What happened to the "orange revolution" in Russia?

orange revolution (Ukrainian: помаранчевареволц? я, also translated as Chestnut Flower Revolution) refers to a series of protests and political events that occurred in Ukraine from 24 to 25 due to serious corruption, influence on voters and direct election fraud during the 24 Ukrainian presidential election.

In the Ukrainian presidential election on October 31, 24, because no player reached the 5% majority required by law, a re-election was held on November 21 of the same year between viktor yushchenko and Viktor Yanukovych, the two players who got the most votes. However, many observers at home and abroad in Ukraine reported that the official victory of Yanukovych was caused by fraud, which was also widely felt by the public. This election fraud led to this protest.

In Yushchenko's election campaign, orange was used as its representative color, so this campaign used orange as the protest color. The symbol of this movement is the orange ribbon and a book with так! Ющенко! ("Yes! Yushchenko! " ) flag. After the election results were announced, millions of protesters gathered in the center of Kiev, the capital of Ukraine. Yushchenko's supporters set up a tent city that was constantly occupied for 24 hours, and a series of protests, sit-ins and general strikes organized by the opposition broke out throughout Ukraine.

Due to these protest movements, the Supreme Court of Ukraine declared the results of this re-election invalid and stipulated that the re-election should be repeated on December 26th of the same year. This second re-election was severely observed. Ukrainian domestic and international observers have confirmed that there is basically no problem in this second re-election. Yushchenko won the re-election with a clear result of 52%. Yanukovych received 44%. On January 23rd, 25, Yushchenko took office, which marked the final victory of the Orange Revolution.

election fraud

the orange ribbon is the symbol of the orange revolution in Ukraine. Ribbons are often used to represent nonviolent protests against the re-election between Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych and opposition player viktor yushchenko, and the protests began the day after. Officially, Yanukovych leads Yushchenko by 3%, while the results of post-voting polls prove that Yushchenko should lead by 11%. The difference between the two results is too great. Yanukovych's supporters defined this difference as a good relationship between Yushchenko and the media, while Yushchenko's supporters announced many election fraud incidents that were found by local and foreign observers in favor of Yanukovych. Because there were accusations of fraud in the first vote (but not as serious as in the re-election), the condemnation of fraud has received great attention. The scale of fraud in the first vote was not very clear, and it was recognized by all parties that if there was fraud at that time, the scale did not reach the point of affecting the final result.

[ Editor] Protest

Yushchenko publicly appealed to the public to protest after accusations of election fraud appeared on the evening of election day. From November 22nd, large-scale protests broke out in various cities in Ukraine, the largest of which was in Independence Square in Kiev, the capital, with an estimated 5, people attending [1]. On November 23, protesters marched peacefully to the Ukrainian parliament, many of them wearing orange clothes or carrying orange flags.

The municipal governments of Kiev, Lviv and some other cities symbolically announced that they would not accept the official results, and this symbolic announcement won wide support from their citizens. Yushchenko took the presidential oath symbolically. When Yushchenko took the oath in the parliament, only his supporters were present, and half of the hall was empty. Although it had no legal effect, it showed Yushchenko's determination not to accept the election result caused by this fraud. Opponents of Yushchenko accused Yushchenko of breaking the law. Some moderate Yushchenko supporters are ambiguous about this move. Some observers think that this symbolic oath may benefit Yushchenko if the incident develops more sharply. In this case, Yushchenko's oath may be used to show that he has more legal rights to command the army and police organizations than Yanukovych who tried to gain the presidency by fraudulent means.

At the same time, in Yanukovich's main stronghold, local officials in the east and south of Ukraine Land Company started a series of actions, threatening that if Yanukovich's victory was not accepted, they would split from Ukraine or at least enter a federal state with other parts of the country, and the areas they managed would have a special constitution. Demonstrations in support of Yanukovych were widespread in eastern Ukraine, and some Yanukovych supporters also arrived in Kiev. But there are far fewer demonstrators supporting Yanukovych in Kiev than those supporting Yushchenko. Some estimates say that millions of people took to the streets in Kiev on some days, regardless of the cold weather [2].

[ Editor] Yushchenko

Yushchenko negotiated with outgoing President Leonid Kuchma to solve the problem peacefully, but this negotiation broke down on November 24th. The Central Election Commission officially declared Yanukovych the winner, but the Commission itself was accused of taking part in tampering with the election results, suppressing the local election results data they obtained and using an illegal computer server to tamper with the results. The day after the official results were announced, Yushchenko spoke to his supporters, asking them to start large-scale protests, general strikes, sit-ins, etc., undermining the government's work and forcing the government to admit its failure:

Only by showing the people's wishes can this conflict be resolved, so the National Salvation Committee announced a nationwide political strike.

On December 1st, the Ukrainian Parliament issued a resolution strongly condemning separatist and federalist actions and voting no confidence in the Ukrainian Cabinet. Ukrainian Prime Minister Yanukovych did not recognize this vote. According to the Ukrainian constitutional parliament, distrust of the government means that the government should resign, but if Prime Minister Yanukovych and President Kuchma do not cooperate, the parliament has no means to force the government to resign.

On December 3rd, the Supreme Court of Ukraine finally broke through this political deadlock. The Supreme Court decided that the election result could not be decided because of the serious fraud. It declared the official election result invalid and ordered the re-election on December 26th. Yushchenko's supporters thought the decision was a victory for them, and Yanukovych's supporters had hoped that if the election was invalidated, the whole election would be repeated, not just re-elected. On December 8th, Parliament amended the law to provide a legal peripheral structure and a new government system for this election. Yushchenko easily won the re-election and was officially declared the winner on December 28th.

[ Editor] The role of Ukrainian intelligence and security organs

According to a report by The New York Times, the Ukrainian security organs played a very unusual role in the Orange Revolution. The intelligence and security organs of Ukraine were formerly KGB of the former Soviet Union, but they supported the opposition in this revolution. According to The New York Times, on November 28th, the Ukrainian Minister of the Interior mobilized more than 1, police officers to suppress the demonstrations in Kiev's Independence Square. However, the Ukrainian security organs informed the opposition leaders in advance. The leaders of the intelligence agencies of the Ukrainian army called everywhere and asked them to prevent bloodshed. The heads of the security organs and the military anti-espionage organs both admitted to calling the Minister of the Interior personally and asking him to withdraw the repressive troops. Finally, the Ministry of the Interior retreated and prevented a bloodshed.

It is reported in The New York Times that these officials of security and intelligence agencies not only take these measures to prevent bloodshed, but also they are unwilling to serve Yanukovych as president. One of the reasons is that Yanukovych was sentenced for robbery and martial arts when he was young. In addition, there have always been rumors about the connection between Yanukovych and corrupt businessmen, and Yanukovych may indeed have succeeded by cheating in the election if he was elected. Disagreement between the head of Ukraine's security agencies, Smeshk, and Yanukovych may also have played a role. Obviously, there are many officers supporting Yushchenko in the security agencies. Yushchenko's people obtained important evidence of fraud that government officials illegally eavesdropped on Yushchenko's election advisory group and discussed how to deal with Yushchenko's records. It is unlikely that these proofs were not provided by security agencies.

[ Editor] The intervention of foreign forces

Many analysts believe that the success of the Orange Revolution was based on the strategy first developed in the process of overthrowing Slobodan Milosevic in Serbia, and this strategy was later won again in the Rose Revolution in Georgia. Although these movements are spontaneous, they are all achieved on the basis of extensive grass-roots activities and opposition alliances. Every time, after the election, the government tried to maintain its power through election fraud, and the demonstrations broke out successfully.

Students' activists have played a very important role in these sports. One of the most famous is the resistance organization organized by young people who support Vojislav costou Nica in Serbia. A similar organization in Georgia is called Kmara. A similar organization in Belarus, the Bison Movement, failed. A similar organization in Ukraine is called Pora. The chairman of the National Defense and Security Committee of Georgia's parliament and other members of the "Enough" movement have provided technical advice to Ukrainian opposition leaders on non-violent struggle.

Many western governments and non-governmental organizations provided funds for these movements and trained them in the tactics of organizing non-violent resistance. According to the Guardian, these institutions include the U.S. Foreign Office, the U.S. Agency for International Development, the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, the International Peace Association, the NGO Freedom House and the Open Society Institute of billionaire george soros. Since 1988, the National Foundation for Democracy funded by the federal government of the United States has supported non-governmental democratic construction activities in Ukraine [3]. Jean Sharp's article on non-violent struggle is the strategic basis of these student movements.

On the other hand, Russia directly and strongly supported Yanukovych in this election. The scope of these support is still controversial, but some facts are beyond reproach, such as Russian President Vladimir Putin meeting Kuchma and Yanukovych many times before and during the election. Putin congratulated Yanukovych many times when the official results were published and questioned, which brought great embarrassment to Putin and Yanukovych later. During the election, the Russian official media reported Yanukovych very positively, and Yanukovych had many Russian advisers close to the Kremlin. Many observers agree that Yanukovych has received great support from Russia's state-controlled economic system. Other unsubstantiated accusations include Russia's involvement in the Yushchenko poisoning incident.

Due to the long-term tension between Warsaw and the Kremlin, Poland openly and officially supports the democratization movement in Ukraine and Ukraine's accession to the European Union.