— When it comes to messy politics — and old-fashioned entertainment —
it’s hard to top the theatrics of the relatively young democracy in
—While on a campaign stop in the western city of Lviv — an area typically unreceptive to his historically pro-
politics — candidate Viktor Yanukovich had an embarrassing slip of the
tongue, Ukrainian news media reported. Attempting to congratulate
locals on their superior gene pool (peculiar enough given the region’s
history of religious and nationalistic violence), Yanukovich
accidentally congratulated locals on having the best genocide in the
country.
—Yanukovich’s verbal stumbling is well-known; even
his aides lament his struggles with public speech. So it was little
surprise when he shied away from a televised debate against the
polished, sharp-spoken challenger,
Rather than miss out on the free airtime, Tymoshenko held the debate on
her own, speaking to the nation for an uninterrupted 100 minutes.
“Although he is absent from here, I can feel his smell,” she said of
Yanukovich. “This is the smell of fear. I do not want a common coward
to become the next leader of our nation.”
—In 2004, when Ukrainians took to the streets of the capital,
in the Orange Revolution, protesting against rigged elections and
preventing Yanukovich from taking power, an elderly widow nicknamed
Baba Paraska became a cultural icon as she dressed in orange and braved
the cold to demonstrate. This election, she is hospitalized with a
broken leg — and being treated in a room full of Yanukovich supporters.
Ukrainian media report that quarrels are erupting among the ailing
women.
—A handful of topless women barged into a polling
station early Sunday to protest “the end of democracy.” They showed up
at a station where Yanukovich was scheduled to vote, but said they were
not demonstrating against any candidate in particular. Clad in jeans,
electrical tape crossing their nipples, the women shouted, “Stop raping
our democracy,” witnesses said.
—
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