Ukrainian Politics
Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko has dissolved parliament and called a snap election, in an escalation of the country's political crisis.
The move comes amid a long-running power struggle between the pro-Western president and pro-Russian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych.
I know very little about internal Ukrainian politics, but whenever I see a story about Yushchenko, I keep wondering, "Whatever happened to that investigation about him being poisoned?" I mean, when the whole "Orange Revolution" was happening, there were all kinds of stories about the vicious and ugly poisoning of Yushchenko and all sorts of rumors linking it to Yanukovych. After Yushchenko became President, the stories seem to have dried up. No mention of it anywhere in this story. What happened?
One other thing struck me while I was reading this.
Mr Yushchenko became president in January 2005, following the pro-democracy Orange Revolution which overturned a rigged victory for Mr Yanukovych
But Mr Yushchenko was forced to accept his rival as prime minister after his allies failed to win a majority in the March 2006 parliamentary election, and the two men have repeatedly clashed.
So the narrow win by Yanukovych for President was a rigged election that was overturned by the Orange Revolution, installing the pro-democracy, and pro-Western, Yushchenko as President. Then when they had parliamentary elections, and apparently democratic ones, Yanukovych and his supporters win a majority. Hmm.
