What is up in the Ukraine!
I spent 2 years on a church mission in Romania, one of the Ukraine's neighbors to the west. While Romania was the only Eastern European country to actually have a bloody revolution back when the Iron Curtain came crashing down, I never saw video coming out of Romania, an ethnically and religiously divided country, like I saw out of the Ukraine in their recent presidential elections.
There was widespread shameless voter fraud and intimidation at the polls, aimed at keeping the opposition candidate, Yushchenko, out of office.
Now we see that someone, somewhere poisoned Yushchenko with the toxin Dioxin. While there is no conclusive proof yet, it is looking like supporters from the other side of this race slipped Yushchenko the dioxin poisoning, possibly at a state dinner. Am I the only one thinking that this is the stuff movies are made of!
Knowing the general mentality of people in Eastern Europe, I would be willing to guess that the people who did this never dreamt that this poisoning incident would get the press it has received world wide. I'm afraid their entire plan has backfired on them, and they now stand to lose this election on December 26th by a landslide.
Let's pray they do! If Ukrainian politicians are anything like Romanian politicians, Yushchenko may not be much better than Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych. However, even a small improvement would be worth the change.
In my opinion, any candidate backed by Putin, the guy who recently robbed Russians of locally voted representation by turning local governors into an appointed position rather than an elected position, taking Russia in a step backward toward dictatorship, is not someone we want in office.
There was widespread shameless voter fraud and intimidation at the polls, aimed at keeping the opposition candidate, Yushchenko, out of office.
Now we see that someone, somewhere poisoned Yushchenko with the toxin Dioxin. While there is no conclusive proof yet, it is looking like supporters from the other side of this race slipped Yushchenko the dioxin poisoning, possibly at a state dinner. Am I the only one thinking that this is the stuff movies are made of!
Knowing the general mentality of people in Eastern Europe, I would be willing to guess that the people who did this never dreamt that this poisoning incident would get the press it has received world wide. I'm afraid their entire plan has backfired on them, and they now stand to lose this election on December 26th by a landslide.
Let's pray they do! If Ukrainian politicians are anything like Romanian politicians, Yushchenko may not be much better than Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych. However, even a small improvement would be worth the change.
In my opinion, any candidate backed by Putin, the guy who recently robbed Russians of locally voted representation by turning local governors into an appointed position rather than an elected position, taking Russia in a step backward toward dictatorship, is not someone we want in office.
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posted by Matt at 9:37 PM
1 Comments:
Romania huh? That's cool. We weren't too far apart (assuming our mission spans overlapped). I served in . . . Ukraine; the Ukraine, Donetsk mission to be exact. My wife and I spent some time there last July as well. I've watched/read pretty closely as this election thing has developed, due in part to my overall interest and love for Ukraine and Ukrainians, and due in part to the fact that I was in the midst of writing a paper on Ukraine's legal system and religious freedom when the whole scandal broke out.
With all the problems that Ukraine deals with - and considering other world tragedies, it's a real relief to see the election crisis end without violence / total chaos. Things are looking relatively positive. The involved parties have turned to governmental bodies and the legal system for resolution - and the decisions have been acknowledged and seem to hold force with the people. With Yuschenko's victory appearing large and conclusive, hopefully things will continue to move in a peaceful and positive direction.
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