Ukraine's Presidential Elections

[Optimist Prime]

Ukraine should be decalred a Federal Republic. Its horrible to live there now no matter who the next president is.

[PhiPsiRuss]

By DANICA KIRKA, Associated Press Writer

KIEV, Ukraine - Ukraine's outgoing government sought Monday to control the inquiry into the poisoning of presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko, with officials close to the government taking charge of both investigations into who tried to harm or kill the leader of the "Orange Revolution."

The head of a new inquiry by lawmakers — an ally of Yushchenko's opponent in the court-ordered Dec. 26 presidential rematch — immediately cast doubt on whether deliberate poisoning could be proven. The decision by a parliamentary commission to reopen its probe came a day after a similar move by the country's new top prosecutor.

Yushchenko praised Prosecutor General Svyatoslav Piskun on Sunday for resuming the investigation after an elite clinic in Austria determined over the weekend he had been poisoned by dioxin. But he said he hoped the investigation would be conducted after the election because he didn't want it to influence the vote "positively or negatively."

The rest of this article is here: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...raine_election

[PhiPsiRuss]

By ANNA MELNICHUK, Associated Press Writer

KIEV, Ukraine - Supporters of opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko took the so-called Orange Revolution on the road Tuesday, piling into cars and buses for a 10-day odyssey to spread their message beyond the capital, targeting eastern provinces largely hostile to their candidate.

With sirens blaring and trademark orange flags unfurled, more than 150 opposition supporters left Kiev, hoping to win over voters in areas where support for Yushchenko's opponent, Viktor Yanukovych, has been strong. The two candidates face off in a Dec. 26 rematch following a Supreme Court ruling that annulled a fraud-tainted Nov. 21 runoff in which Yanukovych claimed victory.

"We would like the spirit of civil resistance to reach everyone's heart," said Vasyl Kuderiavets, a 34-year-old businessman from the western city of Lviv. "Everyone wants to be free. But not everyone realizes that."

Compelled by Yushchenko's appeal to abandon protests and take up the election campaign, artists, musicians, businessmen and filmmakers set off on a journey many said was necessary because the state-run media had blocked news of their movement from reaching the rest of this former Soviet republic.

They plan to show videos of the protests from Kiev's Independence Square, to organize rallies — and to leave graffiti on every gray wall they find.

"In some Ukrainian regions, people live as if they were in ghettos, isolated from information on what is actually going on in the country — living totally like in Soviet times," said Vakhtang Kipiani, the anchor of a private television station.

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[PhiPsiRuss]

By Ron Popeski

KIEV (Reuters) - Liberal candidate Viktor Yushchenko expressed unease on Wednesday at the effects of dioxin poisoning on his pocked face, but said he was fit to be president and predicted voters would hand him a landslide victory.

Yushchenko, who takes on Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich in a Dec. 26 re-run of last month's rigged presidential poll, says authorities poisoned him in a murder attempt. Austrian doctors last week detected dioxin in him 1,000 times the normal level.

The liberal challenger drew vast crowds into the street to back his charges of mass fraud in the Nov. 21 run-off in which Yanukovich was declared the winner. The Supreme Court annulled the result and ordered a new vote between the two men.

The West-leaning Yushchenko denies suggestions by his rival that he is too ill to take office, but showed he was affected by the poisoning, which has left his face bloated and discolored.

"I have apologized dozens of times for my face. Please believe me that more than anyone else I would like it to be the way it was three months ago. Time is needed for that," he told a news conference.

"In political terms, let me say that I am in good shape and able to work. In moral and ethical terms, I regret that I look like this at the moment. But over time everything will be OK."

Austrian doctors say Yushchenko is in good physical condition. Prosecutors have reopened a criminal case into the incident, launched when Yushchenko first fell ill in September but subsequently closed.

The rest of this article is here: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp..._nm/ukraine_dc

[PhiPsiRuss]

By Mark John

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - NATO is ready to speed Ukraine toward closer ties and membership if pro-West presidential frontrunner Viktor Yushchenko wins a revote on Dec. 26, alliance sourcesand diplomats said on Thursday. _

The prospect of Ukraine entering the Western club within as little as five years would be sure to dismay Moscow, which views the ex-Soviet republic as a buffer on NATO's eastern flank. But that would not stop rapprochement if Kiev is ready, they said.

"Of course we must take Russia into account. But if Ukraine is willing, we'll talk to it whether Russia likes it or not," said one NATO source who requested anonymity.

"It's too early to rush into full membership talks just yet," said a second source. "But NATO would want to respond some how to a Yushchenko victory," he said, suggesting NATO could look instead to upgrade its existing lower-level ties with Kiev.

Western governments are remaining tight-lipped on Ukraine's future ahead of the Dec. 26 re-run to avoid fueling Russian accusations of meddling. They stress they will work with any candidate who wins free and democratic elections.

Yushchenko takes on Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich in a re-run of last month's presidential poll second round won by Yanukovich, which was annulled by the Supreme Court after charges of mass fraud.

The rest of this article is here: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...ato_ukraine_dc

[PhiPsiRuss]

By YURAS KARMANAU, Associated Press Writer

KIEV, Ukraine - Supporters of Ukrainian presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko reconsidered plans to travel to his opponent's eastern stronghold after a tense standoff, and a U.S. congressional delegation arrived in Ukraine Saturday to press for fairness in the Dec. 26 runoff election.

Meanwhile, a top security agency official whose house was pinpointed by Yushchenko as the probable site of his poisoning denied any involvement in slipping the opposition leader a dose of the toxic chemical dioxin.

Dozens of angry ethnic Russian supporters of Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych staged a blockade late Friday as the convoy — some 50 cars draped with Yushchenko's orange colors and carrying mostly artists and musicians touring the country to campaign for the opposition leader — sought to cross onto the Crimean peninsula, said convoy coordinator Olga Khodovanets.

Yushchenko's backers then traveled on to the Crimean capital Simferopol, where they showed videos and photos of the massive opposition protests that swept the capital Kiev for two weeks after Yanukovych, Ukraine's Prime Minister, was declared the winner of the first runoff vote on Nov. 21.

Yushchenko won a Supreme Court ruling that threw out results of that election because of fraud and ordered a repeat vote Dec. 26.

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[Optimist Prime]

this is fearless leader calling boris badenov. Come in boris.

[PhiPsiRuss]

By Olena Horodetska

KIEV (Reuters) - Rivals in Ukraine's scandal-ridden presidential polls traded barbs in a live television debate on Monday, with each candidate accusing the other of corruption and manipulation ahead of Sunday's decisive rerun vote.

Opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko, whose supporters protested for weeks the result of a Nov. 21 vote that handed victory to Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich, said Ukraine had won freedom with what is now dubbed the Orange Revolution.

Yanukovich, defensive and speaking Russian -- the language preferred in Ukraine's eastern industrial regions -- said the mass protests amounted to little more than an "orange coup," staged to steal an election he won fairly.

He also warned Yushchenko, whose face has become pock-marked by poisoning, that he would never become president of all of Ukraine, only the more nationalist western Ukrainian-speaking half keen to move closer to central Europe.

"You think, Viktor Andreyevich (Yushchenko), that you will win and become president of Ukraine. You are making a huge mistake. You will be president of part of Ukraine," Yanukovich said facing his rival across a stark, dark blue studio. At the height of the political crisis, several eastern regions supporting the prime minister threatened to hold a referendum on stronger autonomy from Kiev, highlighting a historic fault line in the country between east and west.

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[PhiPsiRuss]

KIEV (AFP) - Tens of thousands of supporters of Ukraine's opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko massed in the center of the capital in a fresh show of force to press demands that a repeat presidential election be conducted fairly unlike a discredited poll last month. _

"In the past 17 days, we have changed Ukraine peacefully, beautifully, elegantly and without a single drop of blood being shed," Yushchenko, flanked by family and well-known supporters including Ukraine's world heavyweight boxing champ Vitali Klitschko, said in an address to the crowd.

"We have two roads before us: one of corruption and humiliation ... the other, a wider one, the road of truth and justice. We have already set foot down this road," the opposition leader said before the crowd broke into thunderous chants of "Yu-shchen-ko! Yu-shchen-ko!"

The 50-year-old opposition leader, whose face was disfigured during the election campaign earlier this autumn by what experts have said was a poisoning, vowed to work to unite his country badly split over an earlier election ruled fraudulent and thrown out by the supreme court.

The rest of this article is here: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...fp/ukrainevote

[Optimist Prime]

Have they voted yet?

[PhiPsiRuss]

Originally posted by Optimist Prime
Have they voted yet?

December 26th.

[PhiPsiRuss]

By Olena Horodetska

KIEV (Reuters) - Opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko seeks an overwhelming victory in re-run presidential polls on Sunday to press painful market reforms and end months of political turmoil that have bitterly divided Ukraine.

Hundreds of thousands of his supporters took to the streets after his rival, Moscow-backed prime minister Viktor Yanukovich, was declared winner of the November election. After weeks of protests that shook the economy the Supreme Court annulled the vote, declaring it had been rigged in Yanukovich's favor.

This time, power looks within the grasp of Yushchenko, whose face is disfigured by dioxin poisoning he blames on an assassination bid by authorities rooted in the old Soviet order.

"Voters must choose between the road of poverty and corruption that we know so well and the road of truth, prosperity, justice. Taking that road will change our lives," Yushchenko said on Wednesday.

The rest of this article is here: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...m/ukraine_dc_4

[PhiPsiRuss]

By YURAS KARMANAU, Associated Press Writer

KIEV, Ukraine - Ukraine's Constitutional Court ruled on Saturday that parts of recent legislation restricting the voting rights of home-bound people violate the country's constitution, clouding the presidential rerun vote one day before ballots were to be cast.

The decision by Ukraine's highest court won't delay Sunday's vote but creates a headache for the Central Election Commission, which is required by law to implement the ruling but has less than 24 hours to do so.

"We will fulfill the decision of the Constitutional Court," said commission chief Yaroslav Davydovych. "We don't have another alternative. The vote must be held."

Supporters of opposition presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko pushed for the restrictions on voting at home, saying they are necessary to prevent a repeat of the vote fraud that marred the Nov. 21 presidential runoff.

Ukraine's Supreme Court invalidated the results of November's vote, canceling the victory of Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych and ordering Sunday's new ballot.

The rest of this article is here: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...raine_election

[PhiPsiRuss]

By NATASHA LISOVA, Associated Press Writer

KIEV, Ukraine - Rival candidates Viktor Yushchenko and Viktor Yanukovych faced off Sunday in a repeat election that all sides hoped would resolve Ukraine's fiercely waged presdential contest after fraud wrecked one vote and prompted massive protests that deeply divided the nation. _

The vote is momentous for Ukraine, a nation of 48 million people caught between an eastward-expanding European Union (news - web sites) and an increasingly assertive Russia, its former imperial and Soviet-era master.

At the protest tent camp in Kiev that the opposition has maintained for over a month, hundreds of Yushchenko supporters were confident the vote would bring victory.

"Soon no more of this," said Valeriy Demyanenko, a 55-year-old who came from southern Ukraine to join the tent camp, as he sipped his morning coffee.

The rest of this story is here: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...raine_election

[PhiPsiRuss]

By JUDITH INGRAM, Associated Press Writer

KIEV, Ukraine - Three exit polls projected Ukrainian opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko the winner by a commanding margin over Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych in Sunday's fiercely fought presidential rematch.

A glum-looking Yanukovych told reporters "if we fail, we will form a strong opposition." He did not concede defeat, saying "I am ready to lead the state" and hinted that he would challenge the results in court. The first official results are not expected until Monday morning.

The exit polls tracked an unprecedented third-round presidential election, which was watched by an army of foreign observers stationed at polls to prevent the kind of fraud that sparked weeks of protests in the streets of Kiev, the capital, and sent a flurry of recriminations flying between Russia and the West after last month's court-annulled run-off.

The state-funded Ukrainian Institute of Social Research and Social Monitoring Center showed Yushchenko winning with 58.1 percent of the vote and Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych garnering 38.4 percent. The margin of error was 2 percentage points.

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