Viktor Yushchenko said...

"Huge sums of money, administrative manipulation, have all been mustered to prevent the people from expressing their voice. "

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Presidential Candidate Poisoned by the SBU!

Viktor Andriyovych Yushchenko was elected president of Ukraine in December 2004, having survived an attempt on his life by his political opposition.

Yushchenko was born on February 23, 1954 in the village of Khoruzhivka, Sumy oblast, into a family of teachers. His father, Andriy Andriyovych Yushchenko (1919-1992), took part in the Second World War. After the war taught English at a local school. His mother, Varvara Tymofiyovna Yushchenko (1918-2005), was a physics and math teacher.

In 1975, Yushchenko graduated from the Ternopil Finance and Economics Institute. He worked in the banking system beginning in 1976. In 1983 he became the Deputy Director for Agricultural Crediting at the Ukrainian Republican Office of the USSR State Bank. From 1990 to 1993 he worked as vice-chairman of the bank Ukraina. In 1993, he was appointed the head of the supervisory board of the National Bank of Ukraine, Ukraine's central bank.

As a central banker, Yushchenko played an important role in the creation of Ukraine's national currency, the hryvnia, and the establishment of a new system for regulating commercial banking. He worked successfully to control a wave of hyper-inflation that hit the country and defended the value of the currency following the 1998 financial crisis in Russia.

In December 1999, Yushchenko was nominated to be the prime minister of Ukraine by President Leonid Kuchma. He was removed from office in 2001 following a no-confidence vote by the parliament, in large part due to opposition to his economic policies.

President Kuchma's term ended in 2004, and Yushchenko announced that he was an independent candidate for president of Ukraine. His major rival was Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, and the election was bitterly contested. Yanukovych accused Yushchenko, whose father was a Red Army soldier imprisoned at Auschwitz, of being "a Nazi."

Yushchenko became seriously ill in early September 2004. He was flown to the Rudolfinerhaus clinic in Vienna, where he was diagnosed with "acute pancreatitis, accompanied by interstitial edematous changes", said to be due to "a serious viral infection and chemical substances which are not normally found in food products." After the illness, his face became pale, bloated and pockmarked. Further blood tests indicated that Yushchenko's condition resulted from "high concentrations of dioxin, most likely orally administered". On December 11, Austrian doctors confirmed that Yushchenko was poisoned with TCDD dioxin. Yushchenko has linked the poisoning to a dinner with a group of senior Ukrainian officials, including the head of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), Ihor Smeshko, on the evening before Yushchenko fell ill.

The Ukranian presidential election campaign of 2004 was also marred by election fraud in favor of Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych. A revote was ordered by the Ukrainian Supreme Court, and was won by Yushchenko (52% to 44%). Public protests prompted by the election fraud played a major role in the election, and the term Orange Revolution, of which Yushchenko is considered a leader, is applied to both the protests and the election itself.

Yushchenko is married to Kateryna Mykhailivna Yushchenko. They have five children -- sons Andriy and Taras, daughters Vitalina, Sofia and Christina -- and two grandchildren.