The Next Revolution in
By
Wolodymyr Derzko
Revolutions are funny things. You never know
what cluster of events could trigger them. In 2004, it was the election
falsification that catalyzed the Orange Revolution, a process that wasn’t an
overnight phenomenon, but took several years to plan and execute.
Is
The pending tax codex
legislation, as well, to a much lesser extent, the new labour codex and
language law has mobilized small and medium-sized business entrepreneurs (SME)
as well as ordinary citizens from Lviv to Luhansk and
Businesses and the political
opposition will continue to fight against the new Tax Code by continuing its
protests against the adoption of new tax regulations, said Chair of the
Committee on the Protection of Entrepreneurs’ Issues Oksana Prodan. She noted
that on November 16, entrepreneurs will again convene in front of the Verkhovna
Rada and on November 17-18, the Ukrainian opposition will speak about the
oppression of small businesses in
Just like in the Orange
Revolution, social media and cell phone networks are again playing a key role
in organizing protests around
With regard to the tax
legislation protest, the public is being encouraged to call a string of cell
phone numbers and to register their contact information at
http://chesni-podatky.org. A converging protest against the language law is
being organized online. (see http://www.maidan.org.ua/static/viol/1289575805.html)
The government appears to be
in a panic mode and in denial.
Although the possibility of successfully
starting the impeachment of Yanukovych, as reported on Maidan.org is frankly
quite low due to the new old constitution, the possibility of mass protests and
a country-wide national strike is realistically quite high.
On November 5, about 3,000
Lviv businessmen protested against the new Tax Code, demanding that
representatives of small business organizations be involved in the development
of an alternative proposal of the Tax Code.
Unian
estimated that as many as 50,000 people will be arriving from all points of
By the time you read this
story in print,
But not everyone on the
ground is in agreement with the truly complex situation in
One Canadian expatriate businessman
wrote me saying: “There is no chance of
an impeachment and even less chance of a revolt with people in the streets,
etc. Whoever started the cycle and whomever else has picked up on it, doesn’t
quite understand what is occurring here. These notes serve only to make the
diaspora look stupid (in everyone’s eyes, not just the Party of Regions).
Secondly, the party Svoboda is a provocateur - it is funded by the Party of
Regions. They are there to provide Yanukovych with a convenient opposition and
to suck votes away from a normal liberal-democratic party.”
Rolling events that started
earlier in November will surely tell.