'Orange Revolution' still underway

Posted by Mark Silva at 10:24 am CST

The celebrated “Orange Revolution’’ of Ukraine still is a work in progress, according to Viktor Yanukovych, only recently seated as prime minister following a volatile series of marred elections in 2004 in an evolving nation, the largest within Europe, which gained its independence just 15 years ago.

“A democratic transformation is taking place in Ukraine,’’ Yanukovych explained assuredly and quietly over breakfast this morning with several reporters in a downtown Washington hotel. “For the first time since independence, we now have the chance to establish global reforms.’’

This is the message that Yanukovych is carrying throughout Washington, where he met on Monday separately with Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley. The prime minister faces more meetings today with the president of the World Bank and business people and the Democratic and Republican leaders of the Senate.

He also plans a stop at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum – one million Ukrainian Jews died during Nazi occupation.

Since Ukraine gained independence from the Soviet Union in August 1991, it has built a constitutional government and struggled to achieve economic independence from the Russians. The nation of 47 million, the largest with borders wholly within Europe, held its first free elections in '91 and adopted a democratic constitution in 1996 – shifting some powers from the president to the prime minister. Yet achievement of freedom of speech and also the press in Ukraine has come far more slowly.

The presidential election of October 2004, in particular, was marred by government intimidation and abuses, outside and internal monitors agreed. The two leading candidates, Yanukovych and Viktor Yushchenko, each won about 40 percent of the vote and headed into a runoff. Then the November runoff was marred with ballot fraud, resulting in more turmoil.

Hundreds of thousands of people filled the streets of Kiev to protest the fraud and express support for Yushchenko, the opposition leader. Their peaceful protest became known as the "Orange Revolution."

After the national election commission delcared Yanukovych the winner, the U.S. and Europeans rejected the outcome. Ukraine’s parliament and Supreme Court also balked at the results and demanded another election with new rules. With revised election laws, another election was conducted in December 2004, and the Supreme Court ruled in early 2005 that Yuschenko had won with 52 percent of the vote.

Yushchenko was inaugurated as president on Jan. 23, 2005.

Then, with its parliamentary elections in March 2006, Ukraine won international acclaim for holding the freest and fairest vote in its history. But with no party holding a parliamentary majority, it took another four months for a coalition to settle upon Yanukovych as its prime minster. He was seated in August.

Yanukovych came to Washington to assure leaders and opinion-makers here of his government’s continuing commitment to democratic reforms. “The events that took place in 2004 were caused by the policies that took place throughout independence,’’ he said through an interpreter over breakfast with some reporters this morning. It was an “authoritarian system of governance and administration,’’ he said.

“Freedom of speech was at a very low level,’’ he said quietly, at a round breakfast table in a brightly sunlighted and chandeliered corner room of the Willard Intercontinental Hotel, blocks from the White House on a chilly winter morning. “You could feel a lot of dissatisfaction in society because of injustice. People were dreaming of a different way of life. People wanted to be free.

“The peak of the desire for people to want things to be better coincided with the presidential election of 2004,’’ Yanukovych said. “The most important thing is that the society has become more open, more free. And this is the greatest achievement of the Orange Revolution.

“It still goes on,’’ he said. “It has not ended.’’

In the aftermath of this year’s elections, Yanukovych said, the challenge for him and President Yushchenko is to “reunite the society, “so that schism that took place after the election of 2004… that crack, that split in the society, could be healed over,’’ he said, pausing, and then adding: “Unfortunately, the problem is still there, and it is painful.’’

Moving forward, the U.S. and European nations have held out hope that Ukraine will assume a stronger stance in the region – with President Bush suggesting that Ukraine could be considered for entry to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, a seat that other formerly Soviet-occupied nations have won.

Yet Yanukovych suggests that the level of public support in his nation for Ukraine joining NATO stands at about 20 percent, and “when therre is such a low level of support in the population, it is clear there is a problem.’’ What’s required, he said, is an “information campaign’’ at home “to raise awareness in the population of what NATO is.’’ Ukraine, he said, is committed to the goals that NATO holds: combatting terrorism, preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. “The population of Ukraine has a good understanding of the necessity to carry out all these measures.’’

NATO is considering inviting new members in 2008. But it’s “not important,’’ the prime minister suggested, whether Ukraine is considered in ’08, ’09 or ’11, for that matter.

In the meantime, he said, Ukraine must embrace fully the democratic reforms that NATO members have adopted. “It much depends on how successful the reforms are and if the government is successful in implementing reforms,’’ he said. “The most important thing is to have a stable and predictable policy.’’