Reply #21: There's been quite a bit written about Bush arranging U.S. funding [View All]

[Judi Lynn]

for the Ukraine election. Here's a quick grab from google:

With Kuchma's term coming to a close, the 2004 presidential election became a showdown between the former and current prime ministers, Yushenko and Yanukovich, with the US and the EU backing the former and Russia backing the latter. Heavy external interference, similar to what occurred in Venezuela during the recent recall election, brought in similar groups: National Endowment for Democracy, International Republican Institute, National Democratic Institute, Konrad Adenauer Foundation ("Christian Democrat") and Friedrich Ebert Foundation ("Socialist") of Germany, European Peoples Party (the conservative Christian Democrats), all to mobilize Catholic Ukrainian cultural "nationalists" and the youth for Yushenko against Yanukovich, Ukrainian economic nationalists, and Russia. George Soros's Open Society Institute literally flew in experienced saboteurs (Otpor and Kmara) from his successful post-election coups against Yugoslavia and Georgia to lay the same groundwork in Ukraine.

During the first round of elections on 31 October 2004, Yanukovich and Yushenko each received 39% of the vote, both sides claimed victory in the runoffs on Sunday, 21 November 2004, and both sides claimed the other side engaged in fraud. Most likely, both did: while as Prime Minister Yanukovich could count on his supporters in government to try to do everything in their power to maximize their number of votes, Yushenko had the full logistical support of European intelligence agencies and political operatives to inflate their totals as well, such as having individuals vote multiple times using false passports and identity documents.(2) The US and EU funded several polls that claimed implausibly massive leads for Yushenko, just as they did for the Venezuelan recall, and are now attempting to use these as part of their claim that Yushenko should have won.
(snip/...)

http://victoria.indymedia.org/news/2004/11/34705.php

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Really sad to know that if you don't philosophically support meddling in the elections of other countries, you are surely supporting it materially with your taxes, anyway!