From what I understand, Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych has been declared winner of the presidential election, but the opposition leader, Viktor Yushchenko, is disputing the result and insists it was rigged. Many signs of possible vote fraud have been cited by Western election observers:[ul]
[li]Abuse of state resources and “overt media bias” in favour of Mr Yanukovych [/li][li]State workers pressured to give absentee voting certificate to their superiors [/li][li]Intimidation reported at some polling stations [/li][li]Suspiciously high turnout in two pro-government regions [/li][/ul]
Yushchenko has now called for a general strike. Hundreds of thousands of his supporters have massed in Kiev (see this photo), and are showing no signs of leaving voluntarily.
Doesn’t seem like we’ll be hearing a gracious concession speech from either candidate anytime soon.
In fact, Yushchenko went so far as to actually have himself sworn in as president! It almost reminds me of the Great Schism. IIRC, Ukraine has nukes. Everybody duck and cover! :eek:
I swear BrainGlutton’s thread in GD didn’t show up when I did a search for “Ukrain*”–even though his thread beats mine by over an hour. Maybe I searched for “Ukraine” instead of doing a truncated search…
Oh, well.
Anyway, I hope Yanukovych is sincere in his recent comment:
Hopefully, violence will be avoided, any evidence of electoral fraud will be thoroughly investigated, and Russia will keep its nose out of this mess.
