World Affairs Daily: Ukraine’s Counterrevolution; Russia’s Election Woes

Alexander J. Motyl
(Read Bio)

Ukraine’s Orange Revolution has officially ended, says Alexander Motyl. Victor Yanukovich, the Moscow-friendly PM routed by the 2004 uprising, is back on top again – now as Ukraine’s elected president – and making up for lost time by overturning restrictions on the presidency that he supported during the “people-power” days six years ago. Now he’s the undisputed master of the nation, and as Ukraine descends into constitutional ambiguity, he’ll insist that he has no choice but to rule with an iron fist. But Motyl does see a silver lining: a counterrevolution makes the ideals of the original revolt more attractive, thus we can expect to see advocates for democracy, human rights, tolerance, and dignity reassert themselves in this country’s political life. Read More

Vladimir Kara-Murza
(Read Bio)
Since 1999 a series of legislative and political changes have stripped Russian elections of almost all legitimacy, leading Vladimir Kara-Murza to see little difference between current Russian elections and the farcical “votes” held in the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany. Case in point: Although just 27 percent of Russians would support Putin in an election if it were held today, the prime minister’s United Russia Party received 58 percent of votes in last Sunday’s regional elections – a victory facilitated by election rigging and vote-buying. The opposition plans to persevere and present its list of candidates for the 2011 parliamentary elections, with Boris Nemtsov, a leading pro-democracy figure, asserting the importance of using “every chance to present citizens with an alternative to Putin’s heinous police state.”  Read More

World Affairs is a bi-monthly international affairs journal that argues the big ideas behind U.S. foreign policy. The journal has a long and well-established tradition of encouraging open and informed debate. Its newly launched internet partner, WorldAffairsDaily.org, builds on this legacy by hosting a number of foreign policy bloggers and by offering an aggregation service that highlights news, opinion, and research from hundreds of media, government, and think tank outlets from around the globe in three daily editions. Visit us at WorldAffairsDaily.org.

© Copyright 2010 American Peace Society. All rights reserved.