Last Orange Government ousted in the Ukraine

Although the Orange revolution has floundered and the arch-nemesis of the revolution is back in power the democratic process in the Ukraine has been strengthened. Tymoshenko first fought with her ally Yushchenko and then her government failed to rescue the sinking Ukraine economy that shrunk by 15 per cent last year. Yanukovych, the new president, will need to form a government or call new elections. He is for closer relationships with Russia. Under Yanukovych the Ukraine is not likely to seek NATO membership.

Tymoshenko's government ousted in Ukraine

Ukraine's parliament ousts Tymoshenko government in a no-confidence vote

ANNA MELNICHUK and SIMON SHUSTER
AP News



The Ukrainian parliament ousted the government of Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko in a no-confidence vote on Wednesday, dealing a final blow to the leadership of the pro-Western Orange Revolution and leaving her to lead the opposition in parliament.


The vote followed weeks of shifting alliances in the parliament after the pro-Western Tymoshenko lost her bid for the presidency to Kremlin-friendly Viktor Yanukovych.

Yanukovych has moved quickly to consolidate power, and secured a major victory as the no-confidence resolution passed with 243 votes in the 450-seat chamber.

The parliament now has 30 days to form a new governing coalition. It is expected to coalesce around Yanukovych's Party of Regions, and would then be able to put forward a new prime minister.

If no new coalition is formed, Yanukovych will be able to disband parliament and call early elections.

Addressing the chamber ahead of the vote, Tymoshenko said she would embrace her new role as an opposition leader, and her speech showed a level of fervor that was absent during the tumultuous weeks following her election defeat.

She said her new goal will be to hold Yanukovych and his team to account for every decision they make.

"We will protect Ukraine from this new calamity that has befallen her," she said.

... The coalition, formed in December 2008, was loosely centered on the political ideals of the Orange Revolution, a series of massive street protests in 2004 led by former President Viktor Yushchenko and Tymoshenko.

Those protests against vote fraud resulted in the Supreme Court overturning Yanukovych's election victory in 2004. Yushchenko, a reformer who wanted closer integration with the West, won a revote. Tymoshenko became his prime minister.

But relations between the two deteriorated significantly and led to near-paralysis of the government as the country staggered through the global economic downturn.

In Wednesday's vote, seven of Tymoshenko's own party members voted to remove her, but she will still command the second largest faction in parliament.

Before the vote, the leaders of Yanukovych's party lambasted Tymoshenko for failing to fend off the effects of the global financial crisis, which shrank Ukraine's economy by 15 percent last year.

"For the period of her haphazard policymaking, the state has suffered the deepest social and economic crisis that Ukraine has not known for 20 years. We did not see any anti-crisis program from Tymoshenko," said Mykola Azarov, the deputy head of the Party of Regions, which has named him as a candidate for the prime minister's post.

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Yushchenko Orang Revolution figurehead concedes defeat in Ukraine

Interesting that this is covered in Pakistan but there is not much coverage in the mainstream western press. The two remaining front runners who will face a runoff election are both more pro-Russian. This is in effect the end of the Orange Revolution although as Yuschenko points out there is now a more democratic system in the Ukraine. However whoever wins the tilt of Ukrainian politics will now be more toward Russia than the West.

This is from thenews (Pakistan)

Yushchenko concedes defeat



Thursday, January 21, 2010
KIEV: President Viktor Yushchenko on Wednesday said he accepted defeat in Ukraine’s presidential elections but defiantly vowed to remain in politics as the next stage of the campaign heated up.

Yushchenko, the figurehead of the 2004 Orange Revolution, won just 5.45 per cent of the vote in the first round elections on Sunday amid widespread disappointment with his presidency.

But in a characteristically defiant statement, Yushchenko said that the holding of free elections, warmly praised by international observers, was in itself proof of the victory of the Orange Revolution. “As head of state, I accept the will of the people in the January 17 elections. The main thing is the elections were free, democratic and legal,” he told reporters in his first public comment after the vote.

“But national and state circumstances do not give me the moral right to leave political life,” he added.

Yushchenko had vowed to turn Ukraine into a prosperous nation anchored in the European Union and NATO but his ambitions were undermined by political infighting and a dire economic crisis.

Analysts also critisised the president — a passionate defender of Ukraine’s cultural heritage — for focusing on grandiose historical projects at the expense of concrete reform.

Yushchenko’s result left him in a lowly fifth place, behind frontrunners Viktor Yanukovich and Yulia Tymoshenko, who will now contest the run-off vote on February 7. Both are seen as more pro-Moscow than the incumbent president.

But after observers led by the OSCE praised the elections as of “high quality,” Yushchenko said the vote had set an “example” for the entire former Soviet Union.

The apparent success of the elections contrasted with the last polls in 2004 where mass rigging blamed on Yanukovich’s supporters prompted the peaceful protests of the Orange Revolution that swept the old order from power.

“The fact that the elections were free means that the Orange Revolution actually won and did not only win in word but also in deed,” Yushchenko said.