Electoral protests in Ukraine in 2004

This paper is an attempt to analyze Ukraine’s Orange Revolution, i.e. mass protests against fraud in Ukraine’s November 2004 presidential election. The author presents the modern face of the revolution, external and internal causes of electoral protests in Ukraine and argues that the Orange Revolution was not a revolution in the full sense of the word. Throughout history revolutions erupted in the name of ideology, led to significant changes in the government, ideas, society and were violent. Nothing of the sort happened in Ukraine. Therefore the author presents the Orange Revolution as evolution because it reinvested Ukrainians with the law-sanctioned right to have a political system in which leaders are chosen in free and fair elections