Nine years after Ukraine’s Orange Revolution, the protest scenes in Kiev look strangely familiar. The crowds have massed in the same Independence Square to decry the same villain, Viktor Yanukovich. But there is one big difference: the absence of the braided rabble-rouser, Yulia Tymoshenko.
The woman who rallied up to 1m protesters over rigged
elections back then is today in hospital watched by prison guards in Kharkiv,
eastern Ukraine, nursing a severe back problem, after being jailed by Mr
Yanukovich in 2010.
Her daughter, Yevgenia, reads statements from her at
today’s demonstrations, her photograph looking down from banners and a
municipal Christmas tree redecorated by protesters.
But the Orange heroine’s absence highlights the
protesters’ biggest problem today: the lack of a unified and decisive
leadership, and of strategic vision. Instead, political management is split
between three opposition party chiefs, trying to corral protests that began via
social media.
“Were she here today, the protest would have more
organisation towards actually toppling Yanukovich,” said Oleksandr Danylyuk,
one of the protest organisers. “It would be a true revolution, not an
imitation.”
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http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/6bd61e5c-6661-11e3-8675-00144feabdc0.html
