office on Tuesday, told his supporters. They responded with chants of ?Shame! Shame!? and ?We will not give up.?

Socialist Party leader Oleksandr Moroz said the opposition was ?organizing citizens, stopping lessons at schools and universities, stopping work at enterprises, stopping transport ... and, thus, we?ll force the authorities to think about what they are doing.?

Yuliya Tymoshenko, Yushchenko?s key ally, said his followers would ?surround all government buildings, block railways, airports and highways.?

She also said that the opposition would go to Ukraine?s Supreme Court on Thursday to protest the alleged election fraud. The opposition also planned to file complaints in regional courts.

West and Moscow in tug-of-war
The election has led to an increasingly tense tug-of-war between the West and Moscow, which considers Ukraine part of its sphere of influence and a buffer between Russia and NATO?s eastern flank.

In contrast to Putin?s pleasure with the result, Powell challenged Ukrainian leaders ?to decide whether they are on the side of democracy or not? and warned of ?consequences for our relationship, for Ukraine?s hopes for a Euro-Atlantic integration and for individuals responsible for perpetrating fraud.?

Canada also said it did not accept the results, and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso warned of ?consequences? for the European Union?s relations with Ukraine. At risk might be around $1.31 billion the bloc has given or committed to Ukraine since 1991 in development and economic aid and possible visa bans.
..................................................................

 

[StevieD]

I wonder if they used those same machines they used in Ohio?

 

[IntenseOperator]

This could get REAL BAD real fast

 

[THE KOD]

The Associated Press
Updated: 11:46 a.m. ET Nov. 26, 2004KIEV, Ukraine - President Leonid Kuchma was to meet with the two candidates at the center of Ukraine's presidential election crisis along with key European envoys Friday, against a backdrop of opposition supporters blockading government buildings.

The envoys arrived in Kiev in an effort to help solve the political crisis that has engulfed this ex-Soviet republic since Sunday's presidential election, which the opposition and the West criticized as fraudulent. Kuchma's government certified Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych as the winner, but Western-leaning Viktor Yushchenko claims he was robbed of victory.

The meeting will include European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana, Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski and Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus, said Cristina Gallach, Solana's spokeswoman. The Interfax news agency said Boris Gryzlov, speaker of Russia's lower house of parliament, and Jan Kubis, the current head of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, would also take part.

Kuchma thanked the European envoys for "making every effort so that these negotiations take place not on the street ? which can never give a positive result ? but around a negotiating table," the Interfax news agency quoted him as saying after meeting Solana and Kwasniewski.

"The situation is more than difficult," Kwasniewski later told journalists.

Yushchenko had previously said he would negotiate only with Kuchma, and that the main condition for holding talks was the president's acknowledgment that the election was invalid.

Yanukovych rallies supporters
Yanukovych, meanwhile, rallied thousands of his supporters ? waving his blue-and-white campaign flags ? in front of Kiev's train station. Many had apparently arrived in buses and trains from Ukraine's industrial east, Yanukovych's main support base.

"I don't need power at the cost of spilled blood," Yanukovych said in remarks broadcast on the pro-Yanukovych TRK Ukraine television. "For me, there are not my people and strangers, no bad people and good people. All people are equal for me."

Ukraine, a nation of 48 million, has been seized by an ever-escalating political crisis since Sunday's vote. Throngs of protesters have set up a sprawling tent camp along a main avenue and square in Kiev, braving freezing temperatures for five straight nights.

In Chernihiv, about 80 miles north of Kiev, police fired smoke charges over the heads of a pro-Yushchenko crowd after someone threw an "explosive packet" at a police cordon outside the mayor's office, said police spokeswoman Raisa Deikun.

Two policemen were hospitalized, she said. It was not immediately clear what the explosive packet was. Deikun said the protesters had been trying to seize the mayor's office.

Human blockade
In Kiev, protesters standing five deep and linking arms blockaded the Cabinet building where Yanukovych works and refused to let staff enter, heeding Yushchenko's popular and more radical ally Yuliya Tymoshenko, who called on opposition supporters to surrounding government buildings, block railways and transport.

 

[THE KOD]

Protesters also blocked surrounding streets with buses and vans decorated with Yushchenko's orange flags, posters and ribbons.

Apart from a few traffic policemen wearing orange armbands, there were no police present in the immediate vicinity.

However, special forces had parked some 30 trucks and jeeps in an alley and police were packed into about 12 buses nearby.

Protesters also surrounded the presidential administration building, which was heavily guarded by police in riot gear.

The Supreme Court has ordered the election's final results not be published pending an appeal filed by Yushchenko's camp. The appeal will be heard Monday, and Yanukovych cannot be inaugurated until results are published.

Although Yanukovych enjoys Kuchma's backing, Ukraine's Supreme Court is respected as an unbiased body that hasn't hesitated to rule against the government, said Igor Zdanov, a political analyst with the Kiev-based Razumkov think tank.

On Thursday, Yushchenko's campaign chief Oleksandr Zinchenko announced the opposition-formed National Salvation Committee ? a parallel government ? would establish national self-defense organizations and take responsibility for defending the Ukrainian Constitution.

Prospect of civil conflict
The crisis has threatened to further divide Ukraine, and raised the prospect of civil conflict. Yanukovych drew his support from the pro-Russian, heavily industrialized eastern half of Ukraine. Yushchenko's strength was in the west, a traditional center of nationalism.



On Kiev, Yanukovych supporters continued to arrive from the east on trains and buses.

"People in Kiev are treating us like lepers," said Yuriy Koshchun, 24, a Yanukovych supporter from Melitopol in Ukraine's southeast. "They even refused to give us water."

The election has led to a tense tug-of-war between the West and Moscow, which considers Ukraine part of its sphere of influence and a buffer between Russia and NATO's eastern flank. The United States and European Union have said they cannot accept the results and warned Ukraine of "consequences" in relations with the West.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has put his personal prestige on the line by openly backing Yanukovych and by paying two high-profile pre-election visits to Ukraine, where he met both times with Yanukovych.

 

[danmurphy jr]

WW111 July 2005, be there or be square.

 

[Mjolnir]

they dont put up with B S in Russia. they start trouble and Putin will slam them down hard. looks like it's gonna get real ugly there.

 

[THE KOD]

Ukraine's Yushchenko Declares Victory

By ALEKSANDAR VASOVIC
Associated Press Writer



(enlarge photo)
Opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko gestures as his wife Kateryna, left, looks on during a news conference in Kiev early Monday, Dec. 27, 2004. Yushchenko declared victory in Ukraine's fiercely contested presidential election, telling thousands of supporters they had taken their country to a new political era. (AP Photo/Ivan Sekretarev)


KIEV, Ukraine ? Opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko declared victory Monday in Ukraine's fiercely contested presidential election, telling thousands of supporters they had taken their country to a new political era after a bitterly fought campaign that required an unprecedented three ballots and Supreme Court intervention against fraud.

"There is news: It's over. Now, today, the Ukrainian people have won. I congratulate you," he told the festive crowd in Kiev's central Independence Square, the center of weeks of protests after the fraudulent and now-annulled Nov. 21 ballot in which Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych had been declared the winner.

"We have been independent for 14 years but we were not free," Yushchenko said. "Now we can say this is a thing of the past. Now we are facing an independent and free Ukraine."

Yushchenko spoke after three exit polls and partial results projected him winning an easy victory over rival Viktor Yanukovych.

As he declared victory, about 5,000 supporters gathered on the square applauded and set off fireworks. They waved flags of bright orange ? his campaign's emblematic color ? clasped hands and danced.

Oleg Yusov, 35, popped the cork on a bottle of cheap champagne. "I've been carrying this around all night waiting," said the 35-year-old engineer. "This is a fresh start for Ukraine. We are moving forward."

Earlier, Yushchenko told journalists and others crammed into his campaign headquarters that Ukraine had opened a new era, which would include neither current President Leonid Kuchma nor Yanukovych, the prime minister and candidate hand-picked by Kuchma to be his successor.

With ballots from just over 80 percent of precincts counted, Yushchenko was leading with 55.09 compared to Yanukovych's 41.09 percent. Yushchenko did not appear to be making inroads in his opponent's territory so much as solidifying his dominance in places that had already supported him.

Earlier in the evening, a dejected-looking Yanukovych told reporters in Kiev "if there is a defeat, there will be a strong opposition." But he did not concede, saying "I am ready to lead the state," and hinted he would challenge the results in the courts.

"We will defend the rights of our voters by all legal means," he said, ruling out negotiations with Yushchenko were the opposition leader to win.

Some 12,000 foreign observers had watched Sunday's unprecedented third round to help prevent a repeat of the apparent widespread fraud on Nov. 21 that prompted the massive protests inside the nation and a volley of recriminations between Russia and the West.

Both campaigns complained of violations, but monitors said they'd seen far fewer problems.

"This is another country," said Stefan Mironjuk, a German election monitor observing the vote in the northern Sumy region. "The atmosphere of intimidation and fear during the first and second rounds was absent ... It was very, very calm."

Yushchenko echoed that sentiment in the speech at his campaign headquarters.

"Three or four months ago, few people knew where Ukraine was. Today almost the whole world starts its day thinking about what is happening in Ukraine," he said.

The vote count got under way after polls closed at 8 p.m., and the Central Election Commission estimated that turnout was around 75 percent.

"Today Ukraine will have a new president ? Yushchenko. Everybody will feel the changes," Yulia Tymoshenko, a radical opposition leader and Yushchenko ally, told pro-opposition TV5.

Tymoshenko's calls for massive protests after the Nov. 21 runoff earned her the nickname "Goddess of the Revolution." She appeared to revel in her role Sunday, wearing an orange-and-black shirt with the word "Revolution" running the length of the sleeves.

With Yushchenko supporters clad in orange campaign colors, the peaceful protests became known as the "Orange Revolution."

The election outcome was momentous for Ukraine, a nation of 48 million people caught between the eastward-expanding European Union and NATO, and an increasingly assertive Russia, its former imperial and Soviet-era master.

Yushchenko, a former Central Bank chief and prime minister, vowed to take Ukraine closer to the West and advance economic and political reform. The Kremlin-backed Yanukovych emphasized tightening the Slavic country's ties with Russia as a means of maintaining stability.

Yushchenko promised to uproot the corruption that concentrated the former Soviet republic's wealth in the hands of about a dozen tycoons. Yanukovych promised to continue work to boost Ukraine's economy ? which enjoys the fastest growth in Europe ? and pledged an increase in wages and pensions.

Serhiy Shetchkov, a 53-year-old Kiev voter, said he opted for Yushchenko because "he is an economist and that's what the country needs right now."

"I'm interested in someone who can raise the standard of living, raise pensions, create more jobs," he said.

The political crisis had cast a harsh glare on the rift between Ukraine's Russian-speaking, heavily industrial east and cosmopolitan Kiev and the west, where Ukrainian nationalism runs deep. Yanukovych backers feared discrimination by the Ukrainian-speaking west, and some eastern regions briefly threatened to seek autonomy if Yushchenko won the presidency.

"I am voting for independence (of eastern Ukraine), an end to feeding those lazy westerners! My vote goes to Yanukovych," said Hrihoriy Reshetnyak, a 44-year-old miner in Donetsk.

Yushchenko, whose face remains badly scarred from dioxin poisoning he blamed on Ukrainian authorities, built on the momentum of round-the-clock protests that echoed the spirit of the anti-communist revolutions that swept other East European countries in 1989-90.

"Thousands of people that were and are at the square were not only waiting for this victory but they were creating it," Yushchenko said. "In some time, in a few years, they'll be able to utter these historic words: Yes, this is my Ukraine, and I am proud that I am from this country."

After his speech on the square, as the crowd cheered, Yushchenko embraced the raven-haired singer Ruslana, the other Ukrainian who could be credited with putting the nation on the map in 2004. She won the Eurovision song contest.

Kuchma, the outgoing president, said Sunday he hoped the results of the vote would not be disputed. "In my opinion, the one who loses should call and congratulate the winner ... and put an end to this prolonged election campaign."

Pollsters said they heard the same sentiment of fatigue from voters