45:13 Orange Revolution, Winter 2004-2005
45.13.1 Introduction and Summary
This section is one installment in a large thread on the subject of Eastern Europe that runs throughout much of the chronicle. Click here to see a table which summarizes these threads.In this period, once again, it appears that dramatic events in Ukraine have echoed around the world. As usual in the bourgeois world, most of the information about the "Orange Revolution" which has reached the reader of the mass media has been false, giving a completely distorted picture of the events.
45.13.2
What actually happened in the Ukraine during the winter of 2004-2005? According to most reports, there were two political camps fighting it out for the presidency: the group of Viktor Yanukovich, the successor to Kuchma, personifying the forces of reaction and totalitarianism, and the group surrounding the ex-prime minister Viktor Yushchenko, uniting the supporters of democracy and freedom.The Ukrainian constitution mandated a run-off which had to follow the 31 October, 2004, election, because no candidate carried more than 50% of the cast ballots. During this second round of the elections, the 21 November, 2004, run-off, which were accompanied by mass falsifications, the prime minister in office was declared the winner. This set off a powerful wave of popular anger, hundreds of thousands of people went out on the streets, and in the centre of the capital, Kiev, a tent city was spontaneously erected. As a result Leonid Kuchma and his protégé capitulated, the Supreme Court of Ukraine and the parliament declared the second round of voting void and appointed an effective third round of the elections, at which the freely expressed will of the people declared Viktor Yushchenko the winner.
In fact, the most ordinary of coup d’états took place in the Ukraine, camouflaged to some extent as democratic elections, in which there was not the slightest trace of democracy and free elections. Viktor Yushchenko did not become President as a result of a free expression of the will of the Ukrainian people; he was appointed President of Ukraine by the American government. If one had to describe the essence of the Ukrainian coup d’état in a few words, one might say it was a repetition of the Yugoslav scenario, but without the bombing and the air raids, and without overt military intervention. Instead, political pressure and intervention by means of propaganda raged in Ukraine.
Were there falsifications of the will of the Ukrainian voters at these elections? There certainly were! But, first, what bourgeois elections are there without falsifications? Secondly, the present election campaign in Ukraine was accompanied by mass falsification on the part of both presidential candidates, who in this sense were worthy rivals.
One example is enough: in Eastern Ukraine, where the influence of the reactionary oligarchic clans who have been miraculously enriched by plundering State property, is very strong, there were regions in which over 90% of the electors voted for Yanukovich, which these days might be considered indecent. This inevitably brought justified accusations from Yushchenko and foreign Western observers that the elections were being manipulated. One can hardly object to that. But why were exactly the same results in Western Ukraine, where since 1990 power had been in the hands of reactionary rightwing nationalists, but this time in favour of Yushchenko, declared free and democratic? It is interesting that Russian election observers noticed mass violations of the election rules in Western Ukraine, and none in the East. Western observers saw exactly the opposite! What a wonderful example of the pseudo-objectivity of bourgeois politicians!
In trying to prove the legality of the Presidential elections and the legitimacy of the results, the supporters of Yushchenko and his patrons in the ruling circles of the USA and their Western allies point to the decisions of the Supreme Court and the parliament of Ukraine, which in the closing stage of the elections actually came out for the American protégé, but they fail to mention that the Supreme Court took a decision (which, incidentally, it was not entitled to take under the Constitution), cancelling the results of the second round of elections, under overt and cynical pressure from the "Orange" stormtroopers, who blockaded the Court building until they got the decision they wanted. It was in these conditions that the Supreme Court took its decision. In both cases the members of the Supreme Court, and the members of Parliament, had to get to their place of work through ranks of enraged Yushchenko supporters. Moreover, on one occasion, evidently with the aim of putting pressure on resistant members of parliament, there was an attempt to storm the Parliament building, which was fought off with some difficulty by the guards. One typical feature is that in order to push through a decision to authorise a third round of voting, not provided for in Ukrainian election law, that being the decision which suited the Yushchenko team and his Western patrons, a special amendment just for the vote on this issue was made to the rules of procedure of the Supreme Court, by which all votes in the parliament have to be cast by name! As a result, this vote took place under a secret system, so that the deputies were able to vote anonymously. This was the only way the head of parliament, Vladimir Litvin, could garner a few extra votes from frightened deputies!
Nevertheless, the elections came to an end. Yanukovich and those on his side had to concede defeat. It has to be recognised as one positive result of this election campaign that Ukraine has finally been set free from Leonid Kuchma, who hung on to power to the end. His vile ten-year reign, during which the population of Ukraine fell from over 51 million to under 47 million, came to an end among general loathing and contempt for this evil and stupid man.
The victors started a cynical process of horse-trading for the powerful portfolios. The first to take part in this skirmish was the Socialist Party of Ukraine, which in its recent past had a fine record of fighting this same predatory government whose ranks it was now joining. All this somewhat indecent intrigue was accompanied by a constant refrain about the supreme honesty of the new team, which, of course, is always on its guard.
And it is a fact that all the ministers and other high State officials, before tasting the sweets of office, assigned their property to their closest relatives: fathers, wives or brothers. Who would believe that their concern for the prosperity of a family business would end this way?
Incidentally, this unfortunate family was soon shaken by an initial scandal, and a very telling one – the Minister of Justice resigned because, as his colleagues openly say, a decision taken by the Government trampled on the interests of a certain company which was selling Russian oil to the West, one of whose directors is the wife of the same Minister – the country’s chief lawyer! It is very interesting that the newly-elected President openly sided with the Minister!
The political forces which suffered defeat in these elections are now licking their wounds and preparing for the forthcoming parliamentary elections in the spring of 2006. There is a grave risk that if the Yushchenko team has a few failures in its domestic and foreign policy, and with its present composition that is inevitable, because many of its members are already cavorting on the political scene in Ukraine with the grace of bulls in a china shop, that Yanukovich will become not only the head, but the leader and standard-bearer for the opposition as the protégé of the nouveau riche millionaires of the industrial east and centre of Ukraine. If he wins and engages in the inevitable alliance with the rightwing nationalists around Yushchenko, the position of the workers of Ukraine will become simply impossible. Would such developments provoke the people of Ukraine to fight for their fundamental interests? Doubtful, because they have fought so many times, so hard, and always been frustrated in the end. Bolshevism, Machnoism, Ukrainian nationalism have all yielded devastating results.
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45.13.5 Ukraine's "Orange Revolution"
(Ukrainian: Помаранчева революція) of 2004-2005 was a series of protests and political events that took place throughout the country in response to allegations of massive corruption, voter intimidation and direct electoral fraud during Ukraine's Presidential Run-off Election of November 21, 2004, as reported by numerous domestic and foreign observers. The November 21, 2004 run-off was mandated by the Ukrainian law due to the official results of the presidential vote held on October 31, 2004, when no candidate carried more than 50% of the cast ballots. The winner of the run-off was to become Ukraine's third president since its 1991 independence following the demise of the Soviet Union.Orange was adopted by the protesters as the official color of the movement since it was the election campaign color of the main opposition candidate, Viktor Yushchenko. The symbol of solidarity with Yushchenko's movement in Ukraine was an orange ribbon or a flag bearing the "Так! Ющенко!" ("Yes! Yushchenko!") slogan.
While millions of Ukrainians demonstrated daily in Kiev (Kyiv) — the capital city of Ukraine and the center of the revolution where a large 24-hour tent city was set up by Yushchenko's supporters —the action was highlighted by a series of nationwide protests, sit-ins, and general strikes organized by the opposition, following the disputed results of the November 21 run-off election.
Due in large part to opposition movement's efforts, the results of the original run-off were annulled and a second run-off election was ordered by Ukraine's Supreme Court for December 26, 2004. Under the intense international scrutiny, the official results of the second run-off proved to be virtually problem-free, legally valid and clearly in Yushchenko's favor. He was declared the official winner and with his inauguration on January 23, 2005 in Kiev, the Orange Revolution reached its successful and peaceful conclusion.
45:13.6 Election, Nov 2004
Protests began the day after the second round of voting in the contest between incumbent Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych and opposition candidate Yushchenko, when the official count differed markedly from the exit poll results; exit polls gave Yushchenko up to an 11% lead, while official results gave the election win to Yanukovych by 3%. While Yanukovych supporters have claimed that Yushchenko's connections to the Ukrainian media explain this disparity, the Yushchenko team publicized evidence of many incidents of electoral fraud in favor of the government-backed Yanukovych, witnessed by many local and foreign observers. These allegations were further strengthened by the similar signs of the electoral fraud observed, though at a lesser scale, during the first presidential run on October 31. However, the scale of the irregularities of October 31 run was less clear and even for the supporters of both candidates it appeared unlikely that they could have affected the outcome of the first round by bringing any candidate to collecting an outright majority of the vote cast.45.13.7 The protests
By the dawn of the election day, November 21, 2004, when the scale of alleged fraud started to appear, the Yushchenko team made their public calls for action, and, beginning on November 22, 2004, massive protests began in cities across Ukraine: the major one in Kiev's Maidan Nezalezhnosti (Independence Square) attracted an estimated 500,000 participants, who on November 23, 2004 peacefully marched in front of the headquarters of the Verkhovna Rada, the Ukrainian parliament, many wearing orange or carrying orange flags, the color of Yushchenko's campaign coalition.The local authorities in Kiev, Lviv, and several other cities passed, with a wide popular support of their constituency, a largely symbolic refusal to accept the legitimacy of the official election returns and Yushchenko took a symbolic presidential oath. This "oath", while not conforming the country's legal procedures and taken in half-empty parliament chambers, lacking the quorum with only his supporting factions present, was largely a symbolic gesture meant to demonstrate the resolve of Yushchenko team not to accept the compromised election results. Some observers argued that this symbolic presidential oath might have been necessary, should events have taken a more confrontational route. In such a scenario, this "presidential oath" Yushchenko took could be used to give more clout of legitimacy to the claim that he, rather than his rival who tried to gain the presidency through alleged fraud, is a true commander-in-chief authorized to give orders to the military and security agencies. However, Yushchenko opponents seized to denounce him for taking an illegitimate oath and some moderate opposition supporters felt ambivalent towards this act. However, many of the more radical supporters demanded from Yushchenko to take more decisive measures to break the political deadlock.
Blue-clad miners rally in support of Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych in KievAt the same time, local officials in Eastern and Southern Ukraine, the strongholds of the candidate Viktor Yanukovych, started a series of actions that alluded to the possibility of the breakup of Ukraine or an unconstitutional federalization of the country should their candidate's claimed victory not be recognized. Shows of public support for Yanukovych were organized throughout Eastern Ukraine and some of his supporters arrived to Kiev. However, in Kiev the pro-Yanukovych demonstrators were by far outnumbered by protesters from Kiev and those arriving from all regions of Ukraine to protest the electoral fraud. The demonstrations in Kiev were of an unheard-of scale. By many estimates, on some days they drew over 1 million people to the streets, in freezing weather.
45.13.8 Yushchenko
Although Yushchenko entered into negotiations with the outgoing President Leonid Kuchma in an effort to peacefully resolve the situation, the negotiations broke up on November 24, 2004. Yanukovych was officially certified as the victor by the Central Election Commission, which itself was allegedly involved in falsification of electoral results by withholding the information it was receiving from local districts and running a parallel illegal computer server for the results manipulation. The next morning after the certification took place, Yushchenko spoke to supporters in Kiev, urging them to begin an series of mass protests, general strikes and sit-ins with the intent of crippling the government and forcing them to concede defeat:A path to a compromise through people demonstrating their will is the only path that will help us find a way out of this conflict. Therefore, the committee of national salvation declares a nationwide political strike. On December 1, 2004, Verkhovna Rada passed a resolution that strongly condemned the pro-separatist and federalization actions, and passed a non-confidence vote in the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, a decision prime minister Yanukovych refused to recognize. By the Constitution of Ukraine, the non-confidence vote mandated the government's resignation, despite some procedural hurdles, but the parliament had no means to enforce a resignation without the co-operation of prime minister Yanukovych and outgoing president Kuchma.
On December 3, 2004, Ukraine's Supreme Court finally broke a political deadlock. The court agreed that due to the scale of the vote fraud it became impossible to establish the election results and invalidated the official results that would have given Yanukovych the presidency. As a solution, a court ordered a revote of the run-off to be held on December 26, 2004. This decision was seen as a victory for the Yushchenko camp. Yanukovych and his supporters favored a rerun of the entire election rather than the run-off revote as a second best option if Yanukovych was not awarded the presidency. On December 8, 2004 the parliament amended laws to provide a legal framework for the new round of elections as well as a new system of government. The revote was handily won by Yushchenko and he was declared the official winner on December 28, 2004.
The role of Ukrainian intelligence and security agencies
According to one version of events recounted by The New York Times, Ukrainian security agencies played a markedly unusual role in the Orange Revolution, with a KGB successor agency in the former Soviet state providing qualified support to a political opposition. As per the paper report, on November 28, 2004 over 10,000 MVS (Internal Ministry) troops were mobilized to put down the protests in Independence Square in Kiev by the order of their commander Lt. Gen. Sergei Popkov. The SBU (Security Service of Ukraine, a successor to the KGB in Ukraine) warned opposition leaders of the crackdown. Oleksander Galaka, head of GRU (military intelligence) made calls to "prevent bloodshed". Col. Gen. Ihor Smeshko (SBU chief) and Maj. Gen. Vitaly Romanchenko (military counter-intelligence chief) both claimed to have warned Popkov to pull back his troops, which he did, preventing bloodshed.In addition to the desire to avoid bloodshed, the New York Times article suggests that "siloviki", as the security officers are often called in the countries of the Former Soviet Union, were motivated by personal aversion to the possibility of having to serve president Yanukovych, who was in his youth convicted of robbery and assault and had alleged connection with corrupt businessmen, especially if he were to ascend to the presidency by fraud. The personal feelings of Gen. Smeshko towards Yanukovych may also have played a role. Additional evidence of Yushchenko's popularity and, at least partial, support among the SBU officers is shown by the fact that several embarrassing proofs of electoral fraud, including incriminating wiretap recordings of conversations among the Yanukovych campaign and government officials discussing how to rig the election, was provided to the Yushchenko camp. These conversations were likely recorded and provided to the opposition by sympathizers in the Ukrainian Security Services.
45.13.8 Involvement of Outside Forces
The Orange Revolution builds on a pattern first developed in the ousting of Slobodan Milošević in Serbia and continuing with the Rose Revolution in Georgia. Each of these victories, though apparently spontaneous, was the result of extensive grassroots campaigning and coalition building among the opposition. Each included election victories followed up by public demonstrations after attempts by the incumbent to hold onto power through electoral fraud.Each of these social movements included extensive work by student activists. The most famous of these was Otpor, the young people's movement that helped bring in Vojislav Koštunica in Serbia. In Georgia the movement was called Kmara. A so far unsuccessful movement in Belarus is named Zubr. In Ukraine the movement has worked under the succinct slogan Pora— "It's Time".
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's Open Society Institute. Writings on nonviolent struggle by Gene Sharp formed the strategic basis of these student campaigns.
On the other hand, Russia's involvement in the election was more direct and heavily on the side of prime minister Yanukovych. The extent of this involvement is still contested but some facts are indisputable such as multiple meetings between Russian president Vladimir Putin with Kuchma and Yanukovych before and during the elections. Putin repeatedly congratulated Yanukovych while the results were still contested, which caused much embarrassment to both parties. Yanukovych received a much more preferential treatment in Russian state-controlled media, and was surrounded by Russian consultants known to be close to the Kremlin throughout the election cycle. Most observers agree that the Yanukovych campaign received significant contribution from Russian state-controlled businesses. Other allegations, still disputed and very much unproven, include Russian involvement in Yushchenko's poisoning several weeks before the election, as well as alleged presence of Russian security forces sent to help Yanukovych to ascend to presidency.
Open and official Polish support for the democratic changes in Ukraine as well as Polish support of Ukraine in the EU resulted in a long lasting political tension between Warsaw and the Kremlin.
45.13.9 Pora!
(Cyrillic: ПОРА!), meaning IT'S TIME! in Ukrainian, is a civic youth organization in Ukraine espousing nonviolent resistance and advocating increased national democracy, in opposition to what they claimed was the authoritarian governing style of Ukraine's president Leonid Kuchma. The group was established in 2004 to coordinate young people's opposition to the Kuchma government.Pora! was inspired and partly trained by members of the Serbian Otpor movement which helped bring down President Slobodan Milošević, and is also allied to related movements throughout Eastern Europe, including Kmara in the republic of Georgia (itself partly responsible for the downfall of President Eduard Shevardnadze), Zubr in Belarus (opposing President Alexander Lukashenko), Oborona in Russia, and MJAFT! in Albania.
According to Pora! coordinator Andriy Yusov, Pora! has never received U.S. funding and that while 18 members traveled to Serbia in the spring of 2004 and met with Otpor leaders at a seminar in the city of Novi Sad, they paid for themselves.
Pora! supported Viktor Yushchenko in protests following the disputed 2004 presidential election. It claimed to have about 10,000 members. Its methods have apparently been influenced by Gene Sharp's manual From Dictatorship to Democracy. Apart from the mass demonstrations of the "Orange Revolution", the group's tactics have included the use of visually striking posters showing confrontational images such as a giant boot crushing a cockroach, and stickers with "revolutionary" slogans such as "Time to Arise!". Not surprisingly, this has aroused the ire of the Ukrainian authorities and Pora! activists have often been harassed and arrested.
The relationship between Pora! and Yushchenko's electoral block "Our Ukraine" has occasionally been somewhat tense. It is seen as being on the radical wing of the reform movement, loosely allied with Yushchenko's ally Yuliya Tymoshenko, but has occasionally clashed with the more mainstream Yushchenko over tactical matters.
Since the success of the Orange Revolution in defeating election fraud, Pora has split into two branches with different goals for the future. The weaker section, Yellow Pora, is focused on spreading its "revolution" to other countries, particularly Belarus and Russia. The main branch, called Black Pora, functions mainly as a government watchdog within Ukraine and does not see the possibility of exporting its experience to other countries.