Stale Oranges

Five years after Ukraine’s Orange Revolution, its leader is polling at three percent while the public expects a rigged election between Moscow’s preferred candidates. “Just five years after Ukraine’s Orange Revolution, which saw hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians mobilize peacefully to reject electoral fraud and embrace open democracy and a Westward path for their country, the country appears poised to shift back into Russia’s waiting arms. In a shock to many in the West, the front-runner in Sunday’s presidential election is Viktor Yanukovych, whose alleged rigging of the tense 2004 presidential polls triggered three weeks of street protests in Kiev’s central Maidan square that brought an unprecedented third round of voting that elected current President Viktor Yushchenko. Mr. Yushchenko, the leader of the 2004 ‘Orange Revolution’ who pried open a historic window on the West and tried to drag his former Soviet nation through it, is in trouble, running at a dismal 3 percent support in most opinion polls. His former political ally, the fiery populist Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, is faring a bit better. With an estimated 15 percent backing, she seems set to win second place on Sunday and go forward to a decisive second round that would be slated for Feb. 7.”