OneWorld.net, UK
Jan 21 2005
Ukraine completes its Georgian revolution
Misha Kechakmadze
21 January 2005
November 2003, Tbilisi, Georgia
Tens of thousands of people carrying the five cross flags and
shouting “resign!, resign!” rallied on Freedom Square in downtown
Tbilisi for three weeks. They demonstrated against the official
results of the rigged parliamentary election – the last, desperate
attempt of the widely unpopular regime of Eduard Shevardnadze to stay
in power. These demonstrations were led by the opposition leader
Mikheil Saakashvili who, backed by the results of independent exit
polls, claimed that his party, the United National Movement, won the
elections. The culmination of these opposition protests came on
November 23, St. Georgia’s Day. 100,000 protesters with red roses in
their hands seized the parliament building and state chancellery,
forcing Shevardnadze to step down and paving the way for the
government of Mikheil Saakashvili, who on January 4, 2004, was
overwhelmingly elected as the President of Georgia with a mandate to
implement long-needed social-economical reforms. The new era in
Georgia started.
this revolution was an exception down to the particularities of the
situation in Georgia
After the Rose Revolution in Georgia, many analysts covering
political processes in the post-soviet region argued that this
revolution was an exception down to the particularities of the
situation in Georgia, and not illustratative of the general picture
in the post-soviet countries. As evidence, they would mention
Armenia, Belarus and Azerbaijan, where the authorities managed to
crack down opposition demonstrations. But in just one year this
notion proved to be totally wrong when the fire of revolution began
to flare in Ukraine.
November-December 2004, Kiev, Ukraine
Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators, waving orange flags, the
color of the opposition leader Yushchenko’s campaign coalition, and
shouting “Yushchenko is our President”, jammed the Independence
Square in downtown Kiev for one month. The protests began as the
outcry of public anger against the suspect official results of the
second round of voting in the presidential contest between Prime
Minister Viktor Yanukovych and Viktor Yushchenko. The contest has
already been marred by the appalling disfigurement of Yushchenko with
the deadly poison dioxin – an assassination attempt that he hardly
survived.
The results announced by the Central Election Commission of Ukraine
on November 22 claimed that the presidential election was won by the
Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych. However, citing the results of the
independent exit polls that gave him an 11% lead over his opponent,
Yushchenko called his supporters to proclaim his victory. Soon his
case was backed by international observers who denounced the election
as rigged. Thousands of people travelled to the capital from across
Ukraine, even though their journeys were disrupted by government
closures of major roads and airports. Some of the demonstrators set
up tents in Kiev’s Independence Square. Large Georgians were highly
visible in these demonstrations in Kiev
demonstrations were held in many cities elsewhere in Ukraine. It is
worth mentioning that Georgians were highly visible in these
demonstrations in Kiev and the flag of Georgia has been among those
on display in the city’s Independence Square, while Yushchenko
himself held up a rose in an apparent reference to the Rose
Revolution.
Meanwhile the governors of Eastern and Southern regions of Ukraine,
which mostly supported Yanukovych, suggested turning the country into
a federation with a new autonomous republic of “Southern-Eastern
Ukraine” with its capital in Kharkiv. With thousands of supporters of
the two opposing candidates in Kiev, separatists’ movement in some
regions of Ukraine, and Russia’s rude intervention into the internal
affairs of a neighboring state, Ukraine approached the point where
its very existence came into question. Everybody was fraught with
uncertainty – what will come next?
Fortunately for Ukraine, common sense won over insanity. Mediated by
high-level foreign politicians from Europe, direct talks began
between Yanukovych and Yushchenko. Though these direct talks did not
bring a major breakthrough, they contributed to defusing the
situation. In the meantime, major developments took place in the
legal field when on December 3 the Ukrainian Supreme Court reached
the decision to annul the results and order a repeat of the second
round. Viktor Yushenko and Viktor Yanukovych again faced each other
in the presidential elections.
The second vote was re-run on December 26. International observers,
deployed in thousands for this round, reported a much fairer vote,
and Viktor Yushchenko won with about 52% of the vote, to Yanukovych’s
44%. Yushchenko was finally declared the winner on January 10, 2005
after the failure of a legal action brought by Yanukovych. The new
era in Ukraine started.
These dramatic processes in Ukraine which were dubbed “the Orange
people who care for freedom and democracy cannot be intimidated by
brutal force, oppression, threats and lies
Revolution” represented one of the finest moments of Ukrainian
history. Ukraine once again proved that it is an integral part of the
democratic world. Both Ukrainians and Georgians showed to the world
that people who care for freedom and democracy cannot be intimidated
by brutal force, oppression, threats and lies when they defend their
fundamental right – to vote in fair and democratic elections.
Political analysts no longer argue about the exclusiveness of
revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine. They simply ask one question –
where is next?