Fixed elections in Ukraine...
- Thread starter JoMoDo
- Start date
Oh yes, I've been keepin up with this shit. You know, this is EXACTLY what the Dems SHOULD have done in 2000. These motherfuckers are outside in freezing cold weather sleeping in tents and on the streets. They are not leaving 'till their candidate wins. But no, the pussy ass Dems said "we'll leave it up to the courts" lol
The only hard part is keeping track of who is who. The names are almost Identical. Viktor Yanukovych vs. Viktor Yushchenko
Type of shit is that? Bob Johnson vs. Bob Jonson
The only hard part is keeping track of who is who. The names are almost Identical. Viktor Yanukovych vs. Viktor Yushchenko
Type of shit is that? Bob Johnson vs. Bob Jonson
Ukraine Liberal Calls for Strike, Civil War Warning
31 minutes ago Top Stories - Reuters
By Richard Balmforth
KIEV (Reuters) - Opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko on Wednesday called for a general strike in protest at returns showing his rival had won a disputed presidential poll and the outgoing president warned Ukraine could slide into civil war.
With tens of thousands of protesters surging through Kiev streets for the third straight day, Western countries got tough on what they saw as blatant cheating in the election putting Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich in office.
Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites) was blunt. "If the Ukrainian government does not act immediately and responsibly there will be consequences for our relationship," he said.
Yushchenko said that the naming of Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich to succeed Kuchma, after an election marked by mass fraud, brought Ukraine to "the brink of civil conflict."
"We do not recognize the election result as officially declared," Yushchenko told a vast crowd in Kiev's main square as heavy snow fell.
Yanukovich appeared briefly on state television, saying he was president and proposing talks with rival Yushchenko. "We will look for common ground. I am ready to listen to the opposition proposals," he said.
Outgoing President Leonid Kuchma, due to step down after 10 years in office, feared Ukraine could face the same fate as the young Soviet Union, plunged into civil war in 1919.
"The civil war at the beginning of the last century which we know about, thank goodness only from films, could well become a reality at the present time," he told a meeting of regional officials, shown in part on television.
Ukraine's Russian-speaking east, including the industrial towns of Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk, overwhelmingly supports Yanukovich. Ukrainian-speaking western regions back Yushchenko.
Kuchma said he had urged the two rivals to hold talks and wanted the world community "to refrain from direct interference in Ukraine's internal affairs."
Two hours earlier, electoral authorities, ignoring U.S. and other Western appeals, declared Yanukovich winner of Sunday's run-off by nearly three percentage points.
OPPOSITION DEMANDS STRIKE
Yushchenko said the opposition wanted a "political strike." Oleksander Moroz, Socialist Party leader and one of his allies, said that meant halting transport and closing factories and schools.
But Moroz said the crisis could still be resolved by holding new elections as Yushchenko had offered earlier.
"People will have to look for truth in the streets in open struggle," Yushchenko declared. He said the strike would be "our answer to the lawlessness of Kuchma and Yanukovich."
An earlier offer of Yushchenko to run in new elections under tighter rules appeared to offer a way out of the crisis. Yanukovich's comment that he did not want a "fictitious victory" had also strengthened the view of a possible compromise.
Earlier in the day the United States, the European Union (news - web sites) and the U.S.-led NATO (news - web sites) military alliance all urged authorities to review the conduct of Sunday's run-off which most Western powers have said was fraudulently conducted.
Russian President Vladimir Putin (news - web sites), who quickly congratulated Yanukovich when it was clear he was winning, also looked ready to see an end to the crisis in its ex-Soviet ally.
The Kremlin said Putin and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder agreed, in a telephone conversation, that Ukraine should solve the row through legal means.
Since early on Monday the crisis surrounding the disputed election has convulsed the ex-Soviet state of 47 million that has borders with the European Union and Russia.
Yushchenko's allegations that he was robbed of the election sparked unrest in Kiev and Yushchenko strongholds in nationalist western Ukraine, bringing tens of thousands into the streets.
The two rivals stand for different images for the future of Ukraine, where the average worker earns just $60 a month.
Yanukovich sees future prosperity in closer ties with Russia. Yushchenko favors gradual integration with western Europe but recognizes Russia as a strategic partner.
The crisis has raised tension between the United States and Russia, battling for influence over the ex-Soviet state.
The mood of near-revolution seen in Kiev was markedly different from that in Russian-speaking regions that heavily back Yanukovich.
In Donetsk, a big coal-mining center, slogans were pinned to fences denouncing Yushchenko as a traitor. Protests supporting Yanukovich were being held in pits and factories. Miners were trying to get to Kiev to counter opposition rallies.
31 minutes ago Top Stories - Reuters
By Richard Balmforth
KIEV (Reuters) - Opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko on Wednesday called for a general strike in protest at returns showing his rival had won a disputed presidential poll and the outgoing president warned Ukraine could slide into civil war.
With tens of thousands of protesters surging through Kiev streets for the third straight day, Western countries got tough on what they saw as blatant cheating in the election putting Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich in office.
Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites) was blunt. "If the Ukrainian government does not act immediately and responsibly there will be consequences for our relationship," he said.
Yushchenko said that the naming of Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich to succeed Kuchma, after an election marked by mass fraud, brought Ukraine to "the brink of civil conflict."
"We do not recognize the election result as officially declared," Yushchenko told a vast crowd in Kiev's main square as heavy snow fell.
Yanukovich appeared briefly on state television, saying he was president and proposing talks with rival Yushchenko. "We will look for common ground. I am ready to listen to the opposition proposals," he said.
Outgoing President Leonid Kuchma, due to step down after 10 years in office, feared Ukraine could face the same fate as the young Soviet Union, plunged into civil war in 1919.
"The civil war at the beginning of the last century which we know about, thank goodness only from films, could well become a reality at the present time," he told a meeting of regional officials, shown in part on television.
Ukraine's Russian-speaking east, including the industrial towns of Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk, overwhelmingly supports Yanukovich. Ukrainian-speaking western regions back Yushchenko.
Kuchma said he had urged the two rivals to hold talks and wanted the world community "to refrain from direct interference in Ukraine's internal affairs."
Two hours earlier, electoral authorities, ignoring U.S. and other Western appeals, declared Yanukovich winner of Sunday's run-off by nearly three percentage points.
OPPOSITION DEMANDS STRIKE
Yushchenko said the opposition wanted a "political strike." Oleksander Moroz, Socialist Party leader and one of his allies, said that meant halting transport and closing factories and schools.
But Moroz said the crisis could still be resolved by holding new elections as Yushchenko had offered earlier.
"People will have to look for truth in the streets in open struggle," Yushchenko declared. He said the strike would be "our answer to the lawlessness of Kuchma and Yanukovich."
An earlier offer of Yushchenko to run in new elections under tighter rules appeared to offer a way out of the crisis. Yanukovich's comment that he did not want a "fictitious victory" had also strengthened the view of a possible compromise.
Earlier in the day the United States, the European Union (news - web sites) and the U.S.-led NATO (news - web sites) military alliance all urged authorities to review the conduct of Sunday's run-off which most Western powers have said was fraudulently conducted.
Russian President Vladimir Putin (news - web sites), who quickly congratulated Yanukovich when it was clear he was winning, also looked ready to see an end to the crisis in its ex-Soviet ally.
The Kremlin said Putin and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder agreed, in a telephone conversation, that Ukraine should solve the row through legal means.
Since early on Monday the crisis surrounding the disputed election has convulsed the ex-Soviet state of 47 million that has borders with the European Union and Russia.
Yushchenko's allegations that he was robbed of the election sparked unrest in Kiev and Yushchenko strongholds in nationalist western Ukraine, bringing tens of thousands into the streets.
The two rivals stand for different images for the future of Ukraine, where the average worker earns just $60 a month.
Yanukovich sees future prosperity in closer ties with Russia. Yushchenko favors gradual integration with western Europe but recognizes Russia as a strategic partner.
The crisis has raised tension between the United States and Russia, battling for influence over the ex-Soviet state.
The mood of near-revolution seen in Kiev was markedly different from that in Russian-speaking regions that heavily back Yanukovich.
In Donetsk, a big coal-mining center, slogans were pinned to fences denouncing Yushchenko as a traitor. Protests supporting Yanukovich were being held in pits and factories. Miners were trying to get to Kiev to counter opposition rallies.
No kidding.
World isn't made of sugar plums and gum drops.
Shouldn't have expected anything less would happen, wishful thinkers.
Lead by example, you falsify elections around the world and then expect others not to?
That's if this was even fixed. IF
The U.S. likes Yushchenko, why expect to hear anything else than the election was fixed when he loses?
CB says fuck em.
World isn't made of sugar plums and gum drops.
Shouldn't have expected anything less would happen, wishful thinkers.
Lead by example, you falsify elections around the world and then expect others not to?
That's if this was even fixed. IF
The U.S. likes Yushchenko, why expect to hear anything else than the election was fixed when he loses?
CB says fuck em.
This whole world if fixed.
If it was your world, you would do the same.
Freedom is dangerous.
If you owned 10 snakes and 10 tarantulas, would you let them roam free in your house? Hell no...youd put em in a case and feed them on a schedule.
Smarter humans just doing it to dumber ones.
Dumber ones are getting smarter..but there is no hope...for now anyways.
If it was your world, you would do the same.
Freedom is dangerous.
If you owned 10 snakes and 10 tarantulas, would you let them roam free in your house? Hell no...youd put em in a case and feed them on a schedule.
Smarter humans just doing it to dumber ones.
Dumber ones are getting smarter..but there is no hope...for now anyways.
US campaign behind the turmoil in Kiev
Ian Traynor
Friday November 26, 2004
The Guardian
With their websites and stickers, their pranks and slogans aimed at banishing widespread fear of a corrupt regime, the democracy guerrillas of the Ukrainian Pora youth movement have already notched up a famous victory - whatever the outcome of the dangerous stand-off in Kiev.
Ukraine, traditionally passive in its politics, has been mobilised by the young democracy activists and will never be the same again.
But while the gains of the orange-bedecked "chestnut revolution" are Ukraine's, the campaign is an American creation, a sophisticated and brilliantly conceived exercise in western branding and mass marketing that, in four countries in four years, has been used to try to salvage rigged elections and topple unsavoury regimes.
Funded and organised by the US government, deploying US consultancies, pollsters, diplomats, the two big American parties and US non-government organisations, the campaign was first used in Europe in Belgrade in 2000 to beat Slobodan Milosevic at the ballot box.
Richard Miles, the US ambassador in Belgrade, played a key role. And by last year, as US ambassador in Tbilisi, he repeated the trick in Georgia, coaching Mikhail Saakashvili in how to bring down Eduard Shevardnadze.
Ten months after the success in Belgrade, the US ambassador in Minsk, Michael Kozak, a veteran of similar operations in central America, notably in Nicaragua, organised a near identical campaign to try to defeat the Belarus hardman, Alexander Lukashenko.
That one failed. "There will be no Kostunica in Belarus," the Belarus president declared, referring to the victory in Belgrade.
But experience gained in Serbia, Georgia and Belarus has been invaluable in plotting to beat the regime of Leonid Kuchma in Kiev.
The operation - engineering democracy through the ballot box and civil disobedience - is now so slick that the methods have matured into a template for winning other people's elections.
In the centre of Belgrade, there is a dingy office staffed by computer-literate youngsters who call themselves the Centre for Non-violent Resistance. If you want to know how to beat a regime that controls the mass media, the judges, the courts, the security apparatus and the voting stations, the young Belgrade activists are for hire.
They emerged from the anti-Milosevic student movement, Otpor, meaning resistance. The catchy, single-word branding is important. In Georgia last year, the parallel student movement was Khmara. In Belarus, it was Zubr. In Ukraine, it is Pora, meaning high time. Otpor also had a potent, simple slogan that appeared everywhere in Serbia in 2000 - the two words "gotov je", meaning "he's finished", a reference to Milosevic. A logo of a black-and-white clenched fist completed the masterful marketing.
In Ukraine, the equivalent is a ticking clock, also signalling that the Kuchma regime's days are numbered.
Stickers, spray paint and websites are the young activists' weapons. Irony and street comedy mocking the regime have been hugely successful in puncturing public fear and enraging the powerful.
Last year, before becoming president in Georgia, the US-educated Mr Saakashvili travelled from Tbilisi to Belgrade to be coached in the techniques of mass defiance. In Belarus, the US embassy organised the dispatch of young opposition leaders to the Baltic, where they met up with Serbs travelling from Belgrade. In Serbia's case, given the hostile environment in Belgrade, the Americans organised the overthrow from neighbouring Hungary - Budapest and Szeged.
In recent weeks, several Serbs travelled to the Ukraine. Indeed, one of the leaders from Belgrade, Aleksandar Maric, was turned away at the border.
The Democratic party's National Democratic Institute, the Republican party's International Republican Institute, the US state department and USAid are the main agencies involved in these grassroots campaigns as well as the Freedom House NGO and billionaire George Soros's open society institute.
US pollsters and professional consultants are hired to organise focus groups and use psephological data to plot strategy.
The usually fractious oppositions have to be united behind a single candidate if there is to be any chance of unseating the regime. That leader is selected on pragmatic and objective grounds, even if he or she is anti-American.
In Serbia, US pollsters Penn, Schoen and Berland Associates discovered that the assassinated pro-western opposition leader, Zoran Djindjic, was reviled at home and had no chance of beating Milosevic fairly in an election. He was persuaded to take a back seat to the anti-western Vojislav Kostunica, who is now Serbian prime minister.
In Belarus, US officials ordered opposition parties to unite behind the dour, elderly trade unionist, Vladimir Goncharik, because he appealed to much of the Lukashenko constituency.
Officially, the US government spent $41m (£21.7m) organising and funding the year-long operation to get rid of Milosevic from October 1999. In Ukraine, the figure is said to be around $14m.
Apart from the student movement and the united opposition, the other key element in the democracy template is what is known as the "parallel vote tabulation", a counter to the election-rigging tricks beloved of disreputable regimes.
There are professional outside election monitors from bodies such as the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, but the Ukrainian poll, like its predecessors, also featured thousands of local election monitors trained and paid by western groups.
Freedom House and the Democratic party's NDI helped fund and organise the "largest civil regional election monitoring effort" in Ukraine, involving more than 1,000 trained observers. They also organised exit polls. On Sunday night those polls gave Mr Yushchenko an 11-point lead and set the agenda for much of what has followed.
The exit polls are seen as critical because they seize the initiative in the propaganda battle with the regime, invariably appearing first, receiving wide media coverage and putting the onus on the authorities to respond.
The final stage in the US template concerns how to react when the incumbent tries to steal a lost election.
In Belarus, President Lukashenko won, so the response was minimal. In Belgrade, Tbilisi, and now Kiev, where the authorities initially tried to cling to power, the advice was to stay cool but determined and to organise mass displays of civil disobedience, which must remain peaceful but risk provoking the regime into violent suppression.
If the events in Kiev vindicate the US in its strategies for helping other people win elections and take power from anti-democratic regimes, it is certain to try to repeat the exercise elsewhere in the post-Soviet world.
The places to watch are Moldova and the authoritarian countries of central Asia.
Ian Traynor
Friday November 26, 2004
The Guardian
With their websites and stickers, their pranks and slogans aimed at banishing widespread fear of a corrupt regime, the democracy guerrillas of the Ukrainian Pora youth movement have already notched up a famous victory - whatever the outcome of the dangerous stand-off in Kiev.
Ukraine, traditionally passive in its politics, has been mobilised by the young democracy activists and will never be the same again.
But while the gains of the orange-bedecked "chestnut revolution" are Ukraine's, the campaign is an American creation, a sophisticated and brilliantly conceived exercise in western branding and mass marketing that, in four countries in four years, has been used to try to salvage rigged elections and topple unsavoury regimes.
Funded and organised by the US government, deploying US consultancies, pollsters, diplomats, the two big American parties and US non-government organisations, the campaign was first used in Europe in Belgrade in 2000 to beat Slobodan Milosevic at the ballot box.
Richard Miles, the US ambassador in Belgrade, played a key role. And by last year, as US ambassador in Tbilisi, he repeated the trick in Georgia, coaching Mikhail Saakashvili in how to bring down Eduard Shevardnadze.
Ten months after the success in Belgrade, the US ambassador in Minsk, Michael Kozak, a veteran of similar operations in central America, notably in Nicaragua, organised a near identical campaign to try to defeat the Belarus hardman, Alexander Lukashenko.
That one failed. "There will be no Kostunica in Belarus," the Belarus president declared, referring to the victory in Belgrade.
But experience gained in Serbia, Georgia and Belarus has been invaluable in plotting to beat the regime of Leonid Kuchma in Kiev.
The operation - engineering democracy through the ballot box and civil disobedience - is now so slick that the methods have matured into a template for winning other people's elections.
In the centre of Belgrade, there is a dingy office staffed by computer-literate youngsters who call themselves the Centre for Non-violent Resistance. If you want to know how to beat a regime that controls the mass media, the judges, the courts, the security apparatus and the voting stations, the young Belgrade activists are for hire.
They emerged from the anti-Milosevic student movement, Otpor, meaning resistance. The catchy, single-word branding is important. In Georgia last year, the parallel student movement was Khmara. In Belarus, it was Zubr. In Ukraine, it is Pora, meaning high time. Otpor also had a potent, simple slogan that appeared everywhere in Serbia in 2000 - the two words "gotov je", meaning "he's finished", a reference to Milosevic. A logo of a black-and-white clenched fist completed the masterful marketing.
In Ukraine, the equivalent is a ticking clock, also signalling that the Kuchma regime's days are numbered.
Stickers, spray paint and websites are the young activists' weapons. Irony and street comedy mocking the regime have been hugely successful in puncturing public fear and enraging the powerful.
Last year, before becoming president in Georgia, the US-educated Mr Saakashvili travelled from Tbilisi to Belgrade to be coached in the techniques of mass defiance. In Belarus, the US embassy organised the dispatch of young opposition leaders to the Baltic, where they met up with Serbs travelling from Belgrade. In Serbia's case, given the hostile environment in Belgrade, the Americans organised the overthrow from neighbouring Hungary - Budapest and Szeged.
In recent weeks, several Serbs travelled to the Ukraine. Indeed, one of the leaders from Belgrade, Aleksandar Maric, was turned away at the border.
The Democratic party's National Democratic Institute, the Republican party's International Republican Institute, the US state department and USAid are the main agencies involved in these grassroots campaigns as well as the Freedom House NGO and billionaire George Soros's open society institute.
US pollsters and professional consultants are hired to organise focus groups and use psephological data to plot strategy.
The usually fractious oppositions have to be united behind a single candidate if there is to be any chance of unseating the regime. That leader is selected on pragmatic and objective grounds, even if he or she is anti-American.
In Serbia, US pollsters Penn, Schoen and Berland Associates discovered that the assassinated pro-western opposition leader, Zoran Djindjic, was reviled at home and had no chance of beating Milosevic fairly in an election. He was persuaded to take a back seat to the anti-western Vojislav Kostunica, who is now Serbian prime minister.
In Belarus, US officials ordered opposition parties to unite behind the dour, elderly trade unionist, Vladimir Goncharik, because he appealed to much of the Lukashenko constituency.
Officially, the US government spent $41m (£21.7m) organising and funding the year-long operation to get rid of Milosevic from October 1999. In Ukraine, the figure is said to be around $14m.
Apart from the student movement and the united opposition, the other key element in the democracy template is what is known as the "parallel vote tabulation", a counter to the election-rigging tricks beloved of disreputable regimes.
There are professional outside election monitors from bodies such as the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, but the Ukrainian poll, like its predecessors, also featured thousands of local election monitors trained and paid by western groups.
Freedom House and the Democratic party's NDI helped fund and organise the "largest civil regional election monitoring effort" in Ukraine, involving more than 1,000 trained observers. They also organised exit polls. On Sunday night those polls gave Mr Yushchenko an 11-point lead and set the agenda for much of what has followed.
The exit polls are seen as critical because they seize the initiative in the propaganda battle with the regime, invariably appearing first, receiving wide media coverage and putting the onus on the authorities to respond.
The final stage in the US template concerns how to react when the incumbent tries to steal a lost election.
In Belarus, President Lukashenko won, so the response was minimal. In Belgrade, Tbilisi, and now Kiev, where the authorities initially tried to cling to power, the advice was to stay cool but determined and to organise mass displays of civil disobedience, which must remain peaceful but risk provoking the regime into violent suppression.
If the events in Kiev vindicate the US in its strategies for helping other people win elections and take power from anti-democratic regimes, it is certain to try to repeat the exercise elsewhere in the post-Soviet world.
The places to watch are Moldova and the authoritarian countries of central Asia.