Supreme Court to hear appeal (11/28/04)

Supreme Court to hear appeal

Following are the latest developments related to Ukraine's presidential election, reported here as The Ukrainian Weekly goes to press on early Monday morning, November 29. (Due to the Thanksgiving holiday, the print shop where our newspaper is printed was closed Thursday through Sunday.)

On Thursday, November 25, the Supreme Court halted the official printing of the voting results that had been announced on November 24 and blocked the inauguration of Viktor Yanukovych. The court is to hear an appeal by the campaign of Viktor Yushchenko on Monday, November 29. Regional courts also are considering some 11,000 complaints about voting fraud.
Lech Walesa, founder of Solidarity and former president of Poland, arrived in Kyiv on Thursday, November 25, on a fact-finding mission in hopes of a peaceful resolution to the crisis in Ukraine over the falsified election. He addressed the hundreds of thousands of demonstrators gathered on Independence Square: "Do not give up your struggle until victory is achieved."
Talks between the two presidential candidates began on Friday night, November 26. Present were: Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma, Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski, Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus, Russian Duma Speaker Boris Gryzlov, Javier Solana of the European Union and Jan Kubic of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. Mr. Yushchenko is seeking a repeat election on December 12 under the supervision of the OSCE.
Speaking for the European Union, Dutch Foreign Minister Ben Bot said on Saturday, November 27, that the "ideal outcome" would be to hold new elections before the end of the year.
The Verkhovna Rada on November 27, declared the disputed presidential election invalid by a vote of 255 votes for (out of 429 deputies present). The vote was not legally binding but was seen as an indication of the growing discontent in Ukraine. By 307 votes in favor, the Rada said the election result was "at odds with the will of the people." The Rada also passed a vote of no confidence in the Central Election Commission, with 270 national deputies voting for the measure.
Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, meeting with local officials in Siverodonetsk, Donetsk Oblast, on Sunday, November 28, said Ukraine was in danger of splitting in two. Local officials in eastern Ukraine called for a referendum on autonomy if Mr. Yanukovych is not declared the winner of the presidential election.
Speaking on November 28, Mr. Yushchenko called on his supporters to continue their peaceful demonstrations. He called for the 15 members of the Central Election Commission to be replaced. He also called for voting via absentee voter certificates to be prohibited, for candidates to be given equal access to the media and for the participation of international observers. His ally Yulia Tymoshenko demanded that President Leonid Kuchma sack Prime Minister Yanukovych and that oblast chairmen threatening to seek autonomy be fired.
Demonstrations continued in Kyiv for the seventh straight day. Rallies in support of Mr. Yushchenko were reported in Lviv and many other cities, as well as in the eastern regions in Kharkiv, Luhansk, Donetsk, Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhia.

In developments elsewhere:

Speaking from Crawford, Texas, where he celebrated Thanksgiving, President George W. Bush on Friday, November 26, said: "There's just a lot of allegations of vote fraud that placed their election - the validity of their elections in doubt. They international community is watching very carefully. People are paying very close attention to this, and hopefully it will be resolved in a way that brings credit and confidence to the Ukrainian government." Rallying nearby was a group of some 100 Ukrainian Americans from various parts of Texas.
In Ottawa, Canada's House of Commons on November 26 sent a warning to Ukrainian authorities via a motion that noted "a concerted, systemic and massive fraud ... committed by the current regime and the Central Electoral Commission of Ukraine against the will of the people of Ukraine" and threatened that unless the will of the Ukrainian people is respected, "Canada shall consider the introduction of appropriate and effective measures."
Around the world, Ukrainians demonstrated against falsification of the vote. In the U.S., in addition to New York, Chicago and Houston, whose protests are noted in this issue, protests were held in Washington, Sacramento and San Francisco. In Canada, there were protests in Toronto, Winnipeg, Montreal, Edmonton, Saskatoon and Regina. In Australia there were rolling rallies in Sydney, Canberra, Adelaide and Melbourne. In addition, there were demonstrations in Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Sweden, Italy and England.

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