Blogging the democratic revolution
The official Pora website hasn’t been updated in months, so I’ve been really wondering what they’ve been up to since the Orange Revolution. Since then, they’ve created the Red Pora youth organization, which seeks to immitate its Ukrainian civic campaign in Russia. There still isn’t much, but according to this article, Pora has backed Mikhail Kasyanov for president in 2008. A political youth group has said it will support former Russian prime minister Mikhail Kasyanov in his bid for the presidency in 2008. The group, called Pora! (High Time), has the same name as the youth group in Ukraine that…
Tipping the hat to Gateway Pundit for letting me know about this. You may remember when about a week and a half ago ten thousand protestors in Bashkortostan gathered to demand their president’s resignation. Today, they took it on an airplane straight to Moscow. 7 April 2005 — Activists from the central Russian republic of Bashkortostan flew to Moscow today to call for the removal of Bashkortostan President Murtaza Rakhimov. Roughly 200 activists planned to deliver a petition to the Kremlin that they claim carries 100,000-plus signatures. Opponents accuse Rakhimov of human rights abuses and corruption. The group has official…
For what you need to know from the last week of news from Russia and its near-abroad, check out Andy’s — guess — weekly news roundup.
I was just reading the joint statement by the two for the strategic goals both the U.S. and Ukraine want to work on. Among these were promoting democracy in Cuba and Belarus, among resolving separatist conflicts in Georgia and Moldova. We also commit to work together to back reform, democracy, tolerance and respect for all communities, and peaceful resolution of conflicts in Georgia and Moldova, and to support the advance of freedom in countries such as Belarus and Cuba. Citizens in our open societies value the freedom to practice their faiths, and we are committed to promoting religious tolerance globally.…
One more: A former Yukos bigwig says that Russia will have a revolution once Belarus gets its act together. Meanwhile, government elites a trumping up such a possibility so as to portay Putin as a strongman and the only person capable of holding the country together. Indeed, it does seem as if the Russian rudder has fallen off. Bush looks as if he will push his advantage while in Europe, visiting with presidents from various ex-Soviet client states. Putin’s not happy, but there isn’t much he can do about it.
Daniel noted earlier the blatantly warped and somewhat arbitrary questions, but Mike Connor all the way out in Yushchenko’s Ukraine noticed it as well. They better watch out, or they might develop the same bad international reputation they’ve acquired at home!
April 4th is the day Moldova’s Parliament holds elections for President. Up for re-election is Communist Party leader Voronin, who won 56 of the 101 votes, of which he only needed 61 to win. In other words, his party needed to pursuade some of the opposition his way. If a president is not elected after two times, then parliament dissolves and a new election is held. Well, five votes isn’t much, so it was a pretty easy battle for Voronin to win. But before the election, the pro-Moscow Democratic Moldova bloc presented a list of 22 demands for its participation.…
President Yushchenko of Ukraine’s Orange Revolution has arrived in Washington today and will be staying through April 7th. Time to roll out the red carpet! WASHINGTON, DC — The United States is getting ready to roll out the red carpet for Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, the man behind a democratic movement that Washington would like to see spread to other parts of the former Soviet Union and elsewhere in the world. Yushchenko is to arrive in the United States Sunday and will be welcomed by President George W. Bush to the White House the following day. The trip, through Thursday,…
I grew up despising Jerzy Urban, the Polish communist party spokesman, whose lies dropped out of his mouth like an loaded dumptruck . It turns out the fat creep isn’t done yet. Today, he weighed with a new pile of hate for the Pope on his passing, still spewing garbage after all these years. Read it here.
Even though this protest was about a week ago, and there are already plenty of photos, Belarus Today has come out with a gallery of photos from the protest that are unique to its own website. And… A babe finally!
I’ve been reading this article with the above title. It’s pretty long and informative, but I think this quote sums it up, “They haven’t ever seen a good election and wouldn’t know one if it hit them in the face.” Truer words have never been spoken!
Andy has the weekly roundup… up. Everything dealing with Putin and his cronies and the near abroad! Check it out! My personal favorite was Russia’s threat to withhold funding from the OSCE if it doesn’t change its mission from those sickly human rights to security. They would say that, wouldn’t they?
I was just going through Google news last night and read an article on The Tufts Daily, an editorial piece regarding the Tulip Revolution. A lot of it had to do with post-revolution relations with Russia and how Kyrgyzstan should move away from its influence. Well, besides being physically impossible to move, I dropped a comment on there that I’ll report here for analytical sakes given then I rarely do that. Kremlin foreign policy post-Orange Revolution has been to work with both governments and opposition parties to ensure steady political and economic relations with Russia despite a change of governance.…
I was taking a look at this article about recent demonstrations around Russia — you know, Kyrgyzstan and a little bit about Belarus. One part in particular caught my eye, though. Two Russian ethnic republics, Ingushetia and Bashkortostan, have seen mass street demonstrations this week directed against Kremlin-installed leaders. Even in remote Mongolia, the former USSR’s Asian satellite, hundreds of protesters gathered last week to “congratulate our Kyrgyz brothers” and demand a rerun of last June’s disputed parliamentary polls. Amazing how these things almost fly under the radar (just like how Bahrain totally missed the MSM’s map). Partner in revolutionary…
I wrote about the unauthorized opposition rally yesterday. I don’t think I need to say it, but Lukashenko scares the jeepers out of me. Why? He has absolutely no reservations about beating down each and every person who stands up against him . . . These guys don’t even care that they were taking down good looking girls either. Andy thinks that the presidential election in September 2006 will be the final offense that brings people out en masse. I agree, I just hope he goes down sooner.
A few days ago, the opposition in Belarus submitted a request to hold a large really. It was denied. The Minsk city administration has rejected a request by opposition politician Andrey Klimaw to stage a downtown protest rally on 25 March, Belapan News reported on 22 March. Klimaw says he intended to assemble up to 100,000 people to protest Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s intention to run for a third presidential term. Klimaw told Belapan he is not surprised by the refusal, although the explanation baffles him. The city government told him that the location where he intended to hold the rally, Kastrychnitskaya…
It looks as if Dennis Hastert has done the right thing: Yushchenko to address Senate and House in joint meeting Washington, DC ???????? Word has come in that the President of Ukraine, Viktor Yushchenko, has been invited to address a combined meeting of the Senate and House during his visit to the U.S. in early April. President Yushchenko is expected in Washington on April 3rd for a private session with U.S. President George Bush on Monday, April 4th. Tentative plans have been discussed for a 3-day visit that will include meetings in Washington DC, Chicago, and Boston. A rally at…
Veronica Khokhlova is back visiting Kiev, and of all things she had a run in with Yanukovich protestors who were vying for Putin’s attention. How bizarre, reading this was like a flashback into three months ago (and I still can’t believe it’s been that long, either). Here’s a link to her photo page where she has the pictures of the mini-rally. UPDATE: Mike notes the same kind of people at an anti-war rally a few days ago.
Communist President Voronin was just tapped for possible election again after Moldova’s recent parliamentary elections. He’s pretty confident he’ll win. CHISINAU, March 23 (Itar-Tass) – Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin said he was confident that the new parliament elected on March 6 will vote for the head of state at the first try. Voronin made the statement in commends on the talks which the authorities are conducting with the opposition. Communists hold 56 out of 101 mandates in the republic’s parliament, which enables them to form the parliament leadership and the Cabinet. To elect the president, they need the support of…
The new Ukrainian government continues to contend with the fall out from the dealings of the last Kuchma regime. I mentioned yesterday that Yushchenko has shown a tendency to fall into a kind of minor-league imitation of his predecessor when reporting on his government’s actions. David Crouch notices the same thing: The suicide two weeks ago of former interior minister Yuri Kravchenko, a key witness in investigations into the outgoing leadership’s criminal exploits, has been widely blamed on the government putting its own interests before the legal process – a hallmark of ex-president Leonid Kuchma’s years in power. Mr Yushchenko’s…
Every day I ask myself, “So, what government will fall today?” Because literally, in 2005, that’s what seems to be happening. Estonia is no exception. TALLINN, Estonia — Estonia’s prime minister announced his resignation and dissolved his government Monday after lawmakers said they had no confidence in his justice minister because of a controversial anti-corruption plan. Prime Minister Juhan Parts, 38, said the government coalition could no longer effectively lead the ex-Soviet Baltic country of 1.4 million people. “The time of this government is over,” Parts said in remarks to the Riikogu, or parliament, adding that his resignation would take…
Continuing protests in southern Kyrgyzstan are giving rise to speculation that Russia might intervene militarily. Democracy Guy and Registan.net both correctly say, however, that the Russian military isn’t capable of an unwanted intervention (read: invasion), and the geo-political ramifications would be immense – certainly far more than the Kremlin wants to deal with right now. A peacekeeping mission, probably at the invitation of President Akayev, seems to be the only remaining option open to Russia if it wants to find some way of directly intervening in Kyrgyzstan, but that too is an option fraught with problems. Problems which I believe…
This from the BBC yesterday, on Russia finally having had enough with OSCE election observation missions. (thanks to Nathan for picking it up) Russia’s Foreign Ministry condemned the protests, blaming "extremists". "Extremist forces must not be allowed to use political instability to create a threat to the democratic foundations of the Kyrgyz statehood," it said in a statement. Russia also rebuked the Organization for Security and Cooperation Äin EuropeÅ (OSCE) for declaring that the elections had fallen short of democratic standards. It urged the body to be "more responsible" in its election monitoring conclusions "to prevent destructive elements from using…
To start off, if even haven’t read it, make sure to catch Daniel’s Ukraine roundup over at Bloggledygook. Now, there are two things regarding the situation in Ukraine that has made me crack a scowl lately, except it doesn’t have anything to do with what Ukraine is doing. It has to do with Washington. Tim Russo from Democracy Guy points me to an article in the Washington Post, while biased sounding as it is, throws out some numbers that just irritate me to no end. In the weeks after a popular uprising toppled a corrupt government in Ukraine, President Bush…
Judging from the Orange Revolution, it is known that for a political movement to be more likely to succeed, the opposition must be united behind a charismatic candidate. There is a new face for the Belarussian opposition front these days, who has recently appeared to challenge Lukashenko for the presidency in summer 2006. And it looks like he may be uniting two of the opposition parties. The Minsk-based “Narodnaya volya,” the biggest opposition daily in Belarus, carried a front page manifesto on 19 February of a new political movement called Will of the People (Volya naroda). The manifesto was signed…