Ukraine undecided; George Soros "spending millions on the campaign against Mr. Yanukovych"

Washington Times ^ | November 8, 2004 | James Morrison

[MeekOneGOP]

Embassy Row

By James Morrison
Published November 9, 2004

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Ukraine undecided
    A chief adviser to the Ukrainian prime minister sees uncanny parallels between his boss's campaign for president and last week's U.S. presidential election.
    The Nov. 21 runoff between Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych and Viktor Yushchenko, a former prime minister, is too close to call. Each candidate received about 39 percent in the first round of voting on Oct. 31. Ukrainians appear divided between Mr. Yanukovych's rural supporters and Mr. Yushchenko's urban ones.
    Also, as in the American election, billionaire George Soros, who poured millions of dollars into efforts to defeat President Bush, is also spending millions on the campaign against Mr. Yanukovych, said Eduard Prutnik, the prime minister's adviser, on a visit to The Washington Times yesterday.
    "It's very much alike. We hope the outcome will also be the same," he said, predicting a victory for Mr. Yanukovych by about five percentage points.
    Iraq is also an issue, with Mr. Yanukovych pledging to keep Ukraine's 1,600 troops within the U.S.-led coalition and Mr. Yushchenko promising to withdraw them within weeks if he is elected.
    One of Mr. Prutnik's goals on his visit to Washington this week is to try to explain why Mr. Yanukovych would be a better U.S. ally than his opponent, who is supported privately by some State Department officials and publicly by many Ukrainians in the United States.
    "Unfortunately, people in this town want to speak in terms of black and white, making one 100 percent positive and the other 100 percent negative," Mr. Prutnik said.
    Critics suspect Mr. Yanukovych of harboring authoritarian tendencies like the current president, Leonid Kuchma, who is supporting the prime minister. They also claim Mr. Yanukovych is too close to Russian President Vladimir Putin and would bring .....

[MeekOneGOP]

Yeah. But this is the only article I've seen that actually stated
$orryA$$ had any stakes in either candidate. Everything I saw
was "undocumented" (no link) until this article.

And I'm skeptical how much truth there is in this, too.

[Tailgunner Joe]

George Soros does not pay for the campaign against Yanukovych - 13-11-2004 19:36 Maidan-INFORM

On November 9, 2004, Eduard Prutnyk, an advisor to the Prime Minister of Ukraine V.F.Yanukovych, at a meeting with the correspondents of the “Washington Times”, declared that George Soros is allegedly financing the campaign that aims at defeating Viktor Yanukovych in the presidential race in Ukraine. This statement has nothing to do with the truth. This year the International Renaissance Foundation (IRF) concentrated a certain part of its efforts on promoting fair and free elections in Ukraine, without giving preferences to any of the candidates, since first of all the Foundation supports those NGOs and their coalitions that aim at spreading information and enhancing voters’ activity, monitoring the infringement of voters’ rights and violations of electoral legislation, promoting adequate mass media coverage of elections campaign, conducting exit polls and TV debates of the presidential candidates. Complete information on IRF projects regarding elections has been sent directly to campaign headquarters of the candidates on October 12, 2004. Besides, all this information is freely available on the IRF web site (http://www.irf.kiev.ua). The fact that IRF’s support for fair and free elections is being associated with the support of the opposition reveals the ignorance or the conscious rejection of democratic standards by the representative of the current administration.

Hryhorij Nemyrya, Chairman of the IRF board of administration
Yevhen Bystrytskyj, IRF Executive Director

Maidan-Inform’s comment:
Some people suffer from megalomania – they are eager to feel themselves Soros’s victims. We recommend them to assess more adequately their own weight in the world.

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Interfax News Agency, 01.04.04 - U.S. financier George Soros told reporters in Kyiv on Wednesday that he and Ukrainian parliamentarian Viktor Pinchuk are planning to create a joint fund to provide legal assistance to citizens in Ukraine. Speaking about the agreement with Pinchuk, Soros said this is the first major contribution of a local philanthropist toward organizing a legal assistance fund. - irf.kiev.ua

Pinchuk (Kuchma's son in law), Soros and
Olena Franchuk (Kuchma's daughter)

Shaken oligarchs keep their money on Yanukovich - Mr Yushchenko has pledged to review the controversial privatisation of Kryvorizhstal, Ukraine's biggest steel mill, which was sold to Mr Pinchuk and Mr Akhmetov earlier this year for $800m (€604m, £424m), far less than foreign bidders were prepared to offer.

[jer33 3]

I would have difficulty believing a statement from IRF which is Soros funded Open Society Ukraine.

[Tailgunner Joe]

I have difficulty believing Edward Prutnik, a member of Yanukovych's campaign.

[Tailgunner Joe]

Prutnik helped Yanukovych steal the election

[jan in Colorado]

Ping for later

[Kozak]

Hope he spends all his money thus, and has none for our next election cycle.

[MeekOneGOP]

..... at a meeting with the correspondents of the “Washington Times”, declared that George Soros is allegedly financing the campaign that aims at defeating Viktor Yanukovych in the presidential race in Ukraine. This statement has nothing to do with the truth .....

To me, THAT makes more sense. I could easily believe that $orryA$$ would throw money behind Yanukovych than Yushchenko .....

[Kozak]

Sure. All you have to do is discount the massive, documented vote fraud in the Yanukovych provinces. It ain't as clear cut for partition as you would like to believe.

[jer33 3]

I'm not taking either for fact at the moment. I'm just researching like everyone else.

[Hermann the Cherusker]

Where is it documented?

And why is everyone here so gung-ho for the pro-abortion socialist candidate, Yushchenko?

[GMMAC]

"And why is everyone here so gung-ho for the pro-abortion socialist candidate, Yushchenko?"

We're so much for Yushchenko as for the alienable right of the Ukrainian people to national self-determination and, presumably, the endorsements of that ideal by the Ukrainian Catholic and several other Ukrainian Churches, almost all of that nation's world-wide expatriate community, numerous governments - including those of the United States and Canada - and a long list of prominent international conservatives headed-up by Lady Margaret Thatcher (God Bless Her!) is enough for most of us.

"Tyranny must not prevail." - Lady Thatcher

Source: http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=629805&section=news

[KOZ.]

i will bet you yanukovych and putin are pro-abortioin as well. the election is not over abortion, but over freedom and identity.

[madameguinot]

Thank you. Word retrieval was poor this AM. In fact, it's been this way for the past 10 years!

[GopherGOPer]

Thank you for responding, sorry I'm so late to reply.

In effect you found what I thought you would find. I take those statements to mean that there may be fraud in the election. It doesn't speculate which side. And even if they meant them in a different way, I could come up with US Bishops who wouldn't refuse to give Communion to Kerry, and the statements of the Ohio Priest where he went to Mass. It didn't mean the Catholic Church was behind Kerry.

Its like the election here, in many states like Illinois, and even Minnesota and Wisconsin there likely was lots of fraud. If the dead hadn't voted for Kerry, Bush would have at least won Wisconsin and Minnesota. There was huge turnout in the dem areas in Minnesota where people aren't nearly as regular about voting as in the rural GOP areas.

So you see, it could be fraud by Yushchenko, and there are demonstrators for both candidates, and the whole will of the people thing can go either way.

[GopherGOPer]

Thank you for stating the obvious. I don't know for certain, but I thought Yanukovich was pro-life. At least he wasn't for abortion on demand.

[ApesForEvolution]

Follow-the-money...

[PhilDragoo]

Yanukovych ran hundreds of buses from polling place to polling place for multiple voting.

A million votes were dumped in for him after the polls closed--his party monitored the tabulation to determine the number needed.

Rush, Fox and Sean covered this today.

As for Soros, no doubt he is pissed at Putin for throwing his sorry ass out of Russia and will go to great ends to spite Putin for that--witness the Soros vendetta against Bush, beyond reason.

Yanukovych and company deserve prison, not another vote.

[MeekOneGOP]

[GMMAC]

I'm sorry my earlier post wasn't as definitive as we'd both have liked. Although I can assure you that there's lots on the various Ukrainian sites which more than confirms that the Catholic Church is firmly on the side of reform and justice. Unfortunately, I hurried to find something as current as possible and, no matter what search engine one uses, there's the dual problems of language and simply the incredible overall volume of posts.

Your point about the mixed messages that the North American Church has given out vis-a-vis denying Communion to anti-life sham-catholics like Kerry is valid. However, as Cardinal Husar, besides being supported by his Council Of Bishops also holds the designation "Catholic Patriarch of Ukraine" - reflective of that Rite's Eastern traditions - his views carry considerably more weight within his Arch-Eparchy than would those of a Cardinal in any North American Arch-Diocese.

As for you observation that there've been demonstrations for both sides, they've been so one-sided in favor of the reform movement as to make America's vast red and blue states split seem like a virtual tie! The only significant amount of anti reform, pro-soviet sentiment is centered roughly in the most southeastern corner of the nation and along the Russian frontier. As in America, where the closer you get to socialist propaganda centers (LA & NYC) the more you find people with their heads up their asses, in Ukraine it's more or less the closer you get to Moscow! - LOL!