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Ukraine political crisis

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Thursday, November 25, 2004 File:Orange revolution kyiv.jpg

Orange-clad supporters of Viktor Yushchenko gather in Independence Square in Kiev
(Image missing from Commons: image; log)


Voting results by region

Background

In Ukraine, a dead heat in the October 31 election between current Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych and former Prime Minister Viktor Yushchenko resulted in a runoff election on November 21. The runoff was plagued with allegations of large-scale voter fraud, particularly in the oblasts (regions) of Donetsk, Luhansk and Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine where Yanukovych had the strongest support. Election observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) state that the election did not meet international standards and was subject to wide-scale, planned election fraud. On the other hand, some groups of international observers such as British Helsinki Human Rights Group give a quite different picture of massive violations in Western Ukraine, and pro-opposition bias of local media there: BHHRG Report(The report is discredited in this Guardian article ).

The declaration of Yanukovych as the winner of the runoff by the elections commission set into play mass demonstrations and demands for a recount or outright revote from Yuschchenko supporters. The result has been widely criticised by Western media as fraudulent.

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