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In a ruling today, the court ordered that the election results not be published by the government in newspapers until allegations of fraud and electoral abuse had been reviewed, an order that while inconclusive buoyed the opposition and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."
The term "Rus" entered into history (entering into history means when a thing is written down) when the Greeks first recorded the name 'Rus' for a Scandinavian ruled Slavic people around Kiev. It is from that workd we get Russian. I need not be Slav to know this history.
Destro,
2nd request - Please take your nonsense to one of the teen chat lines. Rus is not Russian . Kiev and its Ukrainians was the leading city in the area - called the City of Golden Churches - This was when Moscow was a podunk trading village.
Rus is derived from the norse term for "Row".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine
It was formerly referred to as the Ukraine in English, and many people continue to use this term. The region has also been known as Rus’ or Ruthenia, and in Russian historiography as Little Russia (Malorossiya).
The current name is derived in various ways according to Slavic etymology. It may signify "borderland" or "on the edge"; alternatively, the name may be taken to mean "homeland" or "one's own land"; finally some trace the name to a verb meaning, "to cut", indicating the land the Rus' people (or Ruthenians or Ukrainians) cut out for themselves.
The term "Rus'" referred to many of the purely East Slavic principalities in the region (Rus' Chervona (Red Rus')/Ruthenia, for example). Kiev, and Kievian Rus' was the seat of the Grand Prince of the Rurik Dynasty. The ruler of Kiev was also in effect the ruler of all the Rus' principalities. Kievan Rus' declined during the Mongol invasion. This is also the origin of the term "Rus'ki" (today understood as Ukrainians; and "Russki," today understood as 'Russians'). "Rus'" in it's more general secondary meaning was applied to all Rus' principalities (today comprising "Belarus," "Russia", and "Ukraine".
The term "Ukraine" is fairly ancient, and originated some time in the 11th century. It was originally a geographic term meaning "borderland". At that time, Ukraine was synonymous with Rus' proper (Rus' Propria) Malo Rus (lesser Rus). The term Ruthenian originally meant "Rus'", but later applied only to West Ukrainians (Galicians), originally it was a term often applied to the Rus' by Europeans (Poles, Germans and Turks especially)
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