Found two interesting articles about this on BBC.

First talks generally about the election and the second talks about the irregularities in the first round. Will the same thing happen in Ukraine as in Belorus not long ago? I mean not clear conditions and lots of talk about cheating.

Link
Link2

Well, it looks like the opposition won regardless of the incidents. Hopefully, Yushchenko will turn Ukraine into a more democratic country.

Well this makes it look like not everything was totally ok.

Dream on Dreamer. [img]tongue.gif[/img]

Right. Maybe I should re-adjust my hopes. Yushchenko might drop the price of Vodka. ;)

Foreign observers accuse Ukrainian government of electoral fraud

The European Union says Sunday's run-off presidential election in Ukraine did not meet democratic standards and has asked Kiev to review the election results. The senior United States observer of the elections, Senator Richard Lugar, has accused the Ukrainian government of rigging the elections in favour of Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich.

With more than 99 percent of the votes counted, the official results give the Russian-leaning prime minister more than 49 percent of the vote, compared to over 46 percent for his pro-Western challenger, Viktor Yushchencko. However exit polls had shown that Mr Yushchencko was in the lead.

Tens of thousands of opposition supporters have taken to the streets of the Ukrainian capital Kiev to claim victory in the presidential election. The opposition candidate has called for a campaign of civil disobedience in protest against what he says is massive electoral fraud by the government. Two cities in western Ukraine, a region dominated by the opposition, have refused to recognise the official results. They say they recognise Mr Yushchencko as the new prime minister.

(rnw.nl)

Don't you just love those former Soviet states ? They are so transparant and open for political changes. :D

Seem like it is starting to get even more chaotic.

Quote from BBC

Kiev city council refused to recognise the results, and urged parliament to follow suit.

Thousands of people also turned onto the streets in the western city of Lviv, where the city council said it would only take orders from Mr Yushchenko.

Three other cities in opposition strongholds in western Ukraine have said they considered the opposition candidate the legal president.

[ 11-22-2004, 04:44 PM: Message edited by: dplax ]

Oh yes.. everybody is shouting.
http://www.euobserver.com/?sid=9&aid=17823

<font color = lightgreen>Why is Colin Powell even saying anything about the Ukrainian situation? If we don't want the world sticking its nose in our voting, then we certainly cannot stick our nose in other countries' voting.

That being said, this is just another example in what I see as the future of all vote-based democratic elections which exploded in Florida 2000: the apparent loser immediately claims fraud and throws the election result process into complete chaos. The result will be that neither side believes the results of the count, the recount, or the re-recount and the cries of conspiracy will echo long past when the election is--or should be--over.

Who will be able to say who the winner really is? Will we ever really know? Not until some better system gets developed.</font>

Isn't it obvious who the real winner is ? The streets are crowded with demonstrating people, and not just in the Ukraine. I can't understand why a man would even want a job like that when it's SO obvious that most people hate him. He has to be one raging maniac with nothing better to do, i can't think of anything else.

Wow. I guess American democracy has taken root in Eastern Europe then. Sure sounds familiar.

Yep. Which is why, if America want to be the worlds finest democracy they need to be SQUEAKY clean.

So, out of interest, how many Americans have responded to this thread? How many are even aware there is an election in the Ukraine? How many even know where it is?

Yeah, I've got a bee in my bonnet. ;) :D

Update:

Kiev: parliament says poll invalid

Ukraine's parliament has ruled that last week's presidential election was invalid. The resolution passed by a large majority, as did a vote of no confidence in the electoral commission which declared Prime Minsiter Viktor Yanukovich the winner. The vote has no official consequences, since parliament does not have the authority to nullify the election. It does, however, carry significant political weight.

Opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko has not accepted the outcome and has called for a new election within two weeks. Dutch Foreign Minister Bernard Bot said today that the European Union supports a new election, preferably before the end of the year.

Opposition leaders as well as foreign observers reported widespread irregularities during Sunday's polling. Thousands of demonstrators have gathered outside the parliamentary building to voice their support for Mr Yushchenko. There is also a large demonstration in the capital in support of Mr Yanukovich.

(rnw.nl)

LOL Not to put too fine a point on it, but well done Azred ;)

And given that about 30 million Americans regularly watch various evening news programs, and since this is the top story on all of them for the past few days, probably about 20 million (short attention span) [img]smile.gif[/img]

[ 11-27-2004, 04:18 PM: Message edited by: Lucern ]

Is the country going to split?

EDIT: and here is an interesting article about the whole lodging and food structure which has built itself up around the demonstrators.

[ 11-28-2004, 05:36 PM: Message edited by: dplax ]

Wow, the situation's gone *that* bad? I wonder how this'll end.


Not Estonia though. We did have a precipitous change of leadership from democracy to dictatorship in 1934 when we got ourselves an evil president, but the people won't repeat the same mistake. :D Must be the Finnish and Scandinavian influence calming us down. :D

</font>[/QUOTE][img]graemlins/biglaugh.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/biglaugh.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/biglaugh.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/biglaugh.gif[/img]

It seems that the outgoing president Leonid Kuchma is proposing new elections as the solution to the crisis.

link

Crikey, the Iron Lady warns of a new Iron Curtain:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4052609.stm

Yanukovych (the contested winner) asks for the poll results to be annuled.

Link

The Supreme Court has annuled the elections and a new second round has to be held before december 26.

link

edited to fix url...

[ 12-03-2004, 12:56 PM: Message edited by: dplax ]

The two sides have agreed on changing election law and several other points: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4073691.stm