Prime minister[edit]
In December 1999, Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma unexpectedly nominated Yushchenko to be the prime minister after the parliament failed by one vote to ratify the previous candidate, Valeriy Pustovoytenko.
Ukraine's economy improved during Yushchenko's cabinet service. However, his government, particularly Deputy Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, soon became embroiled in a confrontation with influential leaders of the coal mining and natural gas industries. The conflict resulted in a 2001 no-confidence vote by the parliament, orchestrated by the Communists, who opposed Yushchenko's economic policies, and by centrist groups associated with the country's powerful "oligarchs." The vote passed 263 to 69 and resulted in Yushchenko's removal from office.
"Our Ukraine" leader[edit]
Yushchenko with fellow opposition leader Oleksandr Moroz during the Orange Revolution
Yushchenko's approval rating stood at 7% as of October, 2009 according to FOM-Ukraine polling results.[2]
In 2002, Yushchenko became the leader of the Our Ukraine (Nasha Ukrayina) political coalition, which received a plurality of seats in the year's parliamentary election. However, the number of seats won was not a majority, and efforts to form a majority coalition with other opposition parties failed. Since then, Yushchenko has remained the leader and public face of the Our Ukraine parliamentary faction.[citation needed]
In 2001, both Yushchenko and Yulia Tymoshenko broached at creating a broad opposition bloc against the incumbent President Leonid Kuchma in order to win the Ukrainian presidential election 2004.[3]
In late 2002 Yushchenko, Oleksandr Moroz (Socialist Party of Ukraine), Petro Symonenko (Communist Party of Ukraine) and Yulia Tymoshenko (Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc) issued a joint statement concerning "the beginning of a state revolution in Ukraine". Though the communists stepped out of the alliance and though Symonenko opposed having one single candidate from the alliance in the 2004 presidential election, the other three parties remained allies[4] until July 2006.[5]
On July 2, 2004 Our Ukraine and the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc established the Force of the people, a coalition which aimed to stop "the destructive process that has, as a result of the incumbent authorities, become a characteristic for Ukraine", at the time President Kuchma and Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych were the incumbent authorities in Ukraine. The pact included a promise by Viktor Yushchenko to nominate Tymoshenko as Prime Minister if Yushchenko would win the October 2004 presidential election.[3]
Yushchenko was widely regarded as the moderate political leader of the anti-Kuchma opposition, since other opposition parties were less influential and had fewer seats in parliament. Since becoming President of Ukraine in 2005, he has been an honorary leader of the Our Ukraine party.
From 2001 to 2004, his rankings in popularity polls were higher than those of President Leonid Kuchma. In later public opinion polls, though, his support plummeted from a high of 52% following his election in 2004 to below 4%.[6][7][8]
However, in the parliamentary elections of March 2006, the Our Ukraine party, led by Prime Minister Yuriy Yekhanurov, received less than 14% of the national vote, taking third place behind the Party of Regions and the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc. In a poll by the Sofia Social Research Centre between July 27 and August 7, 2007 more than 52% of those polled said they distrusted Yushchenko.[9]
Presidential election of 2004[edit]
Main article: Ukrainian presidential election, 2004
Viktor Yushchenko (First round) – percentage of total national vote
In 2004, as President Kuchma's term came to an end, Yushchenko announced his candidacy for president as an independent. His major rival was Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych. Since his term as prime minister, Yushchenko had slightly modernized his political platform, adding social partnership and other liberal slogans to older ideas of European integration, including Ukraine's joining NATO and fighting corruption. Supporters of Yushchenko were organized in the "Syla Narodu" ("Power to the People") electoral coalition, which he and his political allies led, with the Our Ukraine coalition as the main constituent force.
Yushchenko built his campaign on face-to-face communication with voters, since the government prevented most major TV channels from providing equal coverage to candidates.[10][11] Meanwhile, his rival, Yanukovych, frequently appeared in the news and even accused Yushchenko, whose father was a Red Army soldier imprisoned at Auschwitz, of being "a Nazi,"[12][13] even though Yushchenko actively reached out to the Jewish community in Ukraine and his mother is said to have risked her life by hiding three Jewish girls for one and a half years during the Second World War.[14]
Dioxin poisoning[edit]
Yushchenko at the University of Amsterdam, with chloracne from TCDD dioxin poisoning (2006).
The campaign was often bitter and violent. Yushchenko became seriously ill in early September 2004. He was flown to Vienna's Rudolfinerhaus clinic for treatment and diagnosed with acute pancreatitis, accompanied by interstitial edematous changes, due to a serious viral infection and chemical substances that are not normally found in food products. Yushchenko claimed that he had been poisoned by government agents. After the illness, his face was greatly disfigured: jaundiced, bloated, and pockmarked.
British toxicologist Professor John Henry of St Mary's Hospital in London declared the changes in Yushchenko's face were due to chloracne, which results from dioxin poisoning.[15] Dutch toxicologist Bram Brouwer also stated his changes in appearance were the result of chloracne, and found dioxin levels in Yushchenko's blood 6,000 times above normal.[16]
On December 11, Dr. Michael Zimpfer of the Rudolfinerhaus clinic declared that Yushchenko had ingested TCDD dioxin and had 1,000 times the usual concentration in his body.[17] Not all in the medical community agreed with this diagnosis,[15] including the clinic's own chief medical director, Dr. Lothar Wicke, who stated there was no evidence of poisoning other than the severe chloracne visible on Yushchenko's face, and claimed to have been forced to resign because of his disagreement.[18] Wicke also claimed to have been threatened by Yushchenko's associates.[19] Wicke's claims led some to question Yushchenko's truthfulness and motives.[20][21][22]
Many have linked Yushchenko's poisoning to a dinner with a group of senior Ukrainian officials (including Volodymyr Satsyuk) that took place on 5 September.[15][16][17]
Since 2005, Yushchenko has been treated by a team of doctors led by Professor Jean Saurat at the University of Geneva Hospital.[23] Analysis of Yushchenko's body fluids and tissues provided useful information on the human toxicokinetics of TCDD and its metabolites.[24]
In June 2008, David Zhvania, a former political ally of Yushchenko and an ex-minister in the first Tymoshenko Government, claimed in an interview with the BBC[25] that Yushchenko had not been poisoned in 2004 and that laboratory results in the case had been falsified.
Yushchenko himself implicated David Zhvania, the godfather of one of his children, of involvement in his dioxin poisoning.[26]
In August 2009, The Lancet published a scientific paper by Swiss and Ukrainian researchers on the monitoring, form, distribution, and elimination of 2,3,7,8-Tetrachlorodibenzodioxin (TCDD) in Yushchenko after he presented with severe poisoning. The 2004 TCDD levels in Yushchenko's blood serum were 50,000-fold greater than those in the general population.[24] This new study also concluded that the dioxin "was so pure that it was definitely made in a laboratory".[27]
In September 2009, Larysa Cherednichenko, former head of the department for supervision over investigations into criminal cases of the Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office, said high-ranking officials from the presidential secretariat and family members of Yushchenko falsified evidence in his poisoning case, with dioxin being added to Yushchenko's blood samples. Cherednichenko claims she was warned that she would be dismissed from her office immediately after she wrote her report on August 26, 2009 and said she was offered two positions, which she refused, and contested her dismissal in court.[28]
Also in September 2009, a special commission, created by the Verkhovna Rada, came to a conclusion that the Yushchenko dioxin poisoning was falsified to strengthen his positions during 2004 presidential elections. The commission demanded to bring to justice those guilty in fabrication of blood tests.[29] To date, no one has been identified. There were allegations US intelligence services injected blood samples taken from Yushchenko with dioxin to feign poisoning.[citation needed] These allegations were dismissed by Ukraine's Office of the Prosecutor General.[30]
On September 27, 2009 Yushchenko said in an interview aired on Channel 1+1 that the testimony of three men who were at a dinner in 2004 at which he believes he was poisoned is crucial to finishing the investigation, and he claimed these men were in Russia. Ukrainian prosecutors said Russia has refused to extradite one of the men, the former deputy chief of Ukraine's security service, Volodymyr Satsyuk, because he holds both Russian and Ukrainian citizenship.[31] After arriving in Russia Satsyuk was granted Russian citizenship protecting him from extradition.[32]
Unprecedented three rounds of voting[edit]
Main articles: Orange Revolution and Post-election developments in Ukraine, 2004
The initial vote, held on October 31, 2004, saw Yushchenko obtain 39.87% of vote ahead of his opponent Yanukovych with 39.32%. Because neither candidate reached the 50% majority required for outright victory, a second round of run-off voting was held on November 21, 2004. Although a 75% voter turnout w
Prime minister[edit]
In December 1999, Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma unexpectedly nominated Yushchenko to be the prime minister after the parliament failed by one vote to ratify the previous candidate, Valeriy Pustovoytenko.
Ukraine's economy improved during Yushchenko's cabinet service. However, his government, particularly Deputy Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, soon became embroiled in a confrontation with influential leaders of the coal mining and natural gas industries. The conflict resulted in a 2001 no-confidence vote by the parliament, orchestrated by the Communists, who opposed Yushchenko's economic policies, and by centrist groups associated with the country's powerful "oligarchs." The vote passed 263 to 69 and resulted in Yushchenko's removal from office.
"Our Ukraine" leader[edit]
Yushchenko with fellow opposition leader Oleksandr Moroz during the Orange Revolution
Yushchenko's approval rating stood at 7% as of October, 2009 according to FOM-Ukraine polling results.[2]
In 2002, Yushchenko became the leader of the Our Ukraine (Nasha Ukrayina) political coalition, which received a plurality of seats in the year's parliamentary election. However, the number of seats won was not a majority, and efforts to form a majority coalition with other opposition parties failed. Since then, Yushchenko has remained the leader and public face of the Our Ukraine parliamentary faction.[citation needed]
In 2001, both Yushchenko and Yulia Tymoshenko broached at creating a broad opposition bloc against the incumbent President Leonid Kuchma in order to win the Ukrainian presidential election 2004.[3]
In late 2002 Yushchenko, Oleksandr Moroz (Socialist Party of Ukraine), Petro Symonenko (Communist Party of Ukraine) and Yulia Tymoshenko (Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc) issued a joint statement concerning "the beginning of a state revolution in Ukraine". Though the communists stepped out of the alliance and though Symonenko opposed having one single candidate from the alliance in the 2004 presidential election, the other three parties remained allies[4] until July 2006.[5]
On July 2, 2004 Our Ukraine and the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc established the Force of the people, a coalition which aimed to stop "the destructive process that has, as a result of the incumbent authorities, become a characteristic for Ukraine", at the time President Kuchma and Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych were the incumbent authorities in Ukraine. The pact included a promise by Viktor Yushchenko to nominate Tymoshenko as Prime Minister if Yushchenko would win the October 2004 presidential election.[3]
Yushchenko was widely regarded as the moderate political leader of the anti-Kuchma opposition, since other opposition parties were less influential and had fewer seats in parliament. Since becoming President of Ukraine in 2005, he has been an honorary leader of the Our Ukraine party.
From 2001 to 2004, his rankings in popularity polls were higher than those of President Leonid Kuchma. In later public opinion polls, though, his support plummeted from a high of 52% following his election in 2004 to below 4%.[6][7][8]
However, in the parliamentary elections of March 2006, the Our Ukraine party, led by Prime Minister Yuriy Yekhanurov, received less than 14% of the national vote, taking third place behind the Party of Regions and the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc. In a poll by the Sofia Social Research Centre between July 27 and August 7, 2007 more than 52% of those polled said they distrusted Yushchenko.[9]
Presidential election of 2004[edit]
Main article: Ukrainian presidential election, 2004
Viktor Yushchenko (First round) – percentage of total national vote
In 2004, as President Kuchma's term came to an end, Yushchenko announced his candidacy for president as an independent. His major rival was Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych. Since his term as prime minister, Yushchenko had slightly modernized his political platform, adding social partnership and other liberal slogans to older ideas of European integration, including Ukraine's joining NATO and fighting corruption. Supporters of Yushchenko were organized in the "Syla Narodu" ("Power to the People") electoral coalition, which he and his political allies led, with the Our Ukraine coalition as the main constituent force.
Yushchenko built his campaign on face-to-face communication with voters, since the government prevented most major TV channels from providing equal coverage to candidates.[10][11] Meanwhile, his rival, Yanukovych, frequently appeared in the news and even accused Yushchenko, whose father was a Red Army soldier imprisoned at Auschwitz, of being "a Nazi,"[12][13] even though Yushchenko actively reached out to the Jewish community in Ukraine and his mother is said to have risked her life by hiding three Jewish girls for one and a half years during the Second World War.[14]
Dioxin poisoning[edit]
Yushchenko at the University of Amsterdam, with chloracne from TCDD dioxin poisoning (2006).
The campaign was often bitter and violent. Yushchenko became seriously ill in early September 2004. He was flown to Vienna's Rudolfinerhaus clinic for treatment and diagnosed with acute pancreatitis, accompanied by interstitial edematous changes, due to a serious viral infection and chemical substances that are not normally found in food products. Yushchenko claimed that he had been poisoned by government agents. After the illness, his face was greatly disfigured: jaundiced, bloated, and pockmarked.
British toxicologist Professor John Henry of St Mary's Hospital in London declared the changes in Yushchenko's face were due to chloracne, which results from dioxin poisoning.[15] Dutch toxicologist Bram Brouwer also stated his changes in appearance were the result of chloracne, and found dioxin levels in Yushchenko's blood 6,000 times above normal.[16]
On December 11, Dr. Michael Zimpfer of the Rudolfinerhaus clinic declared that Yushchenko had ingested TCDD dioxin and had 1,000 times the usual concentration in his body.[17] Not all in the medical community agreed with this diagnosis,[15] including the clinic's own chief medical director, Dr. Lothar Wicke, who stated there was no evidence of poisoning other than the severe chloracne visible on Yushchenko's face, and claimed to have been forced to resign because of his disagreement.[18] Wicke also claimed to have been threatened by Yushchenko's associates.[19] Wicke's claims led some to question Yushchenko's truthfulness and motives.[20][21][22]
Many have linked Yushchenko's poisoning to a dinner with a group of senior Ukrainian officials (including Volodymyr Satsyuk) that took place on 5 September.[15][16][17]
Since 2005, Yushchenko has been treated by a team of doctors led by Professor Jean Saurat at the University of Geneva Hospital.[23] Analysis of Yushchenko's body fluids and tissues provided useful information on the human toxicokinetics of TCDD and its metabolites.[24]
In June 2008, David Zhvania, a former political ally of Yushchenko and an ex-minister in the first Tymoshenko Government, claimed in an interview with the BBC[25] that Yushchenko had not been poisoned in 2004 and that laboratory results in the case had been falsified.
Yushchenko himself implicated David Zhvania, the godfather of one of his children, of involvement in his dioxin poisoning.[26]
In August 2009, The Lancet published a scientific paper by Swiss and Ukrainian researchers on the monitoring, form, distribution, and elimination of 2,3,7,8-Tetrachlorodibenzodioxin (TCDD) in Yushchenko after he presented with severe poisoning. The 2004 TCDD levels in Yushchenko's blood serum were 50,000-fold greater than those in the general population.[24] This new study also concluded that the dioxin "was so pure that it was definitely made in a laboratory".[27]
In September 2009, Larysa Cherednichenko, former head of the department for supervision over investigations into criminal cases of the Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office, said high-ranking officials from the presidential secretariat and family members of Yushchenko falsified evidence in his poisoning case, with dioxin being added to Yushchenko's blood samples. Cherednichenko claims she was warned that she would be dismissed from her office immediately after she wrote her report on August 26, 2009 and said she was offered two positions, which she refused, and contested her dismissal in court.[28]
Also in September 2009, a special commission, created by the Verkhovna Rada, came to a conclusion that the Yushchenko dioxin poisoning was falsified to strengthen his positions during 2004 presidential elections. The commission demanded to bring to justice those guilty in fabrication of blood tests.[29] To date, no one has been identified. There were allegations US intelligence services injected blood samples taken from Yushchenko with dioxin to feign poisoning.[citation needed] These allegations were dismissed by Ukraine's Office of the Prosecutor General.[30]
On September 27, 2009 Yushchenko said in an interview aired on Channel 1+1 that the testimony of three men who were at a dinner in 2004 at which he believes he was poisoned is crucial to finishing the investigation, and he claimed these men were in Russia. Ukrainian prosecutors said Russia has refused to extradite one of the men, the former deputy chief of Ukraine's security service, Volodymyr Satsyuk, because he holds both Russian and Ukrainian citizenship.[31] After arriving in Russia Satsyuk was granted Russian citizenship protecting him from extradition.[32]
Unprecedented three rounds of voting[edit]
Main articles: Orange Revolution and Post-election developments in Ukraine, 2004
The initial vote, held on October 31, 2004, saw Yushchenko obtain 39.87% of vote ahead of his opponent Yanukovych with 39.32%. Because neither candidate reached the 50% majority required for outright victory, a second round of run-off voting was held on November 21, 2004. Although a 75% voter turnout w
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