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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 the 2004 Ukrainian presidential election.

The protests were prompted by reports from numerous domestic and foreign observers as well as the widespread public perception that the results of the run-off vote of November 21, 2004 between leading candidates Viktor Yushchenko and Viktor Yanukovych were rigged in favor of the latter. The run-off was mandated by Ukrainian law due to the official results of the presidential vote held on October 31, 2004, in which 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 the 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 intense scrutiny, the second run-off was agreed by domestic and international observers to be virtually problem-free. The final results showed a clear victory for Yushchenko, who received about 52 percent of the vote compared to Yanukovych's 44 percent. He was declared the official winner and with his inauguration on January 23, 2005 in Kiev, the Orange Revolution reached its successful conclusion.

Election fraud

Orange ribbon, a symbol of the Ukrainian Orange Revolution. Ribbons are common symbols of non-violent protest.
Protests began the day after the second round of voting in the contest between incumbent Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych and opposition candidate Yushchenko. The official count differed markedly from the exit poll results that 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 accusations were strengthened by similar allegations of fraud, 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.

The protests

The Yushchenko campaign publicly called for protest on the dawn of election day, November 21, 2004, when allegations of fraud began to spread. Beginning on November 22, 2004, massive protests started 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 results and Yushchenko took a symbolic presidential oath. Although it could not have any legal effect, this oath taken by Yushchenko in half-empty parliament chambers, lacking the quorum with only supporting factions present, was a symbolic gesture meant to demonstrate the resolve of the Yushchenko campaign not to accept the compromised election results. In response, Yushchenko's opponents denounced him for taking an illegitimate oath, while some moderate supporters were ambivalent about his actions. Some observers argued that this symbolic presidential oath might have been useful to the Yushchenko camp 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.

At the same time, local officials in Eastern and Southern Ukraine, the strongholds of Viktor Yanukovych, started a series of actions that alluded to the possibility of the breakup of Ukraine or an extra-constitutional 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 in Kiev. However, in Kiev the pro-Yanukovych demonstrators were by far outnumbered by Yushchenko supporters from Kiev and those arriving from all regions of Ukraine. The demonstrations in Kiev were of an unheard-of scale. By many estimates, on some days they drew up to one million people to the streets, in freezing weather.*

The protests in Kiev, which lasted from early morning of November 22 and until the 3rd round of presidential elections on December 26, are often referred to by the general name Maidan, derived from the name of the city square where most of the revolution events took place. Despite the extremely intense political situation, Maidan was characterised by a remarkably peaceful and even festive atmosphere, with thousands of people often singing and dancing on Khreshchatyk and other nearby streets. Kiev overall became a very friendly and open place. Kievans would routinely bring home strangers-protesters who arrived from other cities to share food and host them overnight. Local newspapers reported that crime rates in Kiev significantly went down during the Orange Revolution.

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 a 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, the Verkhovna Rada passed a resolution that strongly condemned 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, 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 the political deadlock. The court decided that due to the scale of the electoral fraud it became impossible to establish the election results. Therefore, it invalidated the official election results that would have given Yanukovych the presidency. As a solution, the 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 while 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 an 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.

Alleged involvement of outside forces

Many analysts believe the Orange Revolution was built 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". Chair of Georgian Parliamentary Committee on Defense and Security Givi Targamadze, former member of Liberty Institute, as well as some members of Kmara, were consulted by Ukrainian opposition leaders on technique of nonviolent struggle.

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' Open Society Institute. The National Endowment for Democracy, a U.S. Government funded foundation, has supported non-governmental democracy-building efforts in Ukraine since 1988 *. Writings on nonviolent struggle by Gene Sharp formed the strategic basis of the 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 unproven, include Russian involvement in Yushchenko's poisoning several weeks before the election, as well as the 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.

See also

Books

  • Ukraine's Orange Revolution by Andrew Wilson, Yale University Press (March 2006), 256 pages, ISBN 0300112904
  • Revolution in Orange: The Origins of Ukraine's Democratic Breakthrough by Anders Aslund and Michael McFaul, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (January 2006), 180 pages, ISBN 0870032216
  • An Orange Revolution: A Personal Journey Through Ukrainian History by Askold Krushelnycky, Harvill Secker (2006), 360 pages, ISBN 0436206234
  • Первый Украинский : записки с передовой (First Ukrainian *: the Notes from the Front-line), by Andrei Kolesnikov, Vagrius, Moscow (2005), 416 pages, ISBN 5-9697-0062-2

External links

Sources

Post-Soviet Revolutions | History of Kiev city | Activism | Non-violent revolutions | 2004 | History of Ukraine | Politics of Ukraine | Geopolitical rivalry

Oranžová revoluce | Präsidentschaftswahlen in der Ukraine 2004 | Revolución Naranja | Révolution orange | ნარინჯისფერი რევოლუცია | Oranje Revolutie | オレンジ革命 | Presidentvalget i Ukraina 2004 | Pomarańczowa rewolucja na Ukrainie | Revolução Laranja | Revoluţia Portocalie | Оранжевая революция | Oranssi vallankumous | Помаранчева революція

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "Orange Revolution".

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