In such circumstances, both Yushchenko and Tymoshenko are forced to rely on non-traditional solutions, balancing on the brink of law.
An illustrative example of such tactics of Yulia Tymoshenko took place yesterday, when the whole of Ukraine learnt to its consternation that Georgia had decided to send to the country more than 2 thousand of its citizens as election observers. While apart from Georgia, only 3,149 people applied to Ukraine's Central Election Commission for registration as foreign observers. At first sight it is difficult to understand why the presence of so many Georgian observers is required at the Ukrainian elections?
However, if you recall the history of the early parliamentary elections in Ukraine in autumn 2007, then everything falls into place. Recall that Georgia sent 205 observers for those elections, 200 of whom decided to attend at polling stations in the Donetsk region being a stronghold of Viktor Yanukovich and his Party of the Regions of Ukraine.
Residents of Donetsk still shudder to recall the violent Georgian observers, resembling rather fighters, rushing and blocking polling stations in the city. They did this jointly with the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc, which were not absolutely satisfied with the election results in the polling stations of Donetsk. Immediately upon completion of those elections the head of observers from Georgia Givi Targamadze, a man with a controversial reputation, flatly declared the election fraud, what was not confirmed in the future.
This time, Yulia Tymoshenko, knowing that she loses on all counts as against Yanukovych, has decided to once again exploit the so-called “observers” from Georgia, increasing their number 10 times. In fact, she decided to bring a regiment of soldiers to Ukraine to do if not the trick, then the chaos and riots after the elections. In the CEC decision on registration of observers from Georgia, prepared by the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc, 2,042 people were enrolled. According to the representative of the Central Election Committee of Ukraine Yelena Lukash, there is no one person among them who would have had the experience of election observation, 1,466 persons of them are unemployed, and many do not have any profession.
As noted by Lucash, “so, a typical observer from Georgia is a young man with no education, unemployed, with no experience of election observation and, as a rule, of no fixed abode”. Naturally, Ukraine's Central Election Commission refused to register the observers from Georgia, which caused hysteria in BYuT.
Thus, the head of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, the BYuT member, Oleg Bilorus said that the CEC has provoked an international scandal, offending the fraternal Georgia. He promised to complain to the OSCE Secretary General and the head of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly. Yulia Tymoshenko called the CEC decision “shameful and anti-image” for the country.
It is noteworthy that none of the other presidential candidates in Ukraine has commented on this situation.
In other circumstances, the whole thing would look as an anecdote, but now it does not evoke a smile. It becomes clear that the losing heavyweights of Ukrainian politics are not ready for changes in their fate, they are not yet able to imagine themselves to be in opposition, and so they are ready to do anything, including the use of force. Because the young unemployed Georgians were invited to Ukraine not to give lectures on human rights.
The current President of Ukraine is in a different situation. Despite the fact that in all his speeches Viktor Yushchenko expresses confidence in his victory in the elections, this is only utter puzzle for the electorate. Only an unaccomplished politician could have squandered his rating of 50 percent over five years and brought it to 3-4 percent. Ukrainians now understand it very well, so Yushchenko has no chance even of the third place in the first round of elections. He is now clearly too late to fight for votes.
The only hope for Yushchenko is chaos and anarchy in the post-election period, which according to the scenario repeatedly proven in Belgrade, Tbilisi, Bishkek, Kishinev and the same Kiev in 2004 should result in legal actions and all possible delays in publishing the election results, and eventually in their revision. To do this, Yushchenko may well use administrative resources, as heads of administrations of regions and districts are appointed by his decree, as well as Ukrainian nationalist fighters who are ready for mass actions of disobedience. Interestingly, to coordinate their actions the latter actively use social networks in the Internet, apparently, following the example of the events in Kishinev last year, where the decisive factor of the protesters’ success was swift coordination of their actions through the network communication.
Now in all social networks, both domestic and foreign ones, groups in support of Yushchenko have been established, bringing together thousands of young people in Ukraine. At forums of these groups their ideas are being promoted and new supporters are being recruited. There is nothing to be ashamed of in this work, but recently instructions on how to act at a certain H-hour began to appear there. One of the coordinators of these ideas is Mikhail Pritula, leader of the nationalist organization “The Right of the People”. At forums in support of Yushchenko, he argues that “there is a way to change the situation in the last moment”. According to him, the text and video have been already prepared, of which the project has been already laid out on the YouTube site and introduced to the network community authoritative members, “who can keep a civil secret”. In the coming days, the video will be brought into the civil alert status, with no linkage to any particular candidate or politician,” he says. For more detailed instructions, Mikhail Pritula offers to write to his e-mail. It is unknown, what this video contains, but its very presence causes worry and get nervous ordinary Ukrainian citizens, being satiated with Maidan already in 2004.
Again, one could not pay attention to such technology, if not for the parliamentary elections in Moldova last year, where everything just started on the Internet, but ended by the storm of the parliament. And Mikhail Pritula is not an unknown blogger, an Internet worm, but a 45-year-old man, the former military counterintelligence officer of the KGB of the USSR, Colonel of the SBU and the MVD of Ukraine, who in due time, among other things was the chief of UBOP, Ministry of Internal Affairs in Kharkov, Ukraine. It is not difficult to imagine what instructions he can give and what to advise….
In this situation, one can only hope for good sense of citizens of Ukraine, which will not allow manipulating them and will not give another chance for revenge to all the losers – “orange” politicians. Ukraine is tired, leave it in peace.
