Orange Revolution in Ukraine
The Orange Revolution was a mass protest in Ukraine against a rigged presidential election, running from late November 2004 to January 2005 and ending with the result overturned. The run-off on 21 November pitted Viktor Yushchenko, a former central banker and prime minister running on European integration and against corruption, against Viktor Yanukovych, the prime minister, backed by the outgoing president Leonid Kuchma and openly by Vladimir Putin, who visited twice. Official results gave Yanukovych a narrow win. Exit polls gave Yushchenko a clear lead, and observers documented multiple voting, absentee ballot abuse and implausible turnout in the Donbas. Yushchenko had been poisoned with dioxin in September, which disfigured his face for the rest of the campaign and was never prosecuted. Hundreds of thousands of people occupied the Maidan in Kyiv in freezing weather for weeks, in tents, wearing orange. The protest was disciplined and non-violent, drew on techniques used in Serbia and Georgia, and held when riot police were reportedly ordered to clear it. The Supreme Court annulled the run-off on 3 December and ordered a fresh one. Yushchenko won it on 26 December with 52 per cent, and the transfer of power took place. His presidency then disappointed almost everyone. He quarrelled bitterly with his ally Yulia Tymoshenko, reform stalled, and he polled 5 per cent in 2010, when Yanukovych was elected legitimately. The unfinished business returned to the same square in 2013. The revolution established that Ukrainian elections could not simply be dictated, which was its lasting achievement. It also hardened Moscow's conviction that street protests in the region were Western-engineered, a reading that shaped Russian policy for the next twenty years. Constitutional changes agreed as part of the settlement weakened the presidency and left the country with a decade of institutional deadlock.
- Year: 2004 CE
- Category: Political
