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http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/europe/12/26/ukraine.election.ap/index.html
Taras Korolyov, 28, brought his wife, Lesya, 25, and three-year-old daughter Olena to the square dressed in orange ski suits to celebrate a victory they described as "100 percent certain."
"We brought our daughter here to see the birth of freedom," Korolyov said as his daughter waved a tiny orange flag -- the opposition campaign's color -- and chanted "Yu-shchen-ko, Yu-shchen-ko."
Inside Ukraine's Freedom Fight
http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/36541.htm
INSIDE UKRAINE'S FREEDOM FIGHT
BY DICK MORRIS
December 16, 2004 -- So very much hangs in the balance when Ukraine goes back to the polls to vote for a president on Dec. 26. It would be a major blow for freedom, and a wonderful Christmas present to the world, if Viktor Yushchenko - and the runoff, before the government stole both - becomes president of this key nation.
It has been my honor to serve as a consultant to Yushchenko during this campaign. His battle is not only an important one for freedom throughout the world, it also represents a key stand against the rekindling of an imperial Russia the major foreign policy goal of that country's President Vladimir Putin.
In both previous elections, Yushchenko actually got upward of 60 percent of the vote, only to have the government falsify the results. Fortunately, he adopted a technique I had found useful when fighting against the PRI, the party that controlled Mexico's government for decades: using exit polls to establish the real winner, and so expose the government's count of the votes as rigged.
Working with a combination of old KGB operatives, hardline and unreconstructed Communists, oil barons and Russian mafia, Putin is trying to take over the states that comprised the former Soviet Union and to assimilate them into a new Russian sphere of influence.
His strategy is to use the ethnic Russian minorities in these former Soviet "republics" as an electoral base for taking power. But, because they are minorities, he must add healthy doses of vote-rigging, intimidation, control of the media and attempted murder to the mix to have a shot at achieving control.
In Ukraine, the first step was to deny Yushchenko any coverage on state-controlled television and other news outlets. Only smear stories ran and we weren't allowed to buy advertising time to rebut them.
It was so impossible to communicate with the voters that the campaign was reduced to printing leaflets which were stuffed, three times each week, under every door in the country.
When it became clear that the Ukrainian people would not be fooled by the phony state-controlled media and Yushchenko continued to lead by 15 points in the polls, the ex-KGB types in the opposition campaign resorted to attempted assassination, once running Yushchenko's car off the road and then poisoning him with dioxin.
At first, we thought Yushchenko had a stroke. The entire right side of his face and body was paralyzed. A Ukrainian hospital diagnosed it as a stroke. Then Yushchenko went to Vienna, where they unearthed the poisoning. By then, the candidate had regained use of his face and limbs, but a horrible rash distorted and discolored his entire face.
The campaign faced a tough decision as to whether or not to show the candidate, once handsome and charismatic, on TV. Risking it, they did and that face soon became a symbol of the lengths to which the old communists would go to stop Yushchenko and a badge of honor that underscored why it was crucial to elect him.
To do the massive leafleting, to communicate over the head of the controlled media, the campaign needed to recruit hundreds of thousands of volunteers from around the nation the very same men and women who later took to the streets after the phony vote count was announced and refused to leave until a new election was scheduled.
In Russia itself, Putin has taken the first step to end democracy by using his majority in the Duma to eliminate locally elected congressmen and to change the constitution to elect the entire body elected by proportional representation from party lists. Because Putin can control the nominations and the order of their selection on party lists, he will have a rubber stamp Duma.
But it is abroad, in the former Soviet republics, that Putin is doing his worst work. The first effort was in Georgia, where an alert populace revolted and insisted on an honest vote count. Now, in Ukraine, he is trying to impose his will on the electorate.
The stakes for global liberty couldn't be higher. In Russia's bid to come back as an imperial power, the Ukraine struggle is the equivalent of Hitler's bid to remilitarize the Rhineland. A determined stand here will keep Russia (145 million) and Ukraine (50 million) separate and cripple Putin's imperial ambitions. With Ukraine inevitably drawing closer to the EU and further away from Moscow, its chances for prosperity and freedom will increase.
But all depends on forcing the country's powers-that-be to count the votes accurately.
Pro-West Leader Appears to Win Ukraine Election
KIEV, Ukraine, Monday, Dec. 27 - Viktor A. Yushchenko, the opposition leader, appeared headed for a resounding victory early Monday in a riveting presidential race marked by intrigue, charges of poisoning, fervent street demonstrations and widespread abuses of state power.
There were no independent reports of the egregious election violations that had discredited the previous round of voting. Mr. Yushchenko, addressing supporters at this headquarters, predicted an end at last to an extended and bitter election season.
"It has happened," said Mr. Yushchenko, his face still disfigured from dioxin poisoning this fall for which he has blamed his adversaries in the government. "Today we are turning a page of lies, censorship and violence." Ahead, he said, lay a "new epoch of a new great democracy."
With 74 percent of the votes from the Sunday election counted, Mr. Yushchenko was leading Prime Minister Viktor F. Yanukovich by 55 percent to 40 percent, according to the Central Election Commission. The early results placed him within the range predicted by surveys of voters exiting the polls, which gave the opposition a 15- to 20-point lead.
UKRAINE
[Michael Ledeen]
Yushchenko seems to have won, big big bigtime, in the Ukraine. Big turnout--around 78%--and big margin, about 15 points. It's a dramatic and important moment, and the winning forces of the "orange revolution" are right to talk about democratic revolution. Here is yet another case where the forces of repression seemed to have all the advantages, including the reconstituted KGB and the full, cynical, support of a nasty Russian tyrant. Yet freedom won.
For those of us who have long preached the power of democratic revolution, it's a happy day, and I hope that our leaders draw the appropriate lessons:
--The mild support we gave to the democratic forces in the Ukraine proved far more powerful than most of the experts expected. The revolutionaries required a bit of guidance in the methods of non-violent resistance, a bit of communications gear, and many words of encouragement. They did the rest. The same can and should be done elsewhere in the world (Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, China, North Korea...)
--Our democratic values are shared by the overwhelming majority of the people in the world, and are rejected, sometimes violently, by tyrants and their followers. We need to stick to our principles, which means that we cannot blindly and compulsively support all the policies of individual anti-democratic leaders just because they help us. That kind of support always gets us in trouble (as in the Middle East, where we are justly criticized for our many decades of support for corrupt tyrants). Sometimes we will have to make some compromises, but when we do, we must still support democratic forces--openly, unapologetically;
--You can't always see the revolutionary forces inside oppressive countries, but, given a chance, they will emerge more often than not. We are the most successful revolutionary society in history, we have to stand with our people, everywhere;
--When we have alliances with "friendly tyrants" (Musharaff, Putin, Mubarak, Deng, the Saudis et. al.), we must encourage them to get on the right side of history, and share power. This is the only honest way to manage such alliances, because it is only a matter of time before the American people turn against our tyrannical allies, and we will then abandon them, usually in the worst circumstances. Thus, for example, it is fine to condemn and fight against Chechen terror, but it is wrong to remain silent in the face of Russian massacres in Chechnya. Freedom is the best weapon against the terrorists, everywhere, because free societies are much less likely to support them; The "age of the second democratic revolution," which began with the death of Franco and continued through the fall of the Soviet Empire, is still very much with us. The cynical and exhausted leaders of France, Germany, and post-Aznar Spain don't believe in it, but they are increasingly irrelevant to world affairs.
A great day for freedom. If we do not flag, we'll have many more in the near future.
NATO AIR said:I would love to be a Ukrainian college student (or even high school student) today... between the alcohol, the sheer excitement and joy of the moment and the historic overtones... man what a sweet time to get laid! :cof:
a great time to be a young (or even old) ukrainian man
