POLITICS: Ukranian Presidential Election Declared Invalid

After weeks of dispute, the Ukranian Supreme Court today declared the country's Presidential election invalid. Government backed Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich appeared to win the election, however rampant vote tampering by officials has come to light since the results were announced. An estimated one million votes were added to Yanukovich's tally in one flagrant instance of tampering. A new vote will take place under close scrutiny.



The ruling brought cheers and celebration from the protesters who have staged constant demonstrations at the capital for nearly two weeks.

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Related AboveTopSecret.com Discussion Threads:
POLITICS: Ukranian Presidential Elections Deadlocked With Allegations of Fraud
POLITICS: Powell: U.S. Rejects Ukraine Vote Results
NEWS: Ukraine on the brink of Civil War

[edit on 21-12-2004 by Banshee]

I am so proud of the Ukrainian people they showed to the world that the citizens of a nation still hold the power as how the government should conduct business as in elections.

Good for them at least somewhere in this world people still hold the power.



[edit on 3-12-2004 by marg6043]

Shouldn't yanukovich be arrested and investigated and thrown out of the election for the vote fraud? I agree that, at this point, one can' t necessarily say it was him coordinated, but obviously he's a huge suspect in this. Shouldn't he be thrown out of the election, heck maybe have the election postponed until he is investigated and cleared? What happens if he 'wins' again?

Granted the Ukrainians have passed the first hurdle in getting the Courts to declare the election invalid. But what is to prevent the same fraud to be perpetrated again? From an article posted by Fred a few days ago:

KIEV, Ukraine - Pens filled with disappearing ink. Hospital patients forced to vote in exchange for treatment. Students instructed to show their ballots to professors. These are just some of the tricks used to skew Ukraine's disputed presidential election, observers say.

This is say nothing of the thousands of votes that came in by absentee ballot or votes that were "lost."

To reduce the potential for fraud it seems that people need to show up in person. If you want to vote, if you want to make a difference - get off your butt and show up at your polling place. Otherwise the Ukrainians are setting themselves up for another election fiasco.

B.

Was there ever a difinitive answer as to what happened to his face beyond speculation?

�Update on Ukrainian situation:

KIEV, Ukraine (Reuters) - Ukraine's outgoing leader denied on Tuesday he had agreed on concessions with his opponents to end a crisis that has plunged the country into turmoil and driven a wedge between Russia and the West.Russia and the United States clashed over their efforts to win influence in Ukraine, with Moscow warning the West against interfering in former Soviet states -- a region it considers to be its backyard. Washington rejected the charges.
In the latest setback for international mediation efforts to reconcile an opposition that has mobilized hundreds of thousands of protesters and President Leonid Kuchma, the veteran leader reversed his stance on concessions within a matter of hours.
Last month's election, rigged by the authorities to hand power to Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich, pushed the country into two weeks of political and economic chaos. The Supreme Court backed opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko's charges that the poll was tainted by fraud and set a re-run for Dec. 26.

Yahoo! news

Yushchenko is not satisfied with any attempt to accomplish peace in Ukraine so far. He feels, he has power - thousands of protesting people in Kiev are backing him up. Smart politician would stop arguing already and started to calm the situation down. This might go way out of his hand - angry crowd is difficult to handle. Does he realize that he is gambling not only with his status, but with entire fragile situation?

[edit on 7-12-2004 by jazzgul]

Originally posted by Nygdan
Shouldn't yanukovich be arrested and investigated and thrown out of the election for the vote fraud? I agree that, at this point, one can' t necessarily say it was him coordinated, but obviously he's a huge suspect in this. Shouldn't he be thrown out of the election, heck maybe have the election postponed until he is investigated and cleared? What happens if he 'wins' again?

That's a very good point. If there is substantial evidence of fraud, there may be a link to Yanukovich (although not necessarily).

Likewise, it's amazing that Mrs.Timoshenko is running the show, while she herself is under investigation for money laundering, bribery, embezzlement etc. Do people care at all?

I think there won't be any real winner in this election. Both sides are equally dishonest.

Ukraine had like a stunning 10 percent economic growth last year (many of it comes from the old soviet warfactories now selling advanced tech to the rest of the world) , big problem is everybody wants a piece of that action and corruption at all levels and crossing party bounderies is more rule than exception.

So, appart from the politcal question if ukraine should be oriented towards the west or Russia, I think its entirely possible that poisoning could just be part of the economic piefight.



[edit on 8-12-2004 by Countermeasures]