Posted on 11/25/2004 3:08:26 PM PST by neverdem
KIEV, Ukraine, Nov. 25 - Prime Minister Viktor F. Yanukovich, the official winner of Ukraine's disputed presidential election, offered a series of concessions to his opposition today, hoping to break the nation's political impasse, even as a court decision left open the possibility of a legal challenge to his legitimacy as president-elect.
A frantic legal and political battle is under way for public authority and perception, and the first results from Ukraine's highest court appeared to favor Victor A. Yushchenko, the opposition candidate.
Mr. Yanukovich's offer included guarantees for legal amnesty to members of the opposition, as well as a pledge to protect opposition and minority political rights in the future, to encourage more independent voices in the Ukrainian news media and to shift unspecified powers in the presidency to the Supreme Rada, Ukraine's legislative branch.
The offer was made on national television even as tens of thousands of people continued their antigovernment rallies here in the capital. But it was promptly rejected by Mr. Yushchenko, who has filed a lawsuit in the nation's Supreme Court seeking to overturn the official results. His staff predicted the court challenge would prevail.
"We will never, never accept the results of this election," said Oleg Rybachuk, a member of parliament and Mr. Yushchenko's chief of staff, saying it had been tilted in the prime minister's direction "by gross fabrication."
Mr. Yushchenko spent the day trying to expand his support and secure symbolic victories, while also trying to gain legal traction against the government in court and to gauge the effects of a national strike that he hopes will force Mr. Yanukovich and Leonid D. Kuchma, the outgoing president, to nullify the results.
In a ruling today, the court ordered that the election results not be published by the government in newspapers until allegations of fraud and electoral abuse had been reviewed, an order that while inconclusive buoyed the opposition and was met with roars of approval in Independence Square.
"This Supreme Court decision is a benchmark in the fight to overturn the election," Mr. Rybachuk said, in a telephone interview not long after the results were announced.
He said the opposition's reading of the law indicated that election results were not binding until they were published in government notifications and that Mr. Yushchenko had managed to stop their publication just in time.
But minutes later, the independent Channel 5 reported that the government was rushing its election notification to print and would ignore its judicial branch. The report could not immediately be confirmed.
With the country in a deadlock and the moves between the two camps accelerating, Mr. Yushchenko appeared several times during the day with Lech Walesa, the Nobel Laureate and founder of the Solidarity movement in Poland, who had come to Kiev to urge both sides to refrain from violence and to negotiate their differences. Mr. Walesa's sentiments seemed clearly with the opposition.
"All of my life I have been fighting for these ideals," he said in a brief appearance before reporters. "There is no free Poland without a free Ukraine.
Later, on the stage in Independence Square, Mr. Walesa told the thousands of assembled demonstrators that he admired their spirit and would support their efforts. He urged them not to relent.
"You can rely on the support of Poland and Walesa," he said. "But we cannot do it for you. You have to do it yourselves."
Ukraine has been locked in a political stalemate since Monday, when preliminary results of presidential runoff on Sunday suggested a 3-point victory by Mr. Yanukovich.
International election observers reported extensive and highly organized state fraud had assisted the prime minister. And as demonstrators began streaming into the capital, Western governments, including the United States, urged President Kuchma not to make the results official.
Mr. Kuchma's government validated the results on Wednesday, pushing the nation of 48 million deeper into disarray.
The events today showed the calculations and thinking behind Mr. Kuchma's and Mr. Yanukovich's coordinated moves, but they also suggested Mr. Yanukovich's once-autocratic hold on the country was no longer complete.
Mr. Yushchenko has a very large and organized following, including a savvy youth movement that appears to have the energy and endurance to demonstrate for an extended time. The mood in the capital is unmistakably behind him, and Western leaders and governments have backed his call for investigations into fraud and for a fair election to determine the presidency.
But for all of the moral support that has been attached to his democracy drive, Mr. Yushchenko had until today failed to bring essential elements of Mr. Kuchma's government to his side, and members of Mr. Yanukovich's campaign and Mr. Kuchma's inner circle said they believe he may have crested.
Alex Vasilyev, head of Mr. Kuchma's information department, described the demonstrations as "political theater."
Many signs had not been encouraging for opposition.
Mr. Yushchenko's effort to challenge the vote in parliament failed when he could not muster a quorum to convene a special session, and he was similarly unable to prevent the Central Election Commission from assembling a quorum to rush through results that declared him the official loser.
And while Ukraine's military, police and intelligence services have not moved against him, through this evening they had not shown strong signs of support and had done little to discourage the bands of Yanukovich supporters who have begun wandering the capital, often taunting the opposition side.
Mr. Yanukovich's campaign manager, Sergei Tihipko, said the offer to negotiate today, beginning with the four concessions by the prime minister, were meant to begin calming the streets after what he called the prime minister's irrevocable victory.
"Now we can speak of the steps to take to release the tension," he said. He also said that he was not worried by any court challenges, and that the victory would stand. "Nobody, even the Supreme Court, can cancel it."
Soon thereafter, when the court ruling this evening suggested that Mr. Yushchenko still had a chance, it was the opposition that claimed the momentum had shifted.
"It means that now we can forget about a Yanukovich inauguration in the near future," Mr. Rybachuk said. "It will mean that we can forget about it at all."
From what I read here, a fair portion of Ukrainians would agree with you.
Another portion want independence. So, this is their chance. If they are willing to take it, its in their grasp.
My impression is that Uks and Russians don't really consider themselves separate people, although the dialects are distinct enough to be counted as separate. But its one thing to consider oneself culturally the same, its another to be ruled one by the other. Canadians and Americans are culturally as close as you get on many levels but there are enough of them who fear being submerged into the Greater North America that they cling to their sovereignty. Since the addition of a few million Canadian voters would make most of my favorite politicians unelectable, I'm happy to keep them on the other side of the border.
The history of Russian rule of Ukraine has for a century been rather tragic. There must be a fair portion fear a return to Moscow's rule (they are outnumbered by the Russians, so even in a democratic Russia, they will be ruled by Moscow). So whether we consider them a distinct people or not, they have the right to decide their destiny.
This isn't a case of Balkanization; they gained their independence peacefully, and have been peaceful and sympathetic neighbors to Russia ever since. There wouldn't be any violence against Russia at all except for the Russian intervention into this election. (And there may not be even now).
Russia is changing rapidly. Things are happening there that wouldn't have been possible a few years ago. If it moves in a good direction, Ukraine will inevitably fall back into its orbit. But its relationship with Russia should be a voluntary one. If the pro-Russia Ukrainians win the lion's share of elective offices, that is the direction they will go. But if they can only win with the help of Russian troops, that tells me they aren't winning fair and square.
"official" according to whom?
KGB closing in?
I have never thought of the Ukraine as Canada for Russia but it seems you made a great analogy in camparing the relationship (minus the bloodshed).
Anyone who can READ knows that the Kievan Rus were Russian, and a high schooler with a world history class under his belt knows that the Mongol drive displaced tribes as far east as Spain. Your claims to superior historical knowledge notwithstanding, we aren't on substantially different pages on the facts. Where we differ is the conclusion you draw, which is completely unwarranted. We have no argument that the territory was not a "state of Ukraine," historically, but by that standard there was no France, England, or Germany, or even U.S., and they can't be nations, either! We don't dispute that perhaps the folks there aren't even united enough to BE a nation. But that there was no 'state of Ukraine' united by a common ancestry does not somehow disqualify THIS 'state of Ukraine' from nationhood, which was obliquely your point.
We might even agree on the point I think you were driving to, which is that it might not be a bad idea to Balkanize the Ukraine. But I would prefer instead to keep it united, given the mass of people who might suffer from such a split due to the usually fractious nature of such divisions, and I hope that the country simply aligns more right than Communist left.
Actually it is the other way around. Soros invested $25M in Kerry but never got to the point to be able to dispute election, owing to 3.3M patriots.
In Ukraine, Soros tripled his bet to $75M and put all in Orange chips. Let's see wether he will be of better luck this time.
Ukraine sides with Russia or the EU - there are positives and negatives in both those futures.
The opposition has a chance because Yanukovich doesn't hold the reigns of the military.
There is a problem. Otpor and Kmara were successful because both mafia and secret services were on their side.
This is not the case with Pora. it will not be easy.
I don't know all the particulars. Thank you for the information.
I don't think the U.S. and EU are allies NOW. Britain is. Some states are. But the EU bureaucracy dislikes the U.S. intensely, especially its nation-state status.
I think that if Ukraine remains part of the Western sphere, it will have a degree of alignment with the U.S. like that of the other Eastern Bloc governments, and that is better than that of the Russian government. And I think that if the Russians continue to intervene, Ukraine will become a client state again.
If the U.S. lets that happen, it will happen in the Baltics and oil-rich Stans as well.
The Eastern block nations will go to where the money is and that is the EU.
A neutral Ukraine is probably the best option - but powers are greedy these days.
Yay! Thanks for the link!bump! bump! bump! for Viktor Yushchenko .....
Excerpt from your link:
Ukrainian legal experts told CNN that Yushchenko could not appeal the results of the election.
But he could appeal the actions of the election commission, arguing that it acted too quickly in declaring a winner in the vote without investigating allegations of fraud and abuse.
In an exclusive interview with CNN's Jill Dougherty earlier Wednesday, Yushchenko said the commission should set aside the results and call new elections in districts where documented irregularities took place.
Yushchenko said he had proof that at least 3 million votes were falsified. He said his supporters have amassed more than 11,000 complaints about the voting and considered 200 of them serious. In one region, he said, turnout increased by a half million voters after polls closed.
"How can that be? It was a massive injection of the ballots in favor of the other candidate," he said.
Nelson Ledsky, the National Democratic Institute's regional director for Eurasia and one of the international observers, said the observers noted cases of ballot stuffing, more votes recorded in some areas than registered voters, and some employees being threatened with losing their jobs if they did not mark ballots before the election.
"There is an understanding widespread over the country that the vote was rigged," Ledsky said.
The United States, Canada and the European Union denounced the vote as rigged and refused to recognize the results as legitimate -- putting the West at odds with Russia.
Why does Destro and Libertarian in Exile create the straw man of Ukraine alignment with one end or the other.
This is not a question of alignment it is a question of Russian thugs poisoning the leading democratic candidate and robbing its infrastructure.
All it needs is open borders and transparent govt. It needs to get rid of thugs that falsify millions of votes or Presidents that sell steel mills to their ex commie party member buddies.
And to repeat, even the USSR had to accede to reality in that there existed a distinct Ukrainian Republic since 1921.
PS How dare you suggest that Kiev was Russian during its Golden Era? Take this drivel to another website. During 1000 AD, Kiev was still Ukrainian and it was called the City of Golden Churches. Russians at that time lived in a small trading outpost in a swamp - called Moscow.
And that geography still describes its ethics.
Apparently the point of my argument was not evident to you. I suggested that your claims of Ukraine being an "artificial" country because of its religious factions was absurd as every "real" nation has the same diversity.
You really are on the wrong site and if your aim is to attract attention to your propaganda, try one of the teen chat lines.
It may well be that the other bloc states 'go where the money is,' in the long run, out of self interest, when they have become more integrated with the EU system. But right now, there is no real likelihood that Europe will militarily defend any state outside of its NATO partners. And the memory of the East isn't so far lost to them as it is to the Krauts, who walked out of communism into...socialism, and never got the wakeup call these states did with the rise of capitalism within their borders.
As to how America will 'align' the Ukraine, we certainly can't impose any sort of alignment on other states! Wasn't that your point anyway, in supporting Yanuk? However, we can certainly refuse to recognize rulers of states that are illegitimate and we can provide at least moral support to those who seem likely to further democratize and promote liberty in the former CIS.
Your burning desire to see Soros rot in hell is simply getting in the way of the fact that Yush is more pro-Western than the Yanuk. Neither is a great choice, and Soros IS an ass who will likely burn. But if a Ukrainian presented with the option to choose one candidate or the other, I am simply not going to take the Communist because Soros is affiliated with the Socialist.
I assume you appreciate that notwithstanding our disagreement with their RINO wing, there is a stark difference between the GOP and the Rats. If not, then I understand your problem here. I doubt, however, there will be a Constitution or Libertarian Party candidate in the Ukraine for citizens to choose to support next election--if there is any choice at all, given the possibility Yanuk and the Russians will end any real elections there. Then Ukrainians will be LUCKY to face the same situation Americans do every year.
Which ethnicity dominates in the Ukraine?
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