Orange Revolution

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Orange Revolution ribbon worn by protesters in 2004
Street scene in Kiev in November 2004
Demonstration in Kiev on November 22, 2004
Orange-clad demonstrators in Kiev
A young woman hands flowers to police officers who cordon off a demonstration in Kiev
Protests in November 2004 in Kiev

The Orange Revolution (sometimes called the Chestnut Revolution because of the chestnut trees in Kiev ) was a series of protests, demonstrations and a planned general strike in Ukraine . It was triggered by the Ukrainian presidential elections in 2004 , in which both sides reported fraudulent elections by the other side. The protests came from the supporters of the presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko (whose election color was orange), who was poisoned during the election campaign . As a candidate for the opposition bloc Our Ukraine , according to the first official result of the Central Electoral Commission, he was defeated by Viktor Yanukovych, who was openly supported by Russia .

The Orange Revolution and the results achieved with the upheaval are also counted among the so-called color revolutions . In contrast to the later protests from November 2013 to 2014 at the Euromaidan , no people died in the bloodless orange revolution of 2004 . In the most electoral areas of Yanukovych in southern and eastern Ukraine, the revolution was seen as an attempted coup.

prehistory

In the first ballot on October 31, 2004, neither Yushchenko nor Yanukovych, and thus none of the 24 candidates, could achieve an absolute majority of 50 percent. Viktor Yushchenko got 39.87 percent and Viktor Yanukovych got 39.32 percent of the vote. Most citizens and election observers did not consider the official information provided by the election commission to be credible.

The protests began the day after the second round of elections, after the runoff between Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych and opposition candidate Yushchenko, when the officially estimated election results differ significantly from the post-election surveys published after polling stations were closed; one of these exit polls gave Yushchenko an 11 percent lead, while official results gave Yanukovych a three percent lead. Although other exit polls and pre-election polls corresponded to the official election results, the circles around Yushchenko naturally invoked the poll, which was more favorable to them. Yushchenko's supporters and OSCE observers assumed that the election was fraudulent in favor of Yanukovych. Other international observers, for example from the twelve member states of the EMO (from the " Commonwealth of Independent States ") and the BHHRG, were able to identify violations of the election, but none that seriously impaired the election result, as the violations were negligible compared to the valid votes and that electoral laws were violated on both sides.

On November 22nd, more than 100,000 people came to the Maidan and protested against the apparent election fraud . From November 23 , 2004 , massive protests and demonstrations began in some western cities of Ukraine, especially on Independence Square in Kiev, including in front of the Ukrainian parliament , with the participants wearing orange flags or scarves or markings, the color of Yushchenko -Campaign. In addition to the color, the symbol of the Yushchenko people is a clock, often depicted as a horseshoe (for the dial) with an exclamation mark (as a pointer). Also on the Pora posters ! In addition to the orange color, clocks often appeared.

Kiev , Lviv and several other cities declined to confirm the legitimacy of the elections. After Yanukovych had been officially confirmed as the election winner, Yushchenko decided to hinder the government with general strikes, blockades and sit-ins:

“Finding a way to compromise means that people demonstrate their will. It is the only way that will help us resolve this conflict. Therefore, the National Rescue Committee declares a nationwide political strike. "

After weeks of peaceful protests by the Ukrainians during the “Orange Revolution”, one of the demands, namely to review the election results, was carried out.

background

According to Ian Traynor , the Guardian's longtime Moscow and Eastern Europe correspondent , the Orange Revolution follows a pattern that was developed in Yugoslavia to overthrow the government with Slobodan Milošević , which was continued in the form of the so-called Rose Revolution in Georgia . What seemed spontaneous were the results of underground networking within oppositional groups. Student activists and academics, including the Ukrainian Pora , played a leading role! consists almost entirely of students. The previously best-known revolutionary movement was Otpor , a movement of young people and students that helped bring pro-Western Vojislav Kostunica to power in Serbia. In Georgia in 2003 the analog movement was named Kmara . One movement in Belarus is called Subr . She appeared in the 2004 elections there. The Ukrainian student movement Pora! is considered a terrorist organization in the Ukrainian media and by the security forces. Six Pora! Activists were arrested in mid-November 2004 on suspicion of terrorism because they had found explosives, detonators and a grenade. Western governments and Yushchenko's supporters, however, hold the pora! not for a terrorist organization.

The activists of these movements were trained by a coalition of professional Western advisors, volunteers and pollsters. The activities were funded and supported by Western governments, agencies and organizations, for example the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung and - according to the British daily The Guardian - by the US State Department and USAID together with the National Democratic Institute , the International Republican Institute , the organization Freedom House , which is largely financed by the American government, and the billionaire George Soros with his Open Society Institute . The German weekly newspaper Die Zeit claimed, among other things, that Yushchenko and his circles received at least 65 million US dollars through various channels from the USA alone. The aim of the USA is to expand NATO and weaken the EU in this way .

Yushchenko also promised before the elections that he would tear up the plan for a Euro-Asian economic area if he won.

consequences

Due to the weeks of protests, the movement of the “Orange Revolution” and the opposition achieved that the first runoff election was found to be invalid. Yushchenko received the most votes in the re-election for president on December 26, 2004.

The Supreme Court officially confirmed Yushchenko's election victory on January 20, 2005. As president and successor of Leonid Kuchma , Yushchenko was sworn in on January 23, 2005 in Kiev . Later, the new alliance that had emerged from the "Orange Revolution" and its main characters, mainly Viktor Yushchenko with his party Our Ukraine and Julija Tymoshenko with their blok Juliji Tymoshenko, fell out . The solidarity between the former opposition and the protest movement of the “Orange Revolution” itself dissolved after the failure of Yanukovych in 2004/2005 and the achievement of the alleged goals.

In spite of all the reservations of 2004, her opponent Viktor Yanukovych won the next presidential election in 2010. As a further consequence of the “Orange Revolution”, the constitution of Ukraine was changed in 2004 in such a way that the rights of the president were restricted and he was no longer allowed to appoint the prime minister himself, but only the parliament, the Verkhovna Rada . However, in 2010, after Yanukovych's election victory, the Constitutional Court declared this change to be invalid.

On November 21, 2013, demonstrations began again at the same location on the Majdan Nezalezhnosti in Kiev, which led to the Euromaidan protest movement until the end of February 2014 . The renewed protests on the Maidan from November 2013 to the end of February 2014 tied the demonstrators to the traditions of the Orange Revolution ten years earlier. The protest movement also made itself heard for the current problems through a broad base. In addition, the previous ten years did not bring any noticeable improvements for the majority of the population. Previously, President Yanukovych refused to sign the planned association agreement with the EU and instead sought rapprochement with Russia. With the renewed protest movement in 2013/14, the removal of Yanukovych was finally achieved and new elections for May 2014 are in prospect. Furthermore, in the course of the Euromaidan movement, it was achieved that the Ukrainian parliament resolved to reinstate the old constitution from 2004 on February 21, 2014. The imprisoned opposition politician Yulia Tymoshenko was released on February 22, 2014 after a legislative change by parliament. Another consequence of the Euromaidan unrest is the 2014 Crimean crisis , which led to the annexation of Crimea by Russia, and the conflict in eastern Ukraine , which led to secession tendencies in other southern and eastern Ukrainian areas.

literature

  • Anders Åslund , Michael McFaul: Revolution in Orange: The Origins of Ukraine's Democratic Breakthrough. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington 2006, ISBN 0-87003-221-6 .
  • Katrin Boeckh, Ekkehard Völkl: Ukraine. From the red to the orange revolution. Pustet, Regensburg 2007, ISBN 978-3-7917-2050-0 .
  • Ingmar Bredies (Ed.): On the anatomy of the Orange Revolution in Ukraine. Change of the elite regime or triumph of parliamentarism? ibidem, Stuttgart 2005, ISBN 3-89821-524-5 .
  • Paul D'Anieri: Orange Revolution and Aftermath: Mobilization, Apathy, and the State in Ukraine. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore 2011.
  • Pavol Demes, Joerg Forbrig: Reclaiming Democracy: Civil Society and Electoral Change in Central and Eastern Europe. German Marshall Fund, 2007.
  • Adrian Karatnycky: Ukraine's Orange Revolution . In: Foreign Affairs . March / April 2005, pp. 35-52.
  • Andrei Kolesnikov: Первый Украинский: записки с передовой (First Ukrainian [Front]: Notes from the Front Line). Vagrius, Moscow 2009, ISBN 5-9697006-2-2 (Russian).
  • Askold Kruschelnysky: An Orange Revolution: A Personal Journey Through Ukrainian History. Harvill Secker, London 2006, ISBN 0-436-20623-4 .
  • Florian Strasser: Civil Society Influences on the Orange Revolution. The non-violent mass movement and the Ukrainian election crisis 2004. ibidem, Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 3-89821-648-9 .
  • Wolfgang Templin : Play of colors. Ukraine after the revolution in orange. 2nd expanded edition. fiber, Osnabrück 2008, ISBN 978-3-938400-38-8 .
  • Andrew Wilson : Ukraine's Orange Revolution. Yale University Press, 2006, ISBN 0-300-11290-4 .

Web links

Commons : Orange Revolution  - collection of images, videos and audio files
 Wikinews: Western governments financed and steered Ukrainian opposition  - message

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Paul Quinn-Judge, Yuri Zarakhovich: The Orange Revolution. In: Time .com , November 28, 2004
  2. ↑ Ukraine: Opposition puts pressure on Kiev. In: Stern.de . November 23, 2004, accessed August 15, 2012 .
  3. ^ A path to a compromise through people demonstrating. In: rferl.org
  4. ↑ a b c US campaign behind the turmoil in Kiev. In: The Guardian
  5. ^ Renate Flottau , Erich Follath , Uwe Klußmann, Georg Mascolo , Walter Mayr, Christian Neef : Die Revolutions-GmbH. In: Der Spiegel , November 14, 2005
  6. ^ Renate Flottau , Erich Follath , Uwe Klußmann, Georg Mascolo , Walter Mayr, Christian Neef : Die Revolutions-GmbH. Part 2, in: Der Spiegel , November 21, 2005
  7. ↑ Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung annual report 2004
  8. ↑ America's Invisible Hands. In: Die Zeit No. 50, December 2, 2004, p. 4
  9. ↑ US Spent $ 65M To Aid Ukrainian Groups. (No longer available online.) In: foxnews.com. December 10, 2004, archived from the original on July 30, 2014 ; accessed on March 12, 2014 (English). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.foxnews.com
  10. ↑ Kyryl Savin, Andreas Stein, Alexander Vorbrugg: Forward to the Past: The Ukrainian constitutional reform of 2004 was withdrawn. Heinrich Böll Foundation , October 25, 2010, accessed on February 21, 2014 .
  11. ↑ Pavel Polityuk, Richard Balmforth: Yanukovich declared winner in Ukraine poll. In: The Independent. February 15, 2010, accessed August 5, 2017 .
  12. ↑ Viktor Yanukovych sworn in as Ukraine president. In: BBC News. February 25, 2010, accessed August 5, 2017 .
  13. ↑ at NRCU from November 28, 2013 ( memento of the original from December 3, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.nrcu.gov.ua
  14. ^ RIA Novosti, November 25, 2013
  15. ↑ Back to the Middle Ages on the way to Europe: Beaten Kyiv protesters take refuge in ancient church yard. In: Kyivpost.com. Retrieved December 1, 2013 .
  16. ^ First success for the opposition. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , December 2, 2013
  17. ↑ Ukraine: Return to the old constitution sealed. In: New Osnabrück Newspaper . February 21, 2014, accessed February 21, 2014 .
  18. ↑ Lawyer: Tymoshenko arrested should be released "in the near future". In: ria.ru , February 21, 2014
  19. Jump up ↑ Ukraine - Yulia Tymoshenko is free. In: Süddeutsche.de . February 22, 2014, accessed February 22, 2014 .
  20. ↑ Nick Robinson: Ukraine crisis: UK warns Russia over Crimean incursion. In: BBC News . March 2, 2014, accessed March 2, 2014 .