Posted on 11/29/2004 11:54:48 AM PST by jb6
Observations on Ukraine. By Mark Almond
George Soros, the billionaire philanthropist, promised to "spend whatever it takes" to defeat George W Bush. So when the president was returned to office, he said he felt like retiring to a monastery. Yet outside America, the missionaries of Soros's lavishly funded Open Society foundations march in parallel columns with the Bush administration. Domestic enmities don't stop the two Georges presenting a united front abroad when it comes to promoting friends and punishing foes.
A year ago, they jointly helped topple Georgia's president Eduard Shevardnadze by putting financial muscle and organisational metal behind his opponents. Now Ukraine has felt the full force of their displeasure.
Bush's representatives have alleged fraud in the presidential elections held on 21 November, which ended in victory for the current prime minister, Viktor Yanukovich, who is regarded as pro-Russian. Meanwhile, Soros's activists have marched in support of the west's favoured candidate for president, Viktor Yushchenko, and have provided the visiting media and election observers with allegations of fraud and intimidation.
The principal charge is that the official results are at odds with exit polls run by what western embassies call "independent" polling agencies (ie, agencies partly paid by western funds channelled through the embassies). Sound familiar? The exit polls in America's presidential elections were also wildly out. As Michael Meacher reports (page 22), the official result in Florida, for instance, was 7 per cent worse for John Kerry than the exit poll. The Republican senator Richard Lugar was in Ukraine, but he didn't caution locals against taking exit polls at face value.
I talked with two exit pollsters in western Ukraine. They stopped every 20th voter and asked how he or she voted. There was no weighting by age or class. Forty per cent refused to answer. Of the rest, 80 per cent said they voted for Yushchenko. But things are not so simple. The two pollsters were also local figures, known as pro-Yushchenko journalists. Mightn't a Yanukovich voter be shy of stating a preference to them?
Despite allegations about media bias towards the prime minister, you would hardly have known, from what I saw of local TV channels in western Ukraine, that he even existed. Even on polling day, Yushchenko and other public figures were shown voting, but not the prime minister. And on election eve, the Eurovision Song Contest winner Ruslana and other pop stars big in Ukraine appeared sporting orange (pro-Yushchenko) symbols.
One observer, the Tory MEP Charles Tannock, compared Ukraine to despotic Turkmenistan because Yanukovich was almost unanimously endorsed by his home region in eastern Ukraine. But then Yushchenko got votes of 90 per cent or more in western regions. Maybe both candidates have enforcers in their own regions who can stuff ballots. What is certain is that western observers never cry foul when a Soros-backed candidate gets a Saddam-style result. They, like the western media, prefer the modern fairy tale of "people power": plucky, freedom-loving, youthful opposition versus slab-faced, ex-communist apparatchiks and oligarchs.
Western election observers in Ukraine were led by the Labour MP Bruce George, who was their chief in Georgia last year. His criticisms helped get the steam up for "people power" there. Yet a few weeks after Shevardnadze was ousted, he saw nothing odd when the west's favoured candidate won 96 per cent of the vote to replace him. Generous George Soros stepped in to pay the salaries of the new president's ministers and policemen in Georgia. Soros's business partner Kakha Bendukidze became economy minister.
Does Soros have similar partners-in-waiting for Ukraine? We shall see. But though they are enemies at home, Bush and Soros always seem to be on the same, winning side abroad. This article first appeared in the New Statesman. For the latest in current and cultural affairs subscribe to the New Statesman print edition.
bump
"George Soros, the billionaire philanthropist, promised to "spend whatever it takes" to defeat George W Bush.........Western election observers in Ukraine were led by the Labour MP Bruce George, who was their chief in Georgia last year.
George = ge (earth) + ergos (work). They're all plowing up the place, although maybe each one has a different crop in mind.
Different ends of the same stick.
this article was just about as confusing an article I've ever read. What went on, where? Could someone please dumb it down or at least elminate the confusing structure for me and make it a little more clear? I'm usually pretty smart. Maybe its just the cold medicine talking.
thanks in advance.
Obviously, Ukranians, voting by means of a butterfly ballot, voted for Viktor Yanukovich when then meant to vote for Viktor Yushcheko. It would be an easy mistake to make.
Like the fact that 2.8M votes started pouring in for the KGB toadie at the last minute. Or the fact that the pro-Russian districts of the Ukraine were reporting 97% turnout while the Ukrainian patriot areas were reporting turnout of 60%.
Region Yanuk% Yushch% Turnout 1991 pop TO% ------------------- ------ ------- ------- ------- ---- CHERNIHIV 65.65 768458 938600 81.9 DONETSK 96.20 3711606 5346700 69.4 TERNOPIL 93.53 745749 1175100 63.5 IVANO-FRANKIVSK 93.44 887365 1442900 61.5 VOLYN 85.79 654870 1069000 61.3 LVIV 91.79 1694801 2764400 61.3 KIEV 74.69 1645563 4589800 61.1 +KIEV REGION 76.27 1158359 LUHANSK 92.72 1751982 2871100 61.0 RIVNE 76.63 710601 1176800 60.4 KHMELNYTS 71.45 898100 1520600 59.1 POLTAVA 60.86 1025918 1756900 58.4 VINNYTSIA 75.87 1108270 1914400 57.9 SUMY 69.16 813331 1430200 56.9 KHARKIV 70.25 1794873 3194800 56.2 DNIPROPETROVSK 63.61 2188359 3908700 56.0 ZAPORIZHIA 70.33 1176025 2099600 56.0 CHERKASY 71.93 853128 1530900 55.7 ZHYTOMYR 60.41 833271 1510700 55.2 MYKOLAIV 69.75 739596 1342400 55.1 KHERSON 52.20 649900 1258700 51.6 ZAKARPATSKA 55.00 620448 1265900 49.0 ODESSA 67.51 1282554 2635300 48.7 CRIMEA 81.99 1201605 2549800 48.1 +SEVASTOPOL 88.97 247864 KIROVOHRAD 51.93 537784 1245300 43.2 CHERNIVTSI 74.50 506747 1405800 36.0 TOTAL 30297195 51452000 58.9
Note that of the 5 regions with 90+% reported for either of the two candidates, 3 are for Yushchenko the supposed reformer, and 2 for Yanukovich who is accused of election fraud. 3 > 2. I remain unconvinced.
The parliament there just passed a law banning absentee voting to stop this election fixing by Moscow. Now, they need to get the Supreme Court there to order a new election.
Yes, we must fight this evil Bush-Soros nexus! I don't know why I've never seen it before!
The communists were calling to have parliment decide the balloting, under mining Yunokovich's support, the Socialists flat out came out in favor of the opposition, in exchange for a full Iraqi pull out.
Or in Diplo babble: YES! No! maybe?
By the way, most of the Absentee balloting came in for the opposition.
The Russian Communists support Yanukovych. Big surprise. Both sides in Russia support the Pro-Russia candidiate.
More by Almond here and here: "The current ideology of New World Order ideologues, many of whom are renegade communists, is Market-Leninism - that combination of a dogmatic economic model with Machiavellian methods to grasp the levers of power."
More Laughland in the Guardian, and ZMag.
More Guardian here and here, and here.
Justin Raimondo's Ukraine articles:
'Democracy' and Mendacity
The Yushchenko Mythos
Commissar Aaronovitch
The New Cold War
The Ukrainian Template
The Nation
World Socialist Web Site
CounterPunch.Org
People's Weekly World
Worker's World, and more here.
ProgressiveTrail.Org
Socialist Worker
Sozialismus.info
Lyndon LaRouche
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.