Democratic triumph

last updated 8 January 2015

Kiev, Ukraine

An ebullient president-elect Viktor Yushchenko said this week that he would use his democratic mandate to stamp out corruption in Ukraine. “Ukrainians have been independent for 13 years,” he said, referring to the country’s break from the Soviet Union, “but now they are free.” The pro-Western Yushchenko was elected in a re-vote, after widespread fraud in the first vote prompted a month-long series of mass demonstrations, in what is being called the Orange Revolution. The government-backed candidate, Viktor Yanukovich, stepped down from his current post of prime minister, but said he would file a lawsuit contesting the legality of the re-vote.