Ukraine is going to the polls today. Sadly, the pro-Russian candidate is considerably ahead. Who cares? The last election in 2004 was considered a fraud and the people took to the streets to protest.
It was called the Orange Revolution and it led to new elections where the pro-western candidate won. Unfortunately, fighting broke out among the two leaders of the pro-western side and not much was accomplished. Ukraine entered the recession earlier than the rest of the world and hit much harder - GDP down 10%, currency down 60%. So the reforms never really happened and the economy failed. It's not surprising that a pro-Russian candidate is likely to win today.
It's sad. Although the people above won the battle to have a new election in 2004, they lost the war and now don't care. They'll sit idle while an evil pro-Russian leader takes over and things will undoubtedly get worse, but it's hard to blame them for not caring anymore.
Hmm. Kind of easy to see similarities to the US.
No comments:
Post a Comment