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Orange Revolution

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Orange-clad supporters of Viktor Yushchenko gather in Independence Square in Kiev.

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 ribbon, a symbol of the Ukrainian Orange Revolution. Ribbons are common symbols of non-violent protest.
Orange ribbon, a symbol of the Ukrainian Orange Revolution. Ribbons are common symbols of non-violent protest.

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 "Tak! Ющенко!" ("Yes! Yushchenko!") slogan.

While millions of Ukrainians demonstrated daily in Kiev — 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.

Election fraud

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.

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.

File:Ukraineworkersb041126.jpg
Blue-clad miners rally in support of Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych in Kiev

At 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.

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 falcification 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.

Alleged involvement of outside forces

File:Ukraine Putin.jpg
"Glory to Great Stalin Putin", a Ukrainian poster in the time of the "Orange Revolution", showing president of Russia Vladimir Putin dressed in a NKVD uniform.

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.

See also

Books

  • Ukraine's Orange Revolution by Andrew Wilson, Yale University Press (novembre 2005), 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 (janvier 2006), 180 pages, ISBN 0870032216

Sources

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