POLITICS: Ukranian Presidential Elections Deadlocked With Allegations of Fraud

After the first round of voting, the current and former Prime Ministers of the Ukraine are deadlocked in the race for Presidential office. The election will be decided on the second ballot. Both sides claimed the lead in the first round of balloting while levelling allegations of wide spread election fraud. International election observers have been working in the Ukraine for a number of months and ther indepedent polling has put the challenger Viktor Yushchenko ahead of the current Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych.



The current Prime Minister Voctor Yanukovych has the strong support of the government and powerful Ukranian interests. His candidacy is associated with a strong pro Russian policy and a neo-Soviet approach to policy. By contrast, the international community regards Yushchenko as a supporter of the European union and a proponent of the integration of the Ukraine in European politics.

Interestingly, international observers efforts to promote clean election practices have met with resistance in some quarters and cynical references to the 2000 US Presidental election.

Related News Links:
news.scotsman.com
www.cbc.ca
news.xinhuanet.com
news.independent.co.uk



[edit on 31-10-2004 by Banshee]

My friend's father's friend (I know that sounds fake) sent this email out from the Ukraine... I've omitted his name for obvious reasons. It's interesting, if not alarming.
_______________________________
Forwarded with permission


Kiev, October 24 2004

Dear friends,

I'm writing you this from the country, now haunted with the gory prospect of
being forcefully turned, in a week, into one of the most terrible
thugocratic dictatorships that Europe has witnessed since Hitler and Stalin.
You may find this an exaggeration, yet it's not. It's usually so human, to
refuse to believe the worst - until it's too late. Besides, from my recent
conversations with my friends and journalists from EU, I know how little
information can
be found in the European media on the situation in Ukraine - and, as a
result, how little understanding there is of what is really at stake here
this fall.


Last night the first blood was spilled on the Kiev pavement.
The autocratic post-Soviet regime, which since the late 1990s has been
smothering the budding Ukrainian democracy, and is by now wholeheartedly
hated by the vast majority of population (from 67% to 85%, according to the
polls!), has given us its final proof, that there'll be NO - however heavily
falsified - "free elections" on October, 31. There'll be a WAR - an open
war, launched against the
people of Ukraine by the handful of gangsters now at power, whose only goal
is to stay at power after the 31st - at ANY price.


Until last night they've been using the "cold-war" methods (to skip the case
of an attempted poisoning of the oppositional candidate, Victor Yushchenko,
whose chances to win the elections in an honest game are undeniable).
There's been a disgusting and overwhelming
campaign of lies in the media (most of them, with very few
exceptions, controlled by the power), there've been all the dirty, illegal
tricks used (payments, threats, repressions etc.), as well as cheating with
the voting lists (with, say, tens of thousands of the dead included on them,
etc). Nothing of these, though, proved efficient enough to guarantee next
Sunday the smooth and peaceful
victory to the "candidate of the power" - the present-day Prime Minister
(appointed by the president), a former (?) criminal, back in his youth twice
convicted for robbery (no kidding!).


Yesterday, the grand "orange" manifestation (orange being the colour of the
oppositional candidate) of some 150000-200000 people filled the square in
front of the Central Election Committee, under the slogan "For honest and
transparent elections". It's been a warm, tranquil sunny day (do you know
how beautiful is Kiev in the fall?),
and the 3-million city was all celebration - of joy, and hope, and
solidarity. It's been a long time since I've seen so many happy, smiling
faces in the streets - in fact, since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Yet
then, in 1991, as the past 13 years have proved, our celebration was
definitely premature. With no change of the political elite, with just very
small burgeons of civil society, with - well, why don't I put it plainly -
no REAL revolution, Ukraine, after a while, started sliding back into the
dark shadow of Sovietization. It's only now, that the dragon of Soviet
totalitarianism - in the meantime considerably shrunken, losing one part of
his body after another (Eastern Europe - the Baltics - then,
last fall, Georgia...), all rotten up to the marrow of his bones (its true -
criminal - skeleton now fully exposed!) - is REALLY agonizing. And the
convulsions of the dragon could be terrible - isn't the case of Russia
conspicuous enough?


Vladimir Putin, who has so quickly turned his country back into a
concentration camp, fully browbeaten with the fear of terrorism, now serves
as the major support for the Ukrainian thugs. Small wonder, as criminals and
the KGB officers used to belong together since good old Gulag times. The
whole presidential campaign of our "candidate of the power", Victor
Yanukovich, is a brainchild of Moscow professionals. Politically and
intellectually, Kiev now more and more looks like the city under Russian
occupation.And what exactly have they plotted to ensure "the succession of
power" in Ukraine, has become visible last night.


About 23.00, after the singing "orange" crowd in front of the
Central Election Committee dispersed, and only some 150 people - among them
women, and senior citizens - stayed to wait for the results of the session
(which was held inside) to be announced (on the agenda was an attempt to
falsify some 2 million voices, due to the machinations with the voting
lists!) - the dragon has bared his teeth for the first time. Some 50
black-leathered men appeared out
of the darkness, and attacked people, who were waiting on the park benches,
with clubs and knives. There was no police around (!), but three of the
attackers - when the parlamentarians and the bodyguards ran out of the
building - were caught and handicuffed. According to
their IDs, they all appeared to be disguised policemen - of the specially
trained "killers' detachments".

Yes, there've been rumours circulating before - of some "special
detachments" arriving from all over the country and concentrating around the
city. Of some strange, and highly suspicious manoeuvres noted by the
city-dwellers in some areas. Now, next morning after the "night of the long
knives" (as a result of which, 11 peaceful demonstrators were taken to the
hospital, some of them seriously wounded), there's no doubt left: the war
has been announced. The gangsters at power aren't going to leave in any
case. They are going to fight - most probably, after the voting-booths will
be closed.


Could any, however "specially trained", groups of murderers REALLY work
against hundreds of thousands of people? (For people ARE going to go into
the streets on the election night, and Ukrainian internet is now boiling
with the discussions on how and where to meet, how to
protect oneself against the attacks, etc.). Well, maybe they couldn't. And
Ukrainian army will hardly agree to turn its guns against its own people,
either. But on October, 28 - three days before the elections - there'll be a
military parade (!) in Kiev (nothing like this was ever held before on this
date!). And Russian president Vladimir Putin is coming to Kiev - allegedly,
to take part in the parade (?). And to stay in Kiev for 5 (?) days more.
Again, there're rumours - oh, these rumours! - that he'll be bodygarded by
some bayonets. More precisely - with two divisions being particularly famous
of their operations in the Caucases...


Maybe Ukraine has only one week left. One last week of the electrifying
autumn of free political discussions in the cafes and clubs, of gatherings,
manifestations, and - well, of hope. For, dspite everything, there's an
extremely strong, and growing hope, I even daresay, an upsurging belief,
that the Ukrainian part of the dragon will be killed next Sunday with the
free will of the people. Today the anchorman on the last Ukrainian free TV
channel yet
unclosed (Channel 5) was smiling the same way people were yesterday in the
streets. (For quite a while persecuted, now sued, Channel 5 is under the
threat of being closed tomorrow night - but the anchorman was smiling like a
winner.) Now covering no more than 30%
of the country's territory, Channel 5 was the only one which gave a full
report on the events of the last night. Characteristically, none of the
beaten witnesses sounded "victimized" - they all talked indignantly, but
righteously: that is, like people aware of their rights, and ready to
protect them.


It's a totally irrational, yet overwhelming feeling: that "we", the people,
are stronger than "them", the corrupted power. And that it's "them", not
"us", who is scared.


On the night of the elections I'll be in the streets, too. I don't know what
is going to happen there. That is, what forces will be turned against us,
and what will be the final result. Yet, even if the worst happens, and the
Putin's bayonets help to turn my country, for God-knows-how-long, into a
criminal-presided reservation of the degraded Stalinist type, we'll be in
the streets - if only to be able to say, that THIS IS NOT OUR CHOICE.


Knowing how easily (and, more than once, eagerly!) does Western press buy
the "made-in-Russia" political myths on the current Ukrainian situation (on
Ukraine being allegedly "split" into East and West, "pro-Russian" and
"pro-Western", Russian-speaking and Ukrainian-speaking parts, each of them
allegedly delegating its own candidate for the presidency), I just wanted to
let you know how
the things look and feel here in the reality. By spreading the truth
further, you'll make your own contribution into killing the dragon. For, as
we all know from this old guy Orwell (WHO on earth has ever been so careless
to have claimed him outdated?) - what the dragon needs most badly for its
survival, is precisely the fake, artificially constructed mental picture.
And - needless to say that
- the agony of the dragon should by no means be lightheartedly taken as a
local process only...

It's not a farewell letter - it's a letter of hope.

Please keep your fingers for us this week!

With warmest regards,

****** ********



----- End forwarded message -----

In the Ukraine the votes were casted into boxes where they remained visible. They were counted by repersentatives of each party before being transported.

Now compare it with this :

Halloween 2004 - last hours before almost all Americans accept to carry the mark
www.abovetopsecret.com...