2004 presidential election in Ukraine
The presidential elections in Ukraine in autumn 2004 were generally seen as a choice of direction for a west or east orientation of the country. President Leonid Kuchma , who has been in office since 1994, was constitutionally unable to run for two terms. After the runoff election on November 21, Viktor Yanukovych , who is considered to be Russia- oriented, was declared the winner, which led to the Orange Revolution (one of the color revolutions ), a peaceful protest against election fraud lasting several weeks. By decision of the Supreme Court, the runoff election was repeated on December 26, 2004, from which the western-oriented Viktor Yushchenko emerged as the winner.
Summary
In the first ballot on October 31, 2004, none of the 24 candidates achieved an absolute majority of 50%. The two best placed candidates were Viktor Yushchenko with 39.87% and Viktor Yanukovych with 39.32% (data from the Central Electoral Commission , which were not considered credible by all observers). The four candidates from the socialist and communist parties together received about 13%. In the first ballot, international observers criticized the undemocratic election campaign and the occasional manipulation that occurred during the election process.
On November 21, 2004, a runoff election was supposed to decide between the two best-placed presidential candidates: Viktor Yanukovych, the incumbent Prime Minister, and Viktor Yushchenko, the chairman of the opposition bloc Our Ukraine .
Already on election night and the morning after, when the Central Election Commission (Центральна виборча комісія) published the first official count results, the opposition, the observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and some of the other international election observers reported manipulation and counterfeit allegations reported. Polls at the polling stations had announced a clear majority for Yushchenko.
In the days and weeks that followed, there were demonstrations and protests by the opposition all over the country, but especially in Kiev . There were also some minor demonstrations by government supporters in favor of Yanukovych's victory.
On November 24, the Central Election Commission published the official final result of the runoff election, according to which Viktor Yanukovych had 49.42% of the vote and Viktor Yushchenko had 46.69%. The Ukrainian opposition, the European Union , the USA and the OSCE did not recognize the election result. Democratic standards were disregarded and state resources were used in favor of Prime Minister Yanukovych, announced the OSCE in Kiev. Russian President Putin recognized the election results and congratulated Viktor Yanukovych. The presidents of Uzbekistan , Kazakhstan and Armenia also joined him.
After five days of mass protests that received international media coverage, international mediators intervened and managed to get the two presidential candidates to sit down together at the negotiating table for the first time on Friday, November 26th. In a special session on November 27, the Ukrainian parliament declared the election results to be invalid, which was only symbolic due to the parliament's lack of legal authority.
At 10:00 p.m. on November 28, 10,000 men from the Interior Ministry's military units, led by Serhiy Popkov, were mobilized to crush the protest on Independence Square. This action was prevented at the last moment by the head of the espionage service Sluschba bespeky Ukrajiny (SBU) (successor to the KGB), Ihor Smeschko , who threatened Popkov that SBU troops would protect the demonstrators in the event of an attack together with army units from the Ministry of Defense.
At the request of the opposition, the Supreme Court of Ukraine also dealt with the allegation of election fraud and on December 3rd declared the runoff election invalid and ordered its repetition by December 26th. Parliament created the prerequisites for this on December 8th by amending the electoral law.
On December 26, 2004, the runoff election was repeated. On December 28, the election commission announced the preliminary official final result, according to which Viktor Yushchenko was declared the winner. He achieved 51.99% and Viktor Yanukovych 44.19% of the votes.
The candidates
Originally 26 people ran as candidates for the presidency. Two of them, including the Green Party candidate, stepped down about a month before the first round of voting, leaving 24 people to stand for election. From the start, only Viktor Yanukovych and Viktor Yushchenko were given serious chances of winning.
Viktor Yanukovych
Viktor Yanukovych had been Prime Minister of Ukraine since November 2002. In 2004, the second year of his reign, Ukraine's gross national product grew by 13.4% compared to previous years. He was proposed as his successor by President Kuchma , who no longer ran after two terms in office, and was nominated as a candidate by Parliament in April 2004. He was considered to be inclined to Russia and was particularly supported by voters in the east and south of Ukraine.
Thanks to his role in the government and Kuchma's support, Yanukovych had access to financial resources from the state budget for his election campaign. He also benefited from a largely synchronized media landscape.
Viktor Yushchenko
From the beginning of the election campaign, the former chairman of the Ukrainian National Bank and former Prime Minister of Ukraine Viktor Yushchenko was the only promising candidate to oppose Viktor Yanukovych. The politician, who is considered western-oriented and married to an American of Ukrainian descent, found voter support mainly in the west of the country.
Yushchenko received financial support in the election campaign from the Soros Foundation, which also donated money to the Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry during the US election campaign . In September 2004 Viktor Yushchenko suffered from dioxin poisoning. To date, there is no reliable information about who poisoned Yushchenko.
After the first ballot, some of his opponents made election recommendations for Yushchenko, including the Socialist Party of Ukraine with its candidate Oleksandr Moros , and candidate Anatoly Kinach . The Klitschko brothers Vitali and Vladimir also called for the election of Yushchenko . The singer Ruslana Lyschytschko , winner of the Eurovision Song Contest 2004, also stood up for him.
The election campaign
The election campaign was characterized, among other things, by an imbalance in the media presence in favor of the government candidate Viktor Yanukovych. Restrictions on freedom of assembly, raids on opposition groups and people, and partisanship in state institutions and universities were criticized. In oblasts with guides close to the government, there was hardly any public election campaign presence of opposition candidates.
On October 28, 2004, in a resolution on the upcoming presidential elections , the European Parliament published numerous points of criticism on the course of the elections so far and put together a catalog of demands to enable really free and fair elections .
The leader of the Russian Communist Party, Gennady Zyuganov , criticized the West for interfering in the situation before the first round of elections on October 31, 2004: “I went to Kiev and saw for myself that various actions by the local opposition reflect the characteristics of those groups who had tried at different times to destabilize Prague, Budapest and Bucharest - the hallmarks of US intelligence. "
At the large-scale demonstration under the motto “Against election fraud” on October 23, Yushchenko urged his supporters to take a closer look at the polling stations: “The main thing is the public. Bandits shy away from the light - just like cockroaches. " Yushchenko supporters were attacked by people who were carrying militia IDs.
First ballot
| candidate | percent | be right |
|---|---|---|
| Viktor Yushchenko | 39.90 | 11,188,675 |
| Viktor Yanukovych | 39.26 | 11,008,731 |
| Oleksandr Moros | 5.82 | 1,632,098 |
| Petro Symonenko | 4.97 | 1,396,135 |
| Natalia Vitenko | 1.53 | 429.794 |
| Anatoly Kinach | 0.93 | 262,530 |
| Oleksandr Jakovenko | 0.78 | 219.191 |
| Oleksandr Omelchenko | 0.48 | 136,830 |
| Leonid Chernovetskyi | 0.46 | 129,066 |
| Dmytro Korchynskyi | 0.17 | 49,961 |
| Andrij Tschornowil | 0.12 | 36,278 |
| Mykola Hrabar | 0.07 | 19,675 |
| Mychajlo Brodskyj | 0.05 | 16,498 |
| Yuri Sbitnyev | 0.05 | 16,321 |
| Serhiy Komissarenko | 0.04 | 13,754 |
| Wassyk Wolha | 0.04 | 12,956 |
| Bohdan Boyko | 0.04 | 12,793 |
| Oleksandr Rzhavskyi | 0.03 | 10,714 |
| Mykola Rohoschynskyj | 0.03 | 10,289 |
| Vladislav Krywobokov | 0.03 | 9,340 |
| Oleksandr Basyljuk | 0.03 | 8,963 |
| Ihor Dushin | 0.03 | 8,623 |
| Roman Cossack | 0.02 | 8,410 |
| Volodymyr Nechyporuk | 0.02 | 6.171 |
| Vitaly Kononov | candidacy | withdrawn |
| Hryhoriy Chernysh | candidacy | withdrawn |
| Total: | 28.035.184 | |
| 1.98% of voters did not vote for any of the candidates | ||
The first ballot took place on October 31, 2004. As expected, Viktor Yanukovych and Viktor Yushchenko fought head-to-head for first place. Surprisingly for many, Yushchenko was about half a percent ahead at the end of the count. After counting all the votes cast, the Central Election Commission announced the distribution of votes (see table and graphic).
If one looks at the geographical distribution of the votes, it becomes clear that the predominantly Ukrainian-speaking west and central Ukraine voted for Yushchenko, while in the industrial, strongly Russian-speaking east, inhabited by a large Russian minority, and in the Crimea, Yanukovych was voted for.
The more than 600 OSCE observers reported serious violations of the electoral law: ballot papers had been thrown in retrospectively, ballot papers had already been filled out, signatures had been forged and entries by dead people and multiple entries by the same voter were noticed. In over 40% of all polling stations, incorrect voter lists were used.
Runoff election on November 21, 2004
On November 21, 2004, a run-off election between Viktor Yushchenko and Viktor Yanukovych was held, which should decide on the new President of Ukraine. Opinion polls and polls at the election offices of various organizations showed Viktor Yushchenko with several percent ahead. However, such surveys are always subject to a certain inaccuracy.
Election day and renewed allegations of manipulation
After the television station Nadia (Hope) reported on alleged election manipulation, the power of its broadcasting facilities was switched off at 7:30 a.m., reported the Ukrainian news agency Media-Context . Supporters of the opposition report that they were stopped by the police and asked to remove orange scarves and ribbons, Yushchenko's choice of color. Employees in factories were threatened with job loss if they did not choose Yanukovych. (See also: Domestic Development - Monday, November 29th). Companies organized buses to enable their employees to vote multiple times in different polling stations - TV images broadcast in Ukraine and western countries show young demonstrators who tried to stop the buses by lying in front of their bikes.
" Carousel (ukr: Карусель ) refers to a forgery process in Ukraine in which voters enter the polling stations with ballot papers already prepared for the" correct "candidate, throw them into the urns and take the fresh ballot papers they received outside with them then repeat the procedure in other polling stations. This is possible because there are voting slips that allow voting in a polling station other than your own.
Variation: Voters are addressed in front of the polling station and receive a pre-filled voting slip. After leaving the polling station, the fresh ballot paper is exchanged for a sum of money. "
In polling station 114 it was observed that the ink on the pens left in the voting booths disappeared after a while.
In Luhansk Oblast and Donetsk , security workers removed reporters and election observers from polling stations. Ballot papers had been stolen in various polling stations, and in others his ballot papers, which had already been filled out for Yanukovych, turned up. In Chernihiv , polling station 73 had been closed to observers because of an alleged bomb threat. After the polling stations were closed, there were attacks on the ballot boxes in the country, many of which were set on fire. The Central Election Commission reported that voter lists and ballot papers were stolen from polling station 109.
Yushchenko's campaign team reported attacks across the country, including some physical injuries and vandalism against their vehicles. A bus was forcibly stopped and the windows smashed. An arson attack was carried out on the apartment of an election campaign leader.
Following the election, the opposition submitted a list of 11,000 violations of the electoral law to the central election commission .
Violations of the electoral law were also registered on the part of the government candidate (around 500) and reported to the electoral commission. This was reported by the representative of Viktor Yanukovych in the election commission, Stepan Hawrysch, to the Interfax agency. Most of these violations were recorded in Ivano-Frankivsk , Lviv , Vinnytsia , Ternopil , Khmelnytskyi , Zhytomyr and Zaporizhia Oblast . These include many opposition strongholds. Viktor Yanukovych's election observers were not allowed to access and observe the polling stations there. It was also reported that individual people voted multiple times for different people, including a woman in Lviv with 20 different passports, which is currently being checked. In western Ukraine, votes were cast by people who were not in Ukraine at the time. More than 100 such cases were recorded in the Ivano-Frankivsk region, a stronghold of the opposition.
Yanukovych observers were in some cases not allowed to collect reports of election violations and voters refused to sign the reports. There were also irregularities in Kiev's electoral district No. 221: the head of one of the election commissions read a speech by Yushchenko and tried to influence the voters. Yanukovych observers drew up a report and filmed the actions of the head of the electoral commission present there.
All these and other materials have been handed over to the Kiev public prosecutor's office, the Russian website of Interfax reported.
Election night
In the night from Sunday to Monday, Kiev was dominated by elections - Yushchenko supporters celebrated on Independence Square as if they had won; Strong security forces, water cannons and armored vehicles were deployed around the Central Election Commission.
Course of the count
Contrary to the results of election polls, the first counting results announced a narrow lead for Viktor Yanukovych. This solidified over the next few days, and on November 24th the final result was announced: 49.46% for Viktor Yanukovych and 46.61% for Viktor Yushchenko.
Of the 15 signatories of the official election results, two refused to sign and others withdrew their signature. Only nine of the 15 commissioners stand by the official election result.
After the election in Kiev
Monday, November 22nd
On Monday, November 22nd, more than 100,000 people demonstrated on Independence Square and chanted against the obvious election fraud by the administration. Rallies from Ukraine brought additional demonstrators to Kiev. Motorists in Kiev had been driving past the Central Election Commission since 9:30 a.m. in protest. “Stay where you are,” Yushchenko shouted to the people on Independence Square. “Tens of thousands of people come here from all parts of Ukraine by airplanes, trains, cars and carts. Our protest is only just beginning ”. The Ukrainian poet and signer of the Declaration of Independence Dmytro Pavlychko said: "We will not leave this place until we have won."
After rumors arose that the government wanted to vacate and close Independence Square at three o'clock in the morning, around 2,000 people remained, including members of the student organization Pora! , all night in freezing temperatures in a makeshift tent city. Since the early hours of the morning, the crowd grew to around 250,000 people, most of whom had come from all parts of Ukraine and were taken care of by the Kiev population to demonstrate against the election fraud.
The city parliaments of Lviv , Ivano-Frankivsk , Lutsk , Vinnytsia and Khmelnytskyi rejected the election results and said they considered Yushchenko to be the rightful President of Ukraine. The Kiev city parliament called the official election result falsified and asked the Supreme Council (Parliament of Ukraine) to cancel the election. The opposition politician Yulia Tymoshenko called on Monday for a general strike: "If parliament does not take power, only the people will be the only legitimate authority in the country." She announced blockades of streets and airports if the MPs should not take action .
Several of the candidates for the presidency from the first round of elections joined Yushchenko, including Petro Symonenko (Communist Party) and Oleksandr Moros (Socialist Party of Ukraine). Yanukovych, on the other hand, was supported by candidates Natalija Witrenko (Party of Progressive Socialists) and Oleksandr Jakowenko (Communist Workers and Peasants Party).
Tuesday, November 23rd: special session of parliament
After another 250,000 people gathered in Kiev on Tuesday morning, Yushchenko declared himself the winner of the elections and asked for international recognition: “We appeal to the parliaments and nations of the world, the will of the Ukrainian people and their efforts to return to Support democracy! ”Yushchenko called on his supporters to march on the parliament building. The Verkhovna Rada ( Верховна Рада ) , the Ukrainian parliament, was supposed to discuss the result of the runoff election in an extraordinary session on Tuesday morning. A petition from the Kiev city parliament, which was supported by the opposition, called for the second ballot to be canceled. However, the MPs of the ruling parties boycotted the meeting, so that of 450 MPs only 191 were present. The city parliament was therefore not quorate.
The meeting was broadcast on screens in the street. In his speech, Parliament President Volodymyr Lytwyn demanded that Parliament must have made a decision by Wednesday, otherwise the people would decide for themselves. Ihor Juchnowskyj, member of Yushchenko's electoral bloc Our Ukraine (Nascha Ukraina), called on Viktor Yushchenko to be sworn in as President of Ukraine during his speech. Parliament's President Volodymyr Lytwyn then closed the session; With the cameras and microphones switched off, Yushchenko swore the oath of office on the Bible in front of the members of the opposition parties who were present and who then sang the national anthem. Yushchenko announced that he would repeat the oath, which has now been described as "symbolic", in front of the crowd on Independence Square. In German media such as Phoenix and the Tagesschau, the oath was reported rather skeptically.
After the television broadcast of the parliamentary session was interrupted, the independent but pro-Yushchenko television station “Fifth Channel” showed pictures of soldiers and militia troops waiting in the vicinity of Kiev. In their live broadcasts on the evening news, German journalists reported on buses with supporters of Yanukovych on their way to Kiev, which want to protect their candidate, if necessary with violence. In television interviews they say: "We don't want Kiev to become American".
On Tuesday evening, the demonstrators pulled in two to three kilometers long trains to the presidential palace in order to surround it and wait for the government to give up without violence. The march was stopped by security forces, but no incident was reported.
While the "Fifth Channel" reported the events, journalists from the state-controlled television stations had refused to continue working. They declared that although the people had a right to information, it was impossible to impart information objectively under the prevailing working conditions. In particular, they criticized the so-called "Temnyky", stage directions from the ministry, in which they are told which topics they are allowed to report on and how.
Wednesday November 24th
Early on Wednesday evening, the Central Election Commission announced the final election results and declared Yanukovych the winner. Later that evening, Viktor Yushchenko announced the formation of a “national rescue committee to defend the constitution” on Independence Square.
The German CDU politician Claudia Nolte (Member of the Bundestag) traveled to Kiev and spoke to the demonstrators: “Election fraudsters cannot hold out, history has shown that. Freedom cannot be stopped. ” Wladimir Klitschko also appeared in Kiev to encourage the demonstrators. He expressed his hope for a peaceful solution.
Thursday November 25th: Supreme Court prohibits publication of election results
On the afternoon of November 25, at the request of Yushchenko, the Supreme Court of Ukraine intervened and initially prohibited the publication of the official results. The Supreme Court announced that the result would not be valid until it was officially announced and that a new president could not be appointed.
Friday November 26th
When demonstrators tried to break through police barriers and block government buildings, scuffles broke out in Kiev on the morning of November 26. Images of uniformed police officers demonstrating increasingly appeared on the news programs.
Since the early hours of the morning, thousands of opposition supporters blocked the access to parliament with crossed buses and human chains. Neither the prime minister himself nor his employees, employees or officials got through.
There were also demonstrations for the recognition of the elections and for Yanukovych, such as on Voksalnaya Square in Kiev, where around 20,000 people took part. In the east of Ukraine tens of thousands demonstrate for the state independence and autonomy of the east of Ukraine.
In the evening, Yushchenko and Yanukovych agreed, through the mediation of Poland's President Kwaśniewski , President Kuchma, the Lithuanian President Adamkus , and EU Foreign Affairs Representative Javier Solana, to set up a working group for a peaceful solution to the conflict. Yushchenko and Yanukovych ruled out resorting to violence. In the night from Sunday to Monday, the negotiations were declared to have failed.
Saturday, November 27th: special session of parliament
The Ukrainian parliament passed a resolution by a majority of 255 of the 429 MPs present, in which serious violations of the right to vote were found. The result determined by the election commission does not correspond to the will of the voters. Parliament is calling for the run-off election to be repealed and for the electoral commission to be dismissed, which no longer deserves trust after the events. The electoral commission failed to perform its duties under the Ukrainian constitution and laws. However, Parliament does not have the legislative powers to annul the presidential election.
Sunday November 28th
Yulia Tymoshenko called on President Kuchma that evening in front of around 100,000 demonstrators to dismiss Prime Minister Yanukovych by Monday evening. Otherwise, the opposition movement would restrict the president's freedom of movement anywhere in Ukraine and Kuchma would be prosecuted as a “criminal”. Viktor Yushchenko recalled the successful revolution in Georgia , during which, after weeks of demonstrations, President Eduard Shevardnadze was overthrown . He called out to the demonstrators: "I urge you to stay until the end."
In an emergency meeting, the National Security Council , chaired by Kuchma, called on the demonstrators in Kiev to clear the entrances to administrative buildings. Otherwise, Yanukovych announced “measures”.
In the Ukrainian Black Sea city of Odessa , more than 30,000 demonstrators called for the region's independence and the right to self-determination from Ukraine, provided that Viktor Yushchenko should take power. A corresponding "resolution" was passed on the town hall square.
At 10:00 p.m., 10,000 men from the Interior Ministry's military units, led by Serhiy Popkov, were mobilized to quell the protest on Independence Square. The US Secretary of State Colin Powell , who was informed of the impending action by the American Ambassador John Herbst , intervened by telephone with President Leonid Kuchma and tried to prevent the operation. (Source: Lecture by the US Ambassador to the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in Kiev).
But the measures taken by Ihor Smeschko , head of the Ukrainian espionage service SBU , were much more decisive . Through an agent of the SBU, he informed the demonstrators in the tent city on Independence Square and the Khreshchatyk that troops from the Interior Ministry were advancing. Furthermore, Smeschko had the head of the military counterintelligence department , Major General Vitaly Romanchenko , the commander of the advancing troops, Serhiy Popov, informed that the use of force against the peaceful demonstrations is illegal and could result in prosecution. Furthermore, in the event of an attack by the troops of the Ministry of the Interior, units of the army and the SBU would defend the Protestants. Also Oleksandr Halaka , head of the military intelligence service has been actively committed to stop the troops of the Interior Ministry. In view of the threat created by the SBU and units of the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of the Interior ended the action. This prevented a bloody suppression.
Monday November 29th
The opposition called for another extraordinary session of parliament for Monday, at which the Yanukovych government should face a vote of no confidence, and the dismissal of Prosecutor General Hennadij Vasiljew.
In Kiev, the Supreme Court began deliberations on the controversial presidential election and the complaint of the officially defeated candidate Viktor Yushchenko against the Central Electoral Commission. Surprisingly, President Kuchma also agreed to the calls for new elections.
Tuesday November 30th
EU chief diplomat Javier Solana arrived in Kiev to meet with incumbent President Kuchma. The Ukrainian central bank restricted the amount of withdrawals by private individuals to prevent capital flight . The opposition announced in the afternoon that it would break off negotiations with the government.
Wednesday December 1st
In the morning, parliament approved a modified no-confidence vote against the government with a narrow majority. The vote of no confidence brought in the day before had failed. In the evening, after negotiations at the round table with the participation of Javier Solana , Aleksander Kwaśniewski and Valdas Adamkus as well as Ján Kubiš , initial progress was made. Viktor Yanukovych, Viktor Yushchenko and Leonid Kuchma signed a compromise paper with a seven-point plan in which, among other things, the reshuffle of the government and political reforms were agreed. The opposition promised to end the siege of government institutions from Thursday.
Thursday December 2nd
President Leonid Kuchma traveled to Moscow to meet with Vladimir Putin , who supported Kuchma in his demand that the entire election be re-run. Opposition leader Yushchenko, however, stuck to his demand that only the runoff election be repeated.
The Supreme Court dealt with the election results of some western electoral districts after Yanukovych filed a complaint against election manipulation by the opposition. Yanukovych wanted to have the entire election repeated, but the opposition only wanted the runoff election repeated. The time factor was extremely important for both sides.
Ruslan Knjasewytsch, a member of the Central Election Commission, testified in front of the Supreme Court on Thursday that an additional one million votes were thrown into the ballot box in the runoff election after the polling stations closed on November 21.
Friday 3rd December
The Supreme Court of Ukraine on December 3rd declared the runoff election invalid due to systematic forgery and ordered the runoff election to be repeated on December 26th. Both candidates had previously stated that they would accept the decision.
Saturday 4th December
Viktor Yanukovych announced that he would bow to the decision of the Supreme Court and face a second runoff election.
In order for the re-election on December 26th to take place as ordered by the Supreme Court, Ukraine's electoral law had to be amended. At a parliamentary session on Saturday, the government called for the vote on the legislative change to be linked directly to the constitutional amendment, which restricts the president's power in favor of parliament and government. The opposition refused, whereupon President Kuchma accused the opposition of breaking its word. The constitutional amendment had been firmly agreed in advance during the mediation talks.
Tuesday December 7th
On Tuesday night, the round table negotiations were broken off again with no progress. Neither the opposition's demand for the dismissal of Prime Minister Yanukovych nor the constitutional changes demanded by President Kuchma and the government could be implemented.
During the course of Tuesday, a compromise emerged when Leonid Kuchma gave Viktor Yanukovych a leave of absence for the period of the election campaign. The official business was taken over by his first deputy, Mykola Azarov .
Wednesday December 8th
After several days of negotiations, the parliament passed a compromise package on Wednesday, December 8th, which included constitutional and electoral changes. It was also decided to partially fill the central electoral commission and to replace the head of the commission Serhiy Kivalov . This created the legal basis for repeating the runoff election on December 26, 2004. The outgoing President Kuchma signed the bill in the parliament room.
The proposed constitutional amendments limit the power of the future president in favor of the parliament, in particular the president will no longer be allowed to appoint the government . The changes should come into effect after the end of the next legislative period in 2006.
Reactions from abroad
The European Union clearly condemned the events surrounding the elections and called on those responsible in Kiev to review both the election process itself and the results, as the runoff election did not meet international standards. On December 2nd, the EU Parliament adopted a motion for a resolution calling on Ukraine to repeat the runoff elections. Separatist movements were strongly condemned.
The US accused the Ukrainian government of having implemented a "concerted program of electoral fraud".
Russia accused the EU and the US of wanting to draw a new dividing line through Europe with its stance.
The German Bundestag found that the second round of the Ukrainian presidential elections did not meet the standards for democratic elections either. Again, the election results were massively falsified. The Bundestag believes it is an encouraging sign that Ukrainian civil society has acted fearlessly and with great commitment to exercise its fundamental right to freedom of expression and free elections .
There were demonstrations in Berlin , Frankfurt , Vienna and Brussels at which locals and Ukrainians living abroad expressed their solidarity with the democracy movement in Ukraine.
Re-election December 26, 2004
On Sunday, December 26, 2004, the repeat of the runoff election took place in the presence of around 12,000 international election observers. After the polls were closed, three institutes published the results of post-election surveys, according to which Viktor Yushchenko was between 10 and 15% ahead. One of the institutes is financed by the Ukrainian government, another by various Western states and the UN, and the third by the Republican Party of the USA.
When voting, President Leonid Kuchma called on both candidates to accept the result: "In my opinion, the one who loses should call the winner, congratulate him and put an end to this extended election campaign." According to media reports, there have been some attempts at manipulation but did not take the proportions of the first runoff election.
The election observers spoke of a fair election. The OSCE Election Observation Mission stated that the election had "come much closer to OSCE standards". EU Commission President José Manuel Barroso praised the repeat elections as “a further step on the way to a peaceful and democratic society”; US Secretary of State Colin Powell and the EU's foreign and security policy officer, Javier Solana , also praised Ukraine for the way the elections were run. The German politician Winfried Nachtwei , who was in Odessa as an election observer, reported in interviews that he had not found any irregularities.
The spokesman for the election observation mission from the Eastern European countries and the CIS, Emil Schleimowitsch, announced at a press conference on Monday that he considered the election to be legitimate. It said « Немає такої кількості порушень, яка могла б сказати, що вибори нелегітимні. Ваша країна зробила вибір, наша місія рекомендує його визнати. »( According to Interfax-Ukraine , German:“ there were no irregularities to such an extent that the elections could be viewed as illegitimate ”). His mission recommended recognizing the decision of the Ukrainian people.
Viktor Yanukovych announced on Monday evening that he would challenge the election results in court. A total of three million votes were lost to Yanukovych through manipulation, said an employee of his staff. The Central Election Commission received around 550 complaints from Yanukovych supporters, all of which it intends to examine individually. On Tuesday, the Russian leadership expressed itself through Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov , who announced in St. Petersburg that he did not see Yushchenko's victory in the election as affecting the security relations between Ukraine and Russia. On Tuesday, the electoral commission announced the preliminary official final result, according to which Viktor Yushchenko was declared the winner. He achieved 51.99% and Viktor Yanukovych 44.19% of the votes. In the official final result of January 10, 2005, Yanukovych's share was slightly changed to 44.20%, and Yushchenko's result was confirmed by the election commission.
According to the election commission, 537,481 (1.85%) Ukrainians took the opportunity to vote at home: Donetsk 88,482 (2.8%), Luhansk 49,185 (3%), Crimea 25,281 (2.2%), Dnepropetrovsk 26,106 (1 , 3%) and Lviv 29,629 (1.7%). 12,522 voters outside of their place of residence voted: City of Kiev: 1490, Odessa: 1210. Viktor Yanukovych, who was on leave from his post as prime minister before the re-election, announced that he would resume his business on the following Wednesday. Election winner Yushchenko then called on his supporters on Independence Square to block the government building in the morning to prevent this. On December 1, parliament had expressed its distrust of Yanukovych. The planned cabinet meeting then did not take place.
Shortly before the deadline, Yanukovych, who lost the election, officially appealed against the election results. It was considered likely that the electoral commission would reject the complaint. He also filed four electoral fraud suits in the Supreme Court, the last of which was dismissed on December 30 on formal grounds. Neither the allegation nor the claims were legally clear enough, and two of the complaints were not timely, the court said.
The winner of the runoff election, Viktor Yushchenko, was planning to form a new government in the meantime; as Prime Minister Julija Tymoshenko , Petro Poroshenko , but also Oleksandr Moros were in discussion.
On the evening of December 31, Yanukovych announced his resignation as prime minister. He put no more hope in a decision of the election commission that was positive for him. She had rejected his complaints shortly before. President Kuchma accepted the resignation on January 5, 2005 and appointed Deputy Prime Minister Mykola Azarov as his successor.
In his last New Years address, which was broadcast on television on New Year's Eve 2004, the outgoing President Kuchma called - without naming any - “all regions and every single citizen” to accept the democratic election, as the new president would need the support of the people . Another lawsuit that Viktor Yanukovych had filed with the Supreme Court on January 5 was dismissed on January 6 after a five-hour session. Yanukovych announced that after the expected announcement of the official final result by the Central Election Commission, he would file another lawsuit.
On the evening of January 10, 2005, the Central Election Commission officially declared Viktor Yushchenko the winner of the repeat election. Viktor Yanukovych's staff announced that the election results would be contested in the Supreme Court. The re-election is not a valid expression of the people's will, said Taras Chornovil, head of Yanukovych's staff, referring to "500 volumes of evidence of violations of the electoral law" that have been compiled. At the request of Yanukovych, the Supreme Court prohibited the mandatory official publication of the final results of the presidential election on the evening of January 11. First of all, the complaint against Yushchenko's victory must be examined, it was said to justify. According to Tschornowil, the complaint should be filed on Wednesday.
The trial in the Supreme Court lasted more than a week; the plaintiffs were represented by the Swiss lawyer Peter-Charles Schifferli. A motion to withdraw the case from the Supreme Court and submit it to civil justice has been denied. On Wednesday, January 19, 2005, the court also refused to postpone the hearing to the following week and allowed the two official gazettes Urjadowyj Kurjer (government courier ) and Holos Ukrajiny (voice of Ukraine) to publish the election results on January 20 and thus Officially proclaiming Viktor Yushchenko elected president. On the following night of January 20th, at 2:40 am, the Supreme Court pronounced its final verdict; all complaints by Viktor Yanukovych were rejected. On the morning of January 20, the official gazettes printed during the night appeared with the election results, with the publication of which the election can no longer be permanently revoked.
On January 23, 2005 , the inauguration of President Viktor Yushchenko took place in the Verkhovna Rada , the Ukrainian parliament. Numerous international guests were present, including the outgoing American Foreign Minister Colin Powell , the Polish President Aleksander Kwaśniewski , for the EU Benita Ferrero-Waldner , and for Germany the President of the German Bundestag , Wolfgang Thierse .
Example function
The events during the presidential elections in Ukraine are often seen in the media as a basis for comparison with the events that occurred in the context of the presidential elections in Belarus in March 2006 . The protesters also see a model in the Orange Revolution , according to which they are now conducting the protests in Belarus in 2006. However, due to the different initial situation (less international attention, no independent media, no real opposition structures and the majority of the population stood behind President Aljaksandr Lukashenka , despite the elections judged by the OSCE to be undemocratic ); the opposition protests were violently broken up by government forces.
See also
literature
- Adrian Karatnycky: Ukraine's Orange Revolution in: Foreign Affairs March / April 2005, pp. 35–52.
- Florian Strasser: Civil Society Influences on the Orange Revolution. The mass nonviolent movement and the 2004 Ukrainian election crisis ; ibidem, Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 3-89821-648-9 .
- Ingmar Bredies (Ed.): On the anatomy of the Orange Revolution in Ukraine. Change of the elite regime or triumph of parliamentarism? with contributions by Wolodymir Jewtuch, Kyrylo Haluschko, Sarah Whitmore, Ingmar Bredies; ibidem, Stuttgart 2005, ISBN 3-89821-524-5 .
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German Society for Eastern European Studies : Eastern Europe 1/2005, 55th year, January 2005, Berliner Wissenschaftsverlag
- Mykola Ryabchuk: Ukraine at a crossroads. Can an extortion state be reformed?
- Gerhard Simon: A new beginning in Ukraine. From wavering to a revolution in orange
- Kerstin Zimmer: The coal, the clan and the power. On the political situation in the Donec'k region
- Winfried Schneider-Deters: The pallilative Ukraine policy of the EU. A plea for a new way of thinking
- Sabine Fischer: Russia and Ukraine. Miscalculation or neo-imperial impulse?
Web links
- Official website of the President of Ukraine (Ukrainian, Russian, English)
- Central Electoral Commission of Ukraine
- OSCE Election Observation Mission Ukraine (English)
- How Top Spies in Ukraine Changed the Nation's Path . Article in the New York Times (English)
- Background information from Deutsche Welle on both candidates
- Commentary on Viktor Yanukovych's resignation in Deutsche Welle
Individual evidence
- ↑ Original text of the resolution of the European Parliament in the run-up to the elections
- ↑ Zyuganov Blames West for interfering in Ukrainian vote. Interfax , October 28, 2004, archived from the original on November 12, 2004 ; accessed on July 15, 2012 .
- ↑ Original quote
- ↑ Thomas Roser: thugs with militia ID. In: Der Tagesspiegel . October 25, 2004, accessed August 15, 2012 .
- ↑ Official election results ( Memento of the original from February 28, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) 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.
- ↑ В Харьковской области отключили телеканал "Надия". In: media context. November 21, 2004, archived from the original on March 6, 2006 ; Retrieved August 15, 2012 (Russian).
- ↑ Ручку з чорнилом, яке зникає, виявлено на одній з дільниць. 20minut.ua news portal, November 21, 2004, accessed July 15, 2012 (Ukrainian).
- ↑ Ukraine: Opposition puts pressure on Kiev. In: Stern.de . November 23, 2004, accessed August 15, 2012 .
- ↑ Election chaos: Ukraine threatens to split. In: FOCUS Online . November 29, 2004, accessed July 15, 2012 .
- ↑ Demonstration for the division of Ukraine. In: Russland.ru . November 28, 2004, accessed August 15, 2012 .
- ↑ CJ Chivers: How Top Spies in Ukraine Changed the Nation's Path. In: The New York Times . January 17, 2005, accessed July 15, 2012 .
- ↑ Lecture by the US Ambassador to the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in Kiev
- ↑ Johannes Voswinkel: Ukraine: "The people do not fight for Yushchenko, but for their future". In: Zeit.de . December 6, 2004, accessed August 15, 2012 .
- ↑ Source: Deutsche Welle
- ^ Text of the OSCE report
- ↑ Спостерігачі від СНД і країн Східної Європи вважають вибори в Україні легітимними. In: korrespondent.net . December 27, 2004, accessed July 15, 2012 (Ukrainian, citing Interfax-Ukraine).
- ↑ Elke Windisch: Ukraine: Moscow recognizes change of power with resignation. In: DiePresse.com. December 28, 2004, accessed July 15, 2012 .
- ↑ Complete text of Kuchma's New Year's address. Official website of the President of Ukraine, January 1, 2005, archived from the original on March 24, 2005 ; accessed on August 15, 2012 .
