OK, I lied, I couldn't wait to grab the Weds. morning Euro headlines. Top of the list is Nick Paton-Walsh talks about the attempt of the Yushchenko campaign to keep Kuchma's son-in-law Viktor Pinchuk at least on the sidelines, if not crossing over to Yushchenko.

Oleg Ribachuk, head of the Ukrainian opposition campaign, said he took Viktor Pinchuk, Mr Kuchma's billionaire son-in law and a key backer of the prime minister Viktor Yanukovich, for a walk through streets crammed with anti-government protesters early yesterday morning.

"I walked with him through the streets of Kiev last night to show him that the protesters are not children or drunks," he told the Guardian.

"Kuchma is becoming more aware about what is really happening out there."

He said there was growing pressure on Mr Kuchma, and described last night's presidential statement, in which he acknowledged that there might have to be a new election, as a remarkable climb-down.

He said: "I have been talking to close members of his family. They asked me how we would react if the supreme court said Mr Yanukovich was the clear winner. I said that the president, who created this system, would have the finger pointed at him."

Mr Pinchuk is thought to be open to negotiations on a Yushchenko presidency.

I'm not sure I am buying this, as other reports suggest Pinchuk himself could be a candidate if there are new elections. Pinchuk is another television network owner and part of the clan in Kyiv -- if he could neutralize Yushchenko's advantage in Kyiv and hold the advantages in eastern Ukraine, he's a viable candidate. And he doesn't exactly have clean hands, and he has ties to Akhmetov. The discussion of Serhiy Tyhypko running instead strike me as more plausible.

Weds. morning's NYT has a piece from C. K. Chivers with some commentary from one of Kuchma's advisors.

[Kuchma]'s task is to orchestrate an exit in which his retirement is safe and his legacy tarnished no further.

"This is what Kuchma has to do today," said Mikhail Pogrebinsky, director of the Kiev Center for Political and Conflict Studies and one of the president's advisers.

The task is not straightforward. Over the years, Mr. Kuchma has been accused of public corruption, of ordering the killing of an investigative journalist and, lately, of taking part in electoral fraud. Some in the opposition have called for his arrest.

One reason he has been eager to pass power to a loyal subordinate, political analysts and a senior Western diplomat said, has been to ensure he would face no such legal action.

Dr. Pogrebinsky and the diplomat said the opposition had offered to guarantee Mr. Kuchma a secure retirement, a maneuver the opposition has not publicly confirmed. But Dr. Pogrebinsky also said that Mr. Kuchma has little reason to trust his enemies and that for an offer to be considered seriously, it would need a powerful foreign guarantor.

I wonder whether this is the role Kwasniewski is expected to play; the opposition will not hear of using Russia.

Worrisome news I explored later tonight is that the Communists, who had been on the sidelines before this point, now appear to have thrown in with Yanukovych. It was in this way that 232 deputies out of 440 in the Rada voted to rescind the no-confidence vote in the Central Election Committee report on the election. We can only wonder what might have happened had unrest outside gotten the parliamentary session recessed. (who caused it? we're not sure -- see comments around 7am Tuesday here)

If it gets to a re-vote with the current two candidates, the pollster who had Yushchenko winning by 11 points on Election Day now shows him up 16 points.

On the light side, here and here are lessons on how to chant like an Orange. What, can't transliterate? Let me help you.

Evening (vechir) time, last roundup of the day. It's been a day of great nervousness. Lileks' Andriy and my student Sasha seem nervous, the latter hopeful that Solana and Kwasniewski will pull some chestnuts out of the fire. A few days ago some were hoping the Europeans would take Kuchma away on the plane. Thus how nervous friends outside of Kyiv are about current events. At least they have the weathermen working for them!

Le Sabot Post-Moderne has two interesting tidbits: a friend who says "His business is at 20% of the pre-election total. He's very worried about economic recession, and mentioned that there have been some preliminary runs on banks;" there is some evidence of that in this order from the National Bank to restrict outflows of foreign currency from the banks. LSPM mentions this story I had seen that Russia offered to go all Czechoslovakia 68 on Ukraine but got spooked by the numbers in Maidan. I had dismissed it when I saw it, but I failed to remember that the story in and of itself rattles the opposition even if a fabrication. LSPM mentioning it makes it newsworthy, and stories abound in the Ukrainian press of Russians landing hither and yon, only to be blocked by opposition protests. One of his commenters notes as well that the crisis is costing the Russians money, too. (What? You saw my crocodile tears?) Separatist talks are now considered a "hastily arranged Plan B", though Rada speaker Lytvyn thinks they are premeditated. CBS News reports that Putin is saying hands off, and yet Europe arrives on a plane to Kyiv.

In the coming day the Parliament will come back to hear another attempt at setting elections aside and getting Yanukovych and his cabinet removed. The Supreme Court is reportedly going to make its decision. To Western readers I suspect this sounds like things are coming to a head. They aren't. One side has to cry "dyadko" first, and neither side looks at all ready.

UPDATE (8:50pm): Anders Aslund, who was advising Ukraine at the same time I worked there and still works with some people there, was on Talk of the Nation yesterday, which I listened to just now. He's much more optimistic than I am -- "the biggest question is whether new elections will be held on the 12th or the 19th," he seemed convinced they would be nationwide -- but then he was speaking yesterday when many people were. In an op-ed on the Action Ukraine list, he also has this cogent observation.

One outstanding danger is that the process takes too long time so that people get tired or the sheer costs of disruption rise. Another worry is that the good-hearted Yushchenko gets cheated in a negotiation. I feel much safer if he sends Tymoshenko, Zinchenko or Poroshenko to a nasty negotiation. Yet, at this stage negotiations should be minimized.

The "good-hearted" comment resonates with my memory of Yushchenko as well. And it turns out he predicted the nastiness and the minimization within a day.

Need to run to a meeting with Littlest Scholar's teacher, so not much more until tonight. While you wait (and I have some more things to share), consider this piece by James Sherr, and particular this thought.

President Putin's calculations remain a critical variable. Thus far, his policy has been based upon a combination of deliberation, delusion and guile, all underpinned by compelling geopolitical interest. These interests far outweigh any gains that might be achieved by honest collaboration with third parties. Putin's greatest delusion, endemic to the circles who advise him, is the underestimation of Ukrainian national consciousness and civil society. Deliberation, reflected in the intimate involvement of Russian 'political technologists' in Ukraine's electoral fraud, has run into the buffers of these delusions. Now the Kremlin fears that events are moving out of its control ('we have dropped out of the circle of active players'). To regain control, it is necessary to change the game. Secession, the means to this end, launches a new game.

If this conclusion is correct, then both Kuchma and Putin will shift the ground of discussion from democracy and legality to the right of Ukraine's authorities to 'hold the country together'. Kuchma, a weak but infinitely supple figure, has already done this. On 29 November, he declared secession 'unacceptable under any circumstances': a formula designed (even in the face of a Supreme Court ruling) to provide legitimacy for a forceful solution. Western governments should be wary of adopting this language, thereby giving credence to a largely fabricated scenario and inadvertently providing legitimacy to a course of action that we earnestly seek to
prevent.

In anything I ever wrote about Kuchma I have never used the words "a weak but infinitely supple figure". As I think more about that, it's an apt description. And it would fit Yanukovych even more.

As things begin to get hot over there, keep your fingers crossed that the supple Kuchma bends to the will of those in Maidan.

Updates here possible before 6pm CT, else new post later tonight.

Sssssh, don't tell him. Wanna peek?

Mitch, Mexican Radio is a definitely a bumper-to-be.

Hugh fried a bunch of callers for suggesting Atlas Shrugged. I am actually fonder of The Fountainhead, but both of them get into the re-read list for me as well. I thought about calling in with Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, but I figured he would call it non-fiction and make me hang up on myself. I mentioned this to Craig Westover and David Strom Saturday and Craig said he preferred Lila. But then, he sails, so of course he would. (Yes, I owned motorcycles before I was married. Some day...) David hasn't told me what he would read because he's still too distracted by the Canadian girl at the bottom of his latest post.

A fairly recent author that I've already read twice is Alan Furst's The World at Night twice. The plots are good, but the atmospherics of World War II Europe are great. That book is set mostly in Vichy France; other of his books are set further east, and all are good. What would it have been like to live in occupied France, or occupied Hungary, or ... ? I find that fascinating.

Current book, if you care: Robert Wilson's The Company of Strangers. In this case, Portugal is the location, as it is for several of Wilson's books.

There's a woman on campus who signs every email with "Happy [day of week]". I'm going to use that for posts on Ukraine. Keep happy thoughts!

Thanks for all the wonderful feedback I'm receiving. If only I had waited until now to release my book*, maybe I could get one of those pictures on top of Hugh's site. Or Hugh's site.

Captain Ed digs about in the news and still sees hope that new elections will happen. But the real story he has is in the addendum, referring to this link describing Yanukovych's attempt to buy off Yushchenko with the premiership if he'll relent and let Yanukovych be president. Ed notes,

One thing is clear -- Yanukovych knows he can't win in a second, cleaner election and will do almost anything to keep from contesting it.

It's been suggested that the original vote was probably pretty close, but the events of the last week have likely tarnished Yanukovych so much that Yushchenko would practically have a walkover in a re-runoff. But the offer is ominous insofar as it should dampen the optimism everyone has that a re-vote will occur. I've been practically a sole naysayer on this, but I do not believe that Kuchma and Yankovych have resigned themselves to a re-vote; the offer Kuchma made yesterday had more conditions than a condo lease, and Yanukovych's offer for re-voting includes both he and Yushchenko agreeing not to be candidates. Ya. is a titular head, of course, for the Donetsk clan, who can certainly generate another face for the posters. Yushchenko has no good substitutes -- those who think Tymochenko can be that person need to read this article and pause, please, to consider that she's already tried to run herself -- and in a quickened timeframe the Orangists would lose to a well-financed Donetsk of Dniepropetrovsk apparatchik. Yushchenko wisely has declined these offers.

(UPDATE: Captain Ed now notes the collapse of talks.)

There is definitely a sense of things coming to a head at this point, but we've been down this road before. Yushchenko's party has called for a meeting of the parliament (or Rada, in Ukrainian) for 9pm tonight asking for people to vote. Yushchenko spoke to the parliament himself earlier, ending his speech with a historical anecdote:

When Alexander the Great came home after his campaign, he has met Diogenes. “What can I do for you? “ – asked Alexander. “Don't stand in my light”, - followed the Diogenes” answer. So, the government, don't stay in the country's light!

But I'm told that the Rada cannot pass a binding no-confidence vote in Yanukovych because there is an article in their constitution which forbids a no-confidence vote for one year after accepting a prime minister's program. The blockade of government buildings now has resumed, increasing tensions in the capital (see for example this picture from the Rada.)

There are also signs that the second day of the Supreme Court is not going as well for Yushchenko as the first. There are procedural issues, including strict time limits on filing claims of vote fraud, and it isn't clear those limits were met.

Hopeful note: Hotline reports that the separation vote in Donetsk won't happen.

Among the Ukrainian blogs, I'm really enjoying Veronica Khokhlova, who has the skeptical eye I wish more American journalists would have. Scroll away, all good. Most interesting thought: The revote might not be just Yu. and Ya. The parliament speaker and Ya.'s ex-campaign chief (the central bank governor who quit yesterday), are speculated to be possibilities. And of course behind them all lies Kuchma. Scott Clark has good posts here (on the meaningfulness of Saturday's parliamentary vote) and here on whether there are parallels in vote fraud in Ukraine and the United States. There isn't.

There are enough offers flying around, however, that it's now unlikely the vote from ten days ago will be allowed to stand. There is going to be some extra-legal solution to this thing. Javier Solana and Aleksander Kwiasniewski are flying to see Kuchma tonight, and the parliament comes back into session tomorrow, so perhaps Kuchma will receive an offer he can't refuse. The screws are tightening.

*(OK, here's the Amazon link. But, if you want a shorter, updated paper, and for free, I have one here from 2002. Someday I'll tell you why I never have seen a penny from the book. Short version: I'm an idiot.**)

**--(Nobody cares about the long version. And we knew the short one already -- Ed.)

I got a note this evening from Lileks' friend Andriy, known in the Bleat as "the crazy Uke" (not Ute, Hugh*) with comments about the events there.

So far, my only complaint is the two main MSM meme's about "disputed results" and "divided country". The results are not in dispute, everyone knows they're more crooked than Billy's willy. ... The "divided country" b.s. is a convenient, albeit irresponsibly lazy play on the blue state/red state formula reflective of the American election. In Ukraine the division is not so much between the "Ukrainian nationalist" west and "industrial Russian-speaking" east as it is between freedom seeking and downtrodden masses and the criminally corrupt mafia (i.e. communist) based oligarchs.

The question that begs to be asked in this context is how does a nation that was a founding member of the U.N. find itself bifurcated on the basis of language? The answer of course is simple and direct. After 70 years of genocide, terror, privation, deportation, war and Russification what language would you be speaking? The notion that Ukraine cannot survive intact is purely a construct of Putin and the Ukrainophobes in Moscow that will, at any cost, endeavor to maintain control over Ukraine's people, economy and resources.

He's echoed by this post at Le Sabot Post-Moderne (quoted in full)

One of the tragic things I see developing is that the Western media narrative seems to be falling into a US vs. Russia play. And I'm seeing more and more commentary in that vein on the web. So few seem to grasp that this is about an entire system, not about an election. Yes, the people are rallying for Yushchenko, but it goes so, so much deeper than that.

The events in Ukraine are about a people fighting free of the grayness, corruption, abuse and fatalism of the post-Soviet era. All of you, Right or Left, need to see them as people. Yes, there are geopolitical ramifications. But they should be so incredibly secondary to the humanity of the Ukrainian people -- these are flesh and blood human beings who are fighting to be free of a vicious, grinding system.

People are proud to be Ukrainian, proud that their country is now known for something other than mafia, dead journalists, and corruption. People who a week ago were convinced of their own powerlessness are now standing fearlessly, singing together, "We are many, we are one, we can't be stopped!"

Can anyone be so dead of heart not to find this beautiful?

As I suggested in this post a week ago, the question is whether Ukraine would take the Georgian or Armenian model of reaction to a stolen election? Georgia (without Abkhazia) and Armenia have far fewer ethnic Russians as a share of their population, and the deciding factors in those countries had nothing to do with split or unsplit ethnolingustics. It had everything to do with people who had decided they had had enough. It makes me think we Armenians might be the Cub fans of the post-Soviet world, we seem to put up with so much crap from our own leadership; Ukraine getting real democracy will be a bigger surprise than the Red Sox were.

*--word is Hugh will soon retire to the Utah.

Someone else has friends in high places: Check out PowerLine's letter from Michael Bleyzer, who is a big-time investment banker and media operator in Ukraine. Here's some of Bleyzer's history as a philanthropist trying to develop entrepreneurs in his country, and here acting as a cheerleader for Ukraine. About this weeks events, Bleyzer writes,

It has become clear to any observer that this crowd is bound to win. There is absolutely no way to stop this crowd without a massive blood bath, which is almost impossible to imagine to take place in the center of Europe, with all the world's TV cameras [present] ...

All major channels had previously been completely ignoring the millions of people on the streets, never reporting it and instead showing cartoons, classical music concerts and exotic travel destinations. We knew that most journalists from the major channels had either been fired by then or had gone on strike because they refused to continue broadcasting lies. As a result, all news programs on National channels 1 and 2, Inter, 1+1, Noviy, and others simply ceased any and all operations. For 3 days in a row, most of Ukraine, which only has access to the major channels, had no TV news. Imagine that - the very day after a major election - no news for three days, no morning news, no evening news, no news at all! All these channels simply had no creative staff left to produce bogus news. All fired or on strike.

Thursday night it all changed. The management and owners of all of the major channels gave in to the demands of their striking journalists and allowed honest news reporting for the first time in the history of independent Ukraine. Some of the channels like National Channel 1 and 1+1 began their evening news broadcast on Thursday with a group shot of all journalists standing together and one of them reading a statement from the creative staff in which they swore to report honest news and honest news only! This was one of the most unbelievable sights I have ever seen. And then the miracle happened - they showed a direct feed of a million proud Ukrainians on Maidan in Kyiv to the whole country. If there are defining moments in the birth of a Nation, that was certainly one! I am so proud to be able to witness it with my own eyes, in spite of all the tears that covered them at that moment.

When I wrote my book on Ukraine, I said that I went to Ukraine looking for the gravitational pull I thought would happen to move Ukraine from plan to market. I didn't find it there. Ukraine didn't really demand independence in 1991 in a meaningful way; it saw Moscow too weak to protect its claim on the USSR's resources and decided to redirect the flows from Moscow to Kyiv. This was the history of Leonid Kravchuk's, Ukraine's first president, rise to power, and what motivated Kuchma as well. It appeared that countries making the move from a planned economy and a closed society could get stuck along the spectrum between plan and market, between kleptocracy and democracy, and it would need a kick to move it further along the path.

This week might just be that kick.

I didn't check my comment email box until now, and I find Peter Swanson has sent me a link to a great post about the Homecoming Queen royalty controversy, which has found its way to the New York Times. No wonder everyone here's so happy to see me blog on Ukraine rather than my usual mucking about in academia. I wish I had thought of Peter's suggestion to blot out the face of the queen with a blue dot. According to one source on campus, the student has indeed been taped for a news magazine program with his face in silohuette. More details as I get them.

Meanwhile, however, could someone from the administration please explain this?

St. Cloud's president, Roy H. Saigo, who supported Mr. Khang's candidacy, and other administrators distributed a statement on a university e-mail list shortly after Mr. Khang was elected.

We reported that letter here and a related letter here. Did he support the candidacy before the election of the homecoming queen or after? If before, how was this support manifested?

There is some evidence now that the potential yesterday for action to remove the protestors from Independence Square and elsewhere might have not only been real but was thwarted only by a military decision to stand down. Interfax-Ukraine

Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksandr Kuzmuk said he is categorically opposed to declaring a state of emergency in the country or using force to deal with the political crisis.

"Those who make such statements need to think about their words," Kuzmuk told journalists after a session of parliamentary faction leaders and members of government on Monday.

According to my student listening to Ukrainian sources, the order to break up the demonstrators for last night was given around 11pm Kyiv time, and was about to be executed when, at a couple minutes before midnight, a second order came to stand down. Some of these troops would have come from Borispil airport. These would likely have cooperated with the forces reportedly on display on Shovkovychna and Hrushevsky streets. Today at a rally after the Supreme Court hearings Yushchenko and Tymoshenko had a general nearby who spoke to this effect. I think it's becoming rather clear that Kuchma has at best a tenuous grip on the regular military and police forces. He may resort, alas, to what we might call "irregulars".

Terry Rogers and Daniel Medley are arguing the end is near and that Yushchenko will win the presidency shortly. This article suggests the same. But, as Lee Corso would say, not so fast my friend! They may think the secessionist talk is all shapka and no salo, but it's worth remembering in that article that one guy is still pulling for Yanukovych, and he's the guy with a lot of chips on the table.

...insiders allege that Donetsk-based businessman Rinat Akhmetov continues to back Yanukovych and the separatist movement in eastern Ukraine.

Akhmetov is reportedly Ukraine’s richest man, also valued at about $3 billion. Akhmetov’s purpose in lobbying for eastern autonomy, according to insiders, is to make sure he retains control over these regions and his businesses there. He is involved in steel mills, coal mines, breweries, a mobile phone company and the
media.

Media analysts say Donetsk-based television channel TRK Ukraina, majority owned by Akhmetov, has been using its news programs to support the autonomy movement.

I'm not sure it's wise to bet against this guy having some more tricks up his sleeve before this is all done. This article in Zerkalo Nedeli shows how close he and Yanukovych are, and Tom Warner writes about Akhmetov as well. (Old time Ukraine observers will know that Warner is an old hand from the early Kyiv Post days -- as reliable as you will find.) I believe the Donetsk clan is circling the wagons rather than circling the drain, and they are not out of ammo. Thus Kommersant Daily (via Kyiv Post) is also reporting the presence of Russian troops. Reporters are getting beaten as are people favoring Yushchenko in eastern Ukraine. The government says all this unrest is bad for the economy (maybe like a "house of cards"). And Putin isn't going away even if his own newspapers start questioning the wisdom of his actions. Listening to this report from NPR will not give you much comfort either. And if that's not enough, if I can find the video to this story -- I saw it on Fox this AM -- you will be disgusted. I certainly get the idea of there being tipping points, but I'm not seeing it just yet.

The Supreme Court case is in recess, with the Yanukovych lawyers given until tomorrow morning to respond to the case laid out today by Yushchenko's team. veronica watched it all and has eyewitness accounts here and here and here to give you a flavor of the proceedings.

Tales from Independence Square: Go read Orange Ukraine, top to bottom. For two days work, crackin' good.

It's been terribly gratifying to get all this traffic the last few days -- it puts a spring in one's step to know so many people are reading. If you would like to express any gratitude, I'd prefer you give to the Northern Alliance's Spirit of America challenge. We're running behind Little Green Footballs right now (thus no link love for them), so we're working hard. All monies go to the many SOA projects going on in Iraq and Afghanistan. Please give generously.

Captain Ed cites an AFP wire report:

"If we really want to preserve peace and agreement in Ukraine, and really want to build a legitimate democratic society that we so often talk about... then let's hold new elections," Kuchma said Monday in televised remarks.

Kuchma said he was ready to seek new solutions to the crisis even if this meant
stepping outside the standard procedures for resolving the standoff.

"The situation we find ourselves in today in Ukraine demands not only strictly legal decision, but also political decisions," Kuchma said.

(11:30am CT) I am investigating this. My Ukrainian student is listening to news reports and says this is not a real offer, that Kuchma is not only offering to redo the second round but the first as well. This could take 180 days. This is exactly the scenario I thought may happen -- Kuchma doesn't want Yanukovych as much as he wants himself to be president. If he can buy six months, he has found his ideal solution.

My student also reports Yushchenko has refused this offer and is holding out for the Supreme Court decision.

The parliament is scheduled to meet tomorrow, whereupon it is expected Yushchenko's party will seek the ouster of Yanukovych along with his interior minister and prosecutor-general.

Updated 11:45am: Someone suggests that this story would have us believe Yanukovych would agree to a re-vote, but note that it's conditional on a finding of fraud. All that offer means is that if the Supreme Court says to throw out the previous vote, he'll take a revote. Of course, the Court could decide to invalidate results in some precincts and not others which could conceivably give Yushchenko victory without another ballot. So Yanukovych could be just limiting damage.

This is a developing story. Stand by for more details as I can find them.

Meanwhile --

Sergiy Tihipko, a key ally of Yanukovych and governor of the National Bank, has resigned all his positions. According to Yanukovych is worried.

I'm warning you against any radical measures. Once the first drop of blood is spilled, we will not be able to stop it.

It's no longer clear who is controlling the events there; the meeting in Severodonetsk, containing many regional governors who no doubt will fear a "clean hands" campaign Yushchenko has pledged to start, was also attended by Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov. One report I got suggests that the Donetsk government is taking all of its cues now directly from Russia.

This post will be updated through the day as details come in.

All is not quite on the constitutional front in South Korea. Twice in one year, the Constitutional Court has found itself in an unenviable position of having to “interpret the Constitution” on cases of blatantly political nature.

In May, the court turned down the National Assembly’s clumsy motion to impeach the nation’s President. Five months later, the court struck down a hastily-written law to move the country’s capital out of Seoul. Relocation of the capital had been the President’s signature policy.

Both times, the court’s rulings were received, with or without applause depending on your politics, as nothing more than politically-dictated decisions.

I have written an opinion pointing out theoretical deficiency in the court’s decision against the capital’s transfer. I argued that the court’s invocation of unwritten constitutional law in this case (“Seoul as the country’s capital amounts to customary constitutional law”) lacks jurisprudential grounds. Since then, I came to realize that my piece may have led some Korean readers to label its writer as a supporter of capital’s move and, ergo, pro-government.

This is unfortunate. Apart from being miffed by having my own view misunderstood, I find it rather disheartening that constitutional and legal arguments do not seem to matter much in Korea. Not many seem willing to debate constitutional matters on juridical grounds these days; instead, they simply zero in on the political implications of the rulings.

To be sure every constitutional case is a political case and the court cannot avoid the political dimensions of its responsibilities. Brushing off controversial decisions as mere partisan politics does not, however, help constitutional development in Korea.

Yesterday’s Korean newspapers reported that there is a movement to file a suit against the court’s refusal to disclose pre-decisional records relative to this case. This is just another in a series of challenges by those who disagreed with the ruling. They demanded that the court turn over justices’ deliberations, draft memoranda, draft opinions, and research memos.

Those behind this newest challenge claim that the court’s closed-door proceedings, something supposedly akin to Byzantine secrecy, are intrinsically opposed to democracy.

They are not. Court deliberations sheltered from public scrutiny and political pressures are necessary to provide for an effective and candid discussion among the court members.

It is dubious what can be achieved from disclosing court deliberations, other than a sort of witch-hunt, singling out individual justices for their political views. This attempt is squarely based on the assumption that the justices merely acted out of their political allegiances. Some members of the ruling party even called for the resignation of the justices. We may as well forget about judicial independence.

The majority of the court can be chastised for failing to interpret the constitution faithfully. But allowing individual justice to be judged and blamed for his or her political value orientations is treacherous. The court should try to avoid political thickets as much as possible, and the public should refrain from treating it as a popular instrument of politics.

Once Koreans begin to give up on the belief that the court need be supported even when we disagree with it, it’s only a dismal slippery slope. Once you prefer exposing the court to political pressures, there is little hope to expect it to protect your fundamental rights and liberties. Then Korea’s constitutional order will indeed be in trouble.

Pohang, South Korea

It's early Monday morning in Ukraine, and here's the links you need overnight. I'll do a more analytical post in the morning when I don't have a head full of my students' senior theses (only five to go, thanks for asking!)

It seems to me that the Kuchma government, with presumably the approval of its candidate Yanukovych, has been moving military forces and buses of supporters towards Kyiv. Sometimes they get stopped; sometimes they show up, display their force, and then back off. I agree with Le Sabot that this isn't just the Yushchenko people blowing smoke. What we cannot be certain of is what kind of force can be deployed at this point.

Yanukovych was in Severodonetsk, hanging with his peeps as it were. The separatist talks have indeed continued, which is what is provoking Yushchenko to ask for charges to be filed. Non Tibi Spiro has a skeptical discussion of the legalities of Yushchenko's demand. I think it's all about getting Yanukovych away from the levers of power that come with being PM.

Someone got me to mention Abkhazia as a parallel in a comment. Like clockwork, here's an article published Sunday expanding on that thought. Things have not gone well where Putin has meddled. The Moscow Times carries a story with the comparisons between Ukraine and Georgia.

...the Ukrainian and Georgian events differ most strikingly in terms of the breadth of support for the protesters. Even the most optimistic exit polls of the Ukrainian opposition revealed that it enjoyed only a slight majority of the voters. The population was deeply divided along regional and ethnic lines, something that correlated with differences over whether the country should cast its lot with the West or with Russia.

Several observers think this means separation is likely. I just don't see, still, what the Russians gain taking in Donetsk and Luhansk, but there's little doubt they still covet Crimea (remember, it was Russian until 1954.) It already has greater autonomy than other areas. So that might be a prize Russia can collect with a Yushchenko victory, but it would be vigorously fought.

See also Reuben Johnson's excellent piece in the Weekly Standard on the Russian role.

So Yushchenko, through his "right hand" Yulia Tymoshenko, has decided to issue a series of demands to be met by the end of Monday. Chiefly, they want Kuchma to fire Yanukovych, the governors in the separatist states, and the Central Election Committee.

If the demands are not met, we will begin blocking with people the movements of Kuchma himself on the territory of Ukraine. We know where he is and how he is moving about. And we are able to ensure that he will not make a single step without complying with our demands.

I swear, she gets the best lines. The most important thing is that the attention is turning from Yanukovych to Kuchma, which is a clear indication of where they believe the obstruction is. Kuchma has tried to stand in the middle and look like a third party to this, which is of course incorrect. So the opposition is going to be sure the two are put on the same side of the line, across from the Orangists, and make each responsible for the acts of the other. Foreign Notes weighs Kuchma's options.

Lastly, a salute for Natalya Dmitruk.

When the anchorwoman for Ukraine's state-owned television station UT-1 reported Thursday morning that Viktor Yanukovych had officially been declared the winner of the presidential election, Natalya Dmitruk staged a silent protest.

Dmitruk, shown in the bottom righthand corner of the screen wearing an orange ribbon indicating her support for opposition candidate Viktor Yushchenko, told viewers in sign language that she considered the Nov. 21 election a farce.

"I am addressing all the deaf citizens of Ukraine," Dmitruk signed. "Our president is Yushchenko. Don't believe what they say. They are lying."

Its time for me to learn sign language. The first word to learn will be "courage".

Remember WEAR ORANGE MONDAY! Razom Ukraina!

From Le Sabot Post-Moderne a few minutes ago (I just happened by).

Everybody is buzzing right now about martial law. Channel 5 just reported that the government is discussing taking such a step. Obviously this would be a huge escalation. Hold this news loosely, because at this point it's only a report of discussions and nothing more solid than that. But it's more than a little scary. Pray.

I'm off to church in a few minutes; that will be prayer number one. I hope he's wrong.

UPDATE: And wouldn't you know it, this is the day the Ukrainians mark the Holodomor, the terror-famine of 1932-33 that left upwards of seven million dead in Ukraine. Yushchenko's remarks here.

UPDATE 2 (noon CT/8 pm Kyiv time): Tulip Girl has more. Yushchenko's got a release confirming it ... as a possibility. Nothing declared yet, but it would be right about now if they do.

MORE: Maidan (Yu.'s news wire service) says "a lot of police are being gathered in 'Dynamo' stadium." The stadium is very close to the Cabinet of Ministers building and less than half a mile from the Orange tent cities.

STILL MORE (13:50 CT, 21:50 Kyiv Time) -- thanks for all the links. Let me be clear about this: I cannot at this time confirm any violence actually happening -- all we are getting are reports of additional police movements complementing speculation of a crackdown issued by the opposition news services. LSPM said at 19:45 KST "I don't think it will happen, but this week has been full of surprises." (He's had two posts since then without mention of anything more.)Maidan is reporting:

Ten buses with special forces units are located so far in the Shovkovychna Street. Many military vehicles full of policemen bearing Donetsk and Crimea license plates tried to go down the Hrushevskyj Street. The people picketing the Cabinet of Ministers have stopped the vehicles and now are blocking them. The policemen inside show vulgar signs to the people.

I wish I had a map to show you what is happening right now (here's one in Ukrainian; don't grab an old one -- the names of the streets all changed post-independence to get rid of the Russian references) but I used to live two blocks SE of Shovkovychna; it's a major street that runs to one end of the Kreschatyk by Bessarabska market, which would be one end of the tent cities. In the other direction it runs to the Parliament and Marinskyj Palace (the ceremonial seat of power). They could also walk NW two blocks to Bankova and the presidential administration building where much of the demonstrating has happened (as opposed to the rallies in Independence Square, which are a few blocks further down the hill.) The Hrushevskyj group would probably the ones at Dynamo stadium earlier. They're a little further away from the action (I'm assuming the buses are in the middle of Shovkovychna closer to the administration buildings than up by the hotels or down by the market. They're less imposing if they're on an end of the street.

(edited since the first post looks like it lost some of what I had put in). There seems to be more happening, but no reports of open conflict yet (2:30 pm CT)

LAST: I'll do another post after dinner tonight. This is about two hours old from Yushchenko's headquarters, but unconfirmed according to Brama:

Reports that Ukrainian forces have been armed and mobilized in the direction of Ukraine's capital. According to one source, anywhere from 12,000 to 20,000 troops advancing along various routes towards Kyiv. Supporters of the opposition have blocked their progress towards Kyiv - at least temporarily. Some units were reported as close as 40 kilometers to the city.

Instapundit mentions Neeka and U2, but what you really have to hear is Gogol Bordello (first mentioned by J.V.C. to me here)! How cool would it be to play that on Bankova!?!

Hugh wants to know how to help Ukraine go orange. Answers are here and here.

I need to grade senior papers, so if nothing big breaks I'm taking my customary weekend blog hiatus (except for my commentary on the USC-ND game with Ed). If there's some real news, though, the laptop stands ready...

I have often wondered if my fond feelings for Ukraine were somehow the result of spending so much time there (and alone, I might add -- health concerns kept my wife and daughter in the States) or if it was that the people I found there so special. The latter thesis is supported by this story from Scott Clark about his mother-in-law whose come in from the village to witness the revolution herself.

I went along with her and my brother-in-law down to the square on Thursday evening. (We had to take the subway because driving and parking downtown has become a bigger nightmare than it usually is.) From the place where the subway car stops to the surface we needed to ride a long escalator. So we rode it.

While riding up, there were some men riding down chanting “YU-SCHEN-KO! YU-SCHEN-KO!” So my mother-in-law joined in in her higher pitched voice, “YU-SCHEN-KO! YU-SCHEN-KO!” From that she went to “Nas bahatu; ta nas ne peremozhesh” rhythmically. It means “We are many; you can’t defeat us!” I am not sure where that came from. I don’t think anyone was chanting it when we rode up but others knew it and started in too. “Nas bahatu; ta nas ne peremozhesh!” (Maybe it’s in the genes?) When we got to the top, there we people in small groups talking to each other and not chanting. My mother-in-law thought this was not right so she walked over to them and started them up, “Nas bahatu; ta nas ne peremozhesh!,” chopping her hand in rhythm.

...Yesterday, we got word that she had been with the protestors at the Presidential Administration Building. They were there again as part of the numbers of people who are making their presence felt around government buildings in the downtown area. We were told that she went up to the guards in front of the entrance, guards in full riot gear, masks and shield, in ranks twenty deep. She went up to one and said, “I am a babushka [translated roughly as “grandmother” but used for every older woman grandmother age] from the village. I came here to find out how you are. Are you fine? Are you hungry? Maybe your parents are somewhere worrying about you?

“Babushka has come from the village with some warm socks for you. Maybe your feet are cold and you need some socks?” She talked to this fellow in this way and won him over. He lowered his shield to expose his face and he was grinning at her while she spoke to him.

...she called her husband in the village. She had been planning on going back home and letting him come to take part but, when she called, she told him “There is nothing for you to do here. There are enough men here already. A woman’s touch is what is needed here to help take care of the people down at the square. So I will stay here. You don’t need to come.” (This is terribly un-PC but that is the way she is and the way of life is in the village.)

My mother-in-law is caught up in the revolution.

There's plenty more from Scott.

After you read that, check out the pictures at Neeka (scroll for all of 'em), and LSPM. These people are the face of the Orange Revolution. LSPM reports that he finds most people agree that Yushchenko's offer of the re-vote to be the best he could get. Good.

PowerLine has a letter from a NYC bond trader on some Ukrainian financial shenanigans that RocketMan read on the air today. When I first worked at the National Bank in November 1995, there were only two Americans with daily passes, myself and a bond market consultant from the U.S. Treasury. Shenanigans with bond trading in Ukraine have a long tradition. If I could ever get the Treasury guy to come out with his stories, oh the stories he could tell!

I had no idea Dan Drezner had been in Donetsk. He is worried,

Speculate on what you think will happen here. What keeps gnawing at me is that whatever the outcome, one region of the country is going to be supremely pissed off.

Whether this leads to an attempt at secession -- and how the Russians would react to this -- are the questions on my mind.

I actually doubt it would happen. Look at Abkhazia or Belarus. It's only been about ten years.

Third, take a look at these claims of voter fraud in Kharkiv. They translated the word for ballots as bulletins (and no, I don't know the Ukrainian word for ballot).

Last, Captain Ed has separated out the segments of that first hour. I'm sending them to Mom ASAP.

UPDATE: OK, four. Ed also has written up a post about a letter we read in the last segment of the hour today.

In their election, the Kuchma government candidate, Viktor Yanukovych, actually represents the closest partner we would have in the war on terror. Yanukovych has pledged to increase troop strength in Iraq and mirrors Putin's resolve to conduct a forward strategy in the fight against Islamist terror. Viktor Yuschenko speaks of pulling Ukrainian troops from Iraq, where they comprise the sixth-largest segment of the Coalition.

One would expect the Bush Administration, therefore, to have sat quietly and hoped for Yanukovych to come to power regardless of the means. That focus on expediency has been an unfortunate hallmark of American foreign policy for decades, a leftover of our Cold War-style binary approach to the world. Instead, both Colin Powell and George Bush spoke strongly about their rejection of the election's results and the need to hold a credible election in Ukraine.

As Natan Sharansky has noted, Bush behaves like a dissident. Again.

Many thanks to Glenn Reynolds for the link to the show -- yes, I'm a host, but you try getting oxygen from Mitch, Ed and Rocket! I don't blame him for missing my role. The archived show streams by the way in archives M-F at midnight, 6am, noon and 6pm Central Time (GMT -6) if you would like to listen again.

From the Ukraine List or UKL, assembled by Dominque Arel at the Univ. of Ottawa and reprinted here with permission.

I expect to speak some about Ukraine today on the Northern Alliance Radio Network today in the opening hour (12 noon CT or 1800 GMT for overseas readers, listen online here), but in case I forget to comment on a few things asked tonight after the Instalanche, let me get to them now. (UPDATE: A few minutes ago the parliament declared the results of the election invalid. That vote is nonbinding, but increases pressure for the do-over. UPDATE 2: Looks like Ed beat me to it by five minutes -- I think he's right that Yanukovych has lost control of his situation, but Kuchma? I'm not so sure yet. And the parliament has turned against Kuchma over the last few weeks at any rate.)

1. John posted, and Jeff asked in comments, a question about this "alternative view" by Srdja Trifkovic, a sort of "pox on both your houses" take on the Ukrainian election. (A more acidic version of the story, with less analysis, is in the Guardian.) As I mentioned earlier, I've worked with Yushchenko's administration in the National Bank of Ukraine, and at least one of his campaign staff is a holdover from his NBU days. Yushchenko was a solid central banker, holding fast to an anti-inflation policy and supporting the closing of insolvent banks even when they were held by politically powerful clans. He was pragmatic in my view, compromising on some things more than I would have liked (he treated the old state savings bank too kindly, for example.) I'm not intimately familiar with his time as prime minister, but his period saw the closing of a nasty arrears problem and the start of real growth in the economy for the first time. And he was certainly well-liked in the western NGO and diplomatic community when I was there, so I think some of what Trifkovic says is true: most of us Western advisors would be pulling for him. As to Trifkovic's prognosis that there will be no turning around the result, well, events have overwhelmed his analysis. (Since I am an economic forecaster by trade, he has my sympathies.)
2. Jeff also asked about the smaller victory for Yushchenko in the western oblast of Zakarpattia. There's been a hotly-contested mayoral election in Mukacheve out there, which both presidential candidates were involved with. Students are marching on city hall there today. That might have tightened things up there; I really haven't seen anything else. And it may be they actually think they would be better off under Yanukovych, as did these protestors coming by train to Kyiv to support him. Let's be clear: it's short-sighted, perhaps, for state enterprise workers to vote for more subsidies and no privatization under Yanukovych, but shortsightedness does get to vote.
   
3. There's more and more comments (including KC Johnson) on whether or not these events and Russia's reaction has somehow proven the foolishness of working so closely in the GWOT with Putin.

   To a certain extent, of course, there was little choice in the matter: the alternatives to Putin have always looked worse. But George Bush's reassurance that he had looked into Putin's heart and seen a Democrat seems a lot less reassuring today, and I wonder whether this election--regardless of the final outcome in Ukraine--signals the emergence of a more tense period in US-Russian relations.

   Since the other country I work with substantially is Armenia, another place where Russia has meddled, you can mark me among those not a fan of Putin. However, I think US policy towards Russia has usually been marked by pragmatism -- you take what you can from people trying to help you, even when sometimes they're misbehaving. In the old days we called this realpolitik. And as Prof. Johnson observes, the alternative are really much worse. Since this morning Russia says it will not oppose repeat elections proposed by Yushchenko and the EU, perhaps that diplomacy bore fruit.
   
4. There are interesting stories here and here from Maidan on people being brought to support Yanukovych. Remember that Maidan is a pro-Yushchenko site, so bring your skepticism. Still, it sounds pretty realistic.
5. Brama has clips from an AEI conference Wednesday on Ukraine. AEI has the whole conference here. (The AEI site has greater bandwidth, but you don't get clips.)
6. I'll see if I can get permission to show you the translation I received of this article in Russian explaining the vote fraud in eastern Ukraine (or the Donbas). The one I read is marked "for private use only." It has eyewitness accounts as well as a more macro-view statistical look.
   

Welcome Instapundit Readers!!!

Please continue on down through "Gambit" to the maps, and from there to "How Close is Yushchenko". If you still want more, the "How Close" post has bookmarks to the earlier stuff. Thanks for coming, and thanks, Prof. Reynolds, for another reason to be thankful for this blog and all my good friends.

And thanks again Tulip Girl.

I just received an email that says Yushchenko has proposed annulment of the previous elections, new elections on 12 December, replacement of the old Central Election Committee with one with equal representation of both parties, and no absentee ballots. This seems to be what Le Sabot Post-Moderne is suggesting he's hearing as well (he says as well that television coverage of the candidates would be "equal" -- that's news to me). Yanukovych has until Monday to answer. This is a most interesting play. Since annulment of the previous election is probably the most he can get from the Supreme Court hearing Monday (as I noted earlier), Yushchenko's asked Yanukovych to give him that outcome before the hearing.

I'm told this is an ultimatum -- Yushchenko is saying that "active measures" would be taken if he doesn't get this.

I'm going to guess that this is probably what the European observers proposed in the meetings earlier today, and that Yushchenko's decided to put it on Yanukovych. If the streets indicate anything, it's that Yushchenko believes he holds the winning hand, and is going for a fully legitimated victory that would make it harder for the eastern provinces to secede.

UPDATE: (7:15p) Moscow News confirms:

...Yushchenko announced to the thousands of demonstrators rallying for the fifth day on Kiev’s Independence Square that the results have been declared invalid after the talks, and that a new round of elections would be held, monitored by the OSCE, the Russian Information Agency Novosti reported.

“The sides agreed that that the results of the second round that were announced earlier do not correspond to the will of the people and must be cancelled,” Novosti quoted Yushchenko as saying.

He added that his rival Yanukovich was against rushing to a third round of elections, calling instead to wait for a ruling from the Supreme Court.

And AFP has a quote from Yushchenko.

We will allow only a few days for the negotiation process. If (Prime Minister Viktor) Yanukovich wants to drag things out, we will take active measures," he told them.

"The prime minister is proposing things that will take Ukraine further away from the resolution of the political crisis," he told a crowd of tens of thousands in Kiev's Independence Square following the talks.

"We insist on the following: the main precondition for the talks is the holding of new elections for the president of Ukraine.

My gut says this is a squeeze play on Yanukovych. If Kuchma and Yanukovych are on the same page, I don't see how they take this deal; it's not a compromise over what they would get in court. If they are working at cross-purposes, however, Kuchma will want him to take it and push to delay the vote a few months, keeping himself in the job a while longer. If I had to bet, I think that's where we're going. Yushchenko needs the vote to happen ASAP while his momentum is strong.

I found the map I was looking for. I actually wanted two, so here you have them.



Source. Look at how the voter turnout went up so much in eastern Ukraine, and remember that in second round elections some people lost their preferred candidate (about 20% of the public.) Turnout in the eastern provinces ran about 55% in the first round. Here's the division of votes in the second round.



Source. I'm sorry it isn't red and blue (orange and blue would be better, of course.) Colorized by Steve, thanks so much! Putting those two pictures together give you a pretty good feel for how one might think the vote was stacked. It probably would help you to see also the density of these areas so you know how many votes are in each state. Can't find a map, but here's a chart.

Thanks to my good friend Hindrocket at Powerline and Dave at No Illusions (update -- and Ed; wow, an embarassment of linkage today, though I still wait for my first "welcome Instapundit readers" moment) for the references this morning, and greetings to any new readers. I have posts on Monday, Tuesday (here and here), Wednesday (here, here and here), and Thursday on Ukraine.

To remind readers new and old from a post I wrote last month, I've been following the election for the last year because I am a former economic advisor to the National Bank of Ukraine while the opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko was its governor. I lived in Kyiv, about five blocks from the presidential administration building, for a year in 1995-96. I wrote a book about Ukraine's economy based on research I did that year. His American-born wife was the country director for the firm for which I worked at that time. I haven't been back since, but I still write to friends at NBU and research the Ukrainian economy. I cannot pretend to be unbiased about this, but there are times where my concern for their personal safety (particularly after the poisoning incident) probably supercedes my concern for his political future.

Through that lens...

There seems to be a good bit of cheer over the Supreme Court's decision to review the election results, but I would take that with a grain of salt for two reasons. This does not insure Yushchenko's victory by any means. First, the Court cannot give Yushchenko a victory based on last Sunday's election; it could at best annul the election and require a re-runoff. If it chose to demand recounts in regions instead, I find it highly unlikely that the recounts would find the 800,000 votes needed to overturn the results. And while it's likely that in a fair re-runoff Yushchenko would win, there are still lots of cards stacked against him.

Not least of which is reason two: The Court is not exactly unbiased. I had to look up the Ukrainian Constitution to be sure I have this right, but most judges are appointed by the president to five year terms (then reaffirmed or dismissed by the parliament). It is not the independent structure of courts in the Anglosphere, and Kuchma has had plenty of time to put his people in the judiciary. The news reports treating the Court as being respected as unbiased don't agree with me on this, but one must remember that this Court had agreed to let Kuchma run for a third term in December 2003 -- Kuchma didn't because he didn't think he could win without massive manipulation of the vote (probably more than what happened here.) And his manipulations of the courts go well beyond this. In general, looking at the Freedom House rankings, Ukraine's system of governance is quite poor and extends through all branches.

Another reason to be concerned is the current strife in the areas controlled by Yanukovych's supporters. The provinces of Donetsk have held meetings in which they are threatening to seek secession to Russia. In Luhansk has the meeting with Kuchma that he wants, in the presence of the EU, with Yanukovych supposedly being only an observer. After appearing to stall out on the strike early Thursday, it appears the Orange Revolution has intensified around government buildings and looks to me like it's rattling Kuchma. And the talks may have Putin steamed, which is a good thing for the development of other xUSSR states in my view.

Keep reading the blogosphere, including this article (OK, not a blog) from Taras Kuzio, Le Sabot Post-Moderne (who reports now that militiamen are in Independence Square chanting "The militia is with the people"), TulipGirl (who I think are husband and wife), Fistful of Euros, Neeka's Backlog (she is the author of this piece in the NYT) and The Periscope. The pro-Yushchenko Maidan site has a newsfeed I'm using. My longest-running subscription around my house is the Kyiv Post, for which currently you don't need to register and subscribe (thanks, guys!) And if you feel so moved, put up this gif from Amy Hunt's site:

Cathy says I should read this guy more. Since he's in my old 'hood, I second Cathy's motion. So hi Matthew, I'm King, Manchester Memorial '75.

K.C. Johnson has an excellent post today with two examples of campus speech that will sound depressingly familiar to my local readers. He cites the case of Oneida Meranto (Chronicle subscribers only), a Native American professor of Latin American studies who apparently has been victimized by students who are angered by her open liberalism in the classroom. She says she has received hateful emails and death threats. This is being blamed in part (in the Chronicle article) on the promulgation of the Academic Bill of Rights in Colorado where Prof. Meranto teaches. But Prof. Johnson notes that when people make statements that "if you're not part of the solution you're part of the problem", you might be creating some animosity.

Whites have failed to prove to us that they are not part of the privileged class. They have failed to prove that they have gained so much from subjugation and domination of nonwhites. They have failed to prove to us that they don't have racist, sexist tendencies that just might be part of the very essence of their white skin. They have failed to prove to us that they too have not benefited from affirmative action legislation. They have failed to demonstrate to us that the reason for their poor grades is the flood of nonwhite professors. They have failed to take responsibility for their actions in this country where being white has its privilege.

No assumption of innocence there. You hear stories like this around SCSU from many students, most too scared to go on record. I'm glad Prof. Meranto is taping her lectures now. Perhaps, in the spirit of glasnost', she could release transcripts?

Prof. Johnson's second example is a new variation of the old "there are no conservatives in academia because they aren't smart enough" canard.

SUNY-Albany philosophy professor Ron McClamrock likewise assures his readers that "I've been around a lot of academic hiring, and I have never once seen hiring done based on the politics of the applicants." So why do left-wing professors outnumber conservatives in the academy? "We outnumber them because academic institutions select for smart people who think their views through; and if you're smart, open-minded, and look into it carefully, you're just more likely to end up with views in the left half of contemporary America. Which is just to say: Lefties are overrepresented in academia because on average, we're just f-ing smarter."

Which is likely, of course, to lead interviewers to use political stance as a marker in hiring.

There has been at least one naysayer in the blogosphere about the protests over the Ukrainian election. Mark Brady (who thinks elsewhere that the U.S. should butt out of Ukraine) writes about the findings of the British Helsinki Human Rights Group, whose report has this note:

The election featured a genuine choice of candidates, active pre-election campaigns, and high voter participation. It is clear that Ukrainian opinion was highly polarized. That meant many people backing a losing candidate would find it difficult to accept a defeat.

This is in fact a feature of all Ukrainian elections since independence. You can draw a map of Ukraine and slice it down the middle passing through Kyiv. (That's an oversimplification, but sufficient for the purposes.)The western half will vote for nationalist, reformist, Ukrainian and western leaning candidates, while the eastern half contains more Russophilic people with greater attachment to the Soviet-era industries of coal and steel production. Interested readers can visit these maps by Prof. John O'Loughlin at U. Colorado to see the turnout and voting patterns of the 1999 elections between Kuchma and the communist candidate Symonenko. In the current election, the western provinces or oblasts are for Yushchenko and the eastern for Yanukovych. But the report goes on,

Foreigners should not encourage civil conflict because the candidate on whom they have lavished expensive support turned out to be a loser.

That's an odd comment, since it is pretty clear that the "winner" received "expensive support" from Russia. The map of the turnout in this election seems pretty clear that something fishy was up. In the eastern provinces, votes jumped over 40% in three weeks time (from the first round.) This is highly unusual. Moreover, the division of the vote there was 96-2 for Yanukovych in Donets'k, where he was governor before he was prime minister. That's Stalin-style figures. (I've been looking for a map of this, but can't find it right now. When I do, I'll post it. )

The Supreme Court, unlike the CEC, is taking the claims of vote fraud more seriously.

Elder and Mitch have responded to Joe Carter's observations about the state of radio. Like Joe, I am a frequent listener to NPR because there isn't that much else. I catch a local guy and about 15 minutes of Laura some mornings on KNSI, but otherwise flip between NPR and the local ESPN Radio affiliate. The Patriot doesn't reach this far northwest; when I leave the station I only get t