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Originally Posted by Strange Famous
As for Ukraine, for all the rhetoric, I havent actually seen any real substance to the allegations of electoral fraud. This seems to me more a case of teh West trying to interfere to get the candidate that they want... but I would need to know more of the factual allegations to judge them - which is lacking in all of the various vieled threats from other nations and paranoid claims of the beaten candidate.
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I just saw some of the evidence on the Dutch telly. Election observers shot videos showing:
- opposition officials being beaten up by unindentified people wearing black clothes. Didn't look like random tough guys to me.
- a couple of copies of voting cards, which were reportedly inside one of the see-through containers used in voting offices.
- an elderly female voter was refused because she had already allowed someone to vote for her. She denied she ever requested permission for that, or ever having told anyone to do that for her.
- a bunch of badly burned voting cards, stuffed in plastic bags.
Given that this is just the tip of the iceberg (we only saw a few clips, and election observers weren't *everywhere*), I'd say it's pretty substancial.
As for the threat of the eastern provinces breaking away: an expert just claimed (on BBC world, I believe) that it was mostly political posturing, not something that'd actually happen. There's no legal basis for the referendum they're holding, and it's not going to mean anything.