Given the events of the past several weeks, it is easy to conclude that Ukraine????????s fragile democracy is in danger. Indeed it is. But to admit this is not the same as concluding that the Orange Revolution is over.

Whether or not the Orange Revolution has ended (or is about to end) depends largely on what the goal of the Orange Revolution really was.

For example, if the goal was to install a pro-West government, then, yes, the Orange Revolution is in danger. It is likely, regardless of whether new elections are called, that Viktor Yanukovich will become Prime Minister. And since Yanukovich is openly anti-West (or at least adamantly pro-Russia), the goal of the Orange Revolution could then be said to be frustrated.

Yet few would argue that replacing a pro-Russian dictator with a pro-Western dictator was the purpose of the Orange Revolution. Indeed, it seems much nearer to the truth that the Orange Revolution was about the people of Ukraine reclaiming their country.

If the goal of the Orange Revolution was to bring a working democracy to Ukraine, then the Orange Revolution is alive and well.

Events during and after the Orange Revolution show that substantial progress has been made. For example, Ukraine????????s constitutional court made the decision to annul the fraudulent second-round elections and to order a fresh ballot.

More recently, the March parliamentary elections were declared ???????free and fair,???????? a first for any post-Soviet country. And, perhaps most importantly, the government did not interfere in the elections in the lead-up to the ballot.

Yet critics are quick to point to several shortcomings: corruption has not been prosecuted as promised; inexperience and populism undermined Tymoshenko????????s government; and infighting between Our Ukraine and BYutT allowed Yanukovich to launch a counter attack. True.

But these are the requisite growing pains of any new democracy. In fact, the election of Yanukovich as PM, without presidential or ???????Orange???????? intervention, would prove that Ukraine????????s democracy is working. Samuel Huntington, for example, argues that such a regime change is an important positive indicator of the maturity of a new democracy.

One other major objection to the future of Ukraine????????s democracy is the oft-used phrase, ???????Yes, the elections were ???????free and fair,???????? but Hitler was freely elected.??????? Implicitly, the critic is saying that free elections do not a democracy make. Quite so.

Though there are as many definitions of democracy as there are political scientists, democracy is generally thought to include civil rights and the rule of law ???????? in addition to free and fair elections.

Ukraine????????s democracy has made great strides in both these areas. First, the branches of the government have proved their ability to check and balance one another (i.e. 2004 elections) and second, civil rights have dramatically improved under Yushchenko (i.e. the emergence of a genuinely free press).

Thus, it is not necessarily a problem if Yanukovich is elected PM so long as the other democratic requisites are in place.

The events of the past several weeks may be a set-back for pro-Western politicians, but by no means do they equal a set-back for Ukrainian democracy. Democracy in Ukraine is young, but it is still marching forward.

What then of the Orange Revolution? As Winston Churchill famously said, ???????This is not the end. This is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.????????