File:Orange revolution kyiv.jpg

In Ukraine, a dead heat in the October 31 election between current Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych and former Prime Minister Viktor Yushchenko resulted in a runoff election on November 21. The runoff was plagued with allegations of large-scale voter fraud, particularly in the oblasts (regions) of Donetsk, Luhansk and Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine where Yanukovych had the strongest support. Election observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) state that the election did not meet international standards and was subject to wide-scale, planned election fraud. On the other hand, some groups of international observers such as British Helsinki Human Rights Group give a quite different picture of massive violations in Western Ukraine, and pro-opposition bias of local media there: BHHRG Report(The report is discredited in this Guardian article  ).
The declaration of Yanukovych as the winner of the runoff by the elections commission set into play mass demonstrations and demands for a recount or outright revote from Yuschchenko supporters.  The result has been widely criticised by Western media as fraudulent.
Share this: 






This page is archived, and is no longer publicly editable.
Got a correction? Add the template {{editprotected}} to the talk page along with your corrections, and it will be brought to the attention of the administrators.
Please note that due to our archival policy, we will not alter or update the content of articles that are archived, but will only accept requests to make grammatical and formatting corrections.
Note that some listed sources or external links may no longer be available online due to age.
Got a correction? Add the template {{editprotected}} to the talk page along with your corrections, and it will be brought to the attention of the administrators.
Please note that due to our archival policy, we will not alter or update the content of articles that are archived, but will only accept requests to make grammatical and formatting corrections.
Ukraine political crisis