This Is What Democracy Looks Like

They held an election. The exit polls showed that the challenger won. The actual vote tallies reversed those claims, giving victory to the incumbent. There were widespread reports of voter irregularities.

OK, at the point, if this was the US, you stop reading. Because after that the challenger concedes, the incumbent claims victory, the media ignores or outright ridicules the voter irregularity reports, and everyone goes back to work.

But this is the Ukraine. Where maybe they value fairness more. Or democracy. Or something like that.

Because in the Ukraine, what happens is that hundreds of thousands of Viktor Yushchenko's supporters took to the streets, demanding that the election be annuled. Yushchenko doesn't hide from the protests, but claims the Presidency for himself, taking a symbolic oath of office. He's also called for a national general strike. Election monitors declare the Ukraine vote as below international standards (which they also did in Florida, in case anyone is interested). The protesters have set up a tent city in Kiev, have stormed the Parliamentary building, and have engaged in civil disobedience (remember that, America) to either force a revote or award the election to Yushchenko.

What's really insane is that the US, particularly Republican leaders like Richard Lugar of Indiana, has lined up on the side of Yushchenko, seen as a pro-Western reformer. Lugar was quoted as saying "election day fraud and abuse was enacted with either the leadership or cooperation of governmental authorities." Even Colin Powell has come forward to refuse to support the election results. In fact, there have been several stateside protests (by Ukrainian-Americans) demanding an overthrow of the election results.

It strikes me that the American public seems to care more about the transparency of the Ukrainian vote than the American vote. Our collective hubris, our notion of American exceptionalism, allows us to believe that this only happens in third-world countries, that our system is too perfect to be corrupted in such a way. Never mind that it was probably corrupted in 2000, and questions linger about 2004. The GAO is launching an investigation into the 2004 election. It's not mass protests in the streets, but it's important. We all need to support it.