Ukraine’s recent presidential election appears to have erased the demands made by the Ukrainian people in the 2004 Orange Revolution. The February election exposed the difficulty of keeping up with the revolution’s promises and demonstrated the nation’s split between two opposing political ideologies.
The main candidates in the election, Viktor Yanukovych and prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko, represent two different directions for Ukraine. Tymoshenko resembles the archetype of the Ukrainian peasant girl, with her trademark folksy hair braids. She was a key figure in the Orange Revolution and to this day represents Ukrainian nationalism. In contrast, Yanukovych has made clear his desire to ally Ukraine closely with Russia, the nation’s ex-ruler. In this way, the candidates in the election symbolized the debate between Ukrainian nationalists and those sympathising with Russian interests.
The winner of the 2010 election, Yanukovych, was the immediate cause and villain of the Orange Revolution. As an ex-communist with explicit ties to the Russian government, he attempted to steal the 2004 presidential candidacy from winner Viktor Yushchenko. This sparked protests and a new national demand for government run by the people for the people.
However, Yushchenko soon found that delivering revolutionary change was not as easy as promising it. Promised reforms, such as removing Soviet-era policies on the privatization of land, were not carried out. Tensions emerged between Ukraine’s West and East about the future of the nation and have not lessened since. The 2008 recession also hit the country hard, continuously increasing inflation. In the past six months, the value of Ukraine’s currency has halved against the dollar.
Though little changed under the leaders of the Orange Revolution, Ukrainians remain split in their political beliefs. The recent vote was more or less divided between western and eastern Ukraine, with the western half going to Tymoshenko and the eastern to Yanukovych. In this context, strong tensions still exist between the Ukrainian people and the Russian government. Many Russian nationalists, for instance, keep using the expression “na Ukraine” instead of “v Ukraine,” a grammatical statement suggesting that Ukraine remains a region of Russia rather than a country of its own.
It is unclear what the outcome of the election really means for the country. Tymoshenko has announced that she would be contesting the election results, claiming that they were fraudulent. Yanukovych, on the other hand, is trying to speed up his inauguration progress to stymie her investigation. These latest dynamics suggest that Yanukovych will bring back the police-state policies Ukraine suffered under during its time as a Soviet state.
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