Sunday, December 05, 2004

Yushchenko spoke for 40 minutes tonight, which is not that unusual. The huge crowd at Maidan didn't mind at all, even though he keeps repeating his childhood stories and other purely campaign passages over and over again. Of the more specific stuff, he explained the opposition's decision today to refuse to vote for constitutional changes before other demands have been satisfied, and also asked everyone to fill out forms in order to then begin recruiting people to help him with the campaign, as well as serve as observers and members of the election commissions on Dec. 26. He promised to announce a more specific plan tomorrow. He also mentioned the initiative of Canadian parliamentarians who had asked Canadian-Ukrainians to go over to Ukraine as observers, despite Christmas celebrations. "We are waiting for you here in Ukraine on Dec. 26. This will be the day on which the fate of Ukraine is decided for the next decades and even centuries," he said.

Yesterday was a very intense day - everyone felt exhausted in a very pleasant way, thanks to the Supreme Court decision. Many people thought it was a second-best decision - the best option, of course, would've been for Yushchenko to be declared the winner on the basis of the first-round results - but everyone at Maidan was happy regardless.

Today was anticlimactic, because of the parliament's reactionary ways - but this is not a defeat at all. It's more like when Putin announced that gubernatorial election reform back in September, right after Beslan, in an obvious attempt to shift everyone's attention from the tragedy, to get the media talk about something else. It is very important to remind oneself now that the Supreme Court's ruling has thrown a huge shadow at Kuchma and Yanukovych and might well be a blow they wouldn't survive. The rest isn't as important in comparison.

It's midnight here, and again the city sounds as if a football game has just ended and we've won, and I know it'll stay this way throughout the night!


2 comments:

  1. According to maidan Yuschenk said the following ----
    “… Yushchenko said that the final phase of the campaign has started. He asked all people on Maidan to sign in to volunteer during the campaign and the election. The plan will be announced tomorrow. He asked people to fill out the applications of a “Participant of the Orange Revolution” and bring them to the Trade Union Building, room 221, to create a database.
    The certificates of Participants will be made starting with tomorrow…” http://eng.maidanua.org/static/enews/1102194313.html
    database? names? I always get nervous when someone wants to take down names from a 'revolution'. My very best to you and everyone there!

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  2. Ukrayinska Pravda reports (in Ukrainian):

    Victor Yushchenko is creating a database of participants of the orange revolution in order to organize an army of observers for the presidential poll of December 26.At the rally on Independence Square Yushchenko announced that 160,000 questionnaires have already been distributed among participants of the rally. From their ranks Yushchenko's headquarters will recruit grass-roots campaigners, observers, and members of electoral boards.Another Misha

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