Snowballing

In the last 24 hours, there's been a significant momentum shift in Yushchenko's direction. Ukraine's Supreme Court blocked the inauguration of Yanukovych, we're finally starting to see a trickle of high-level defections (Deputy Economic Minister and former Defense Minister), the media is beginning to rebel, and high-level negotiations are underway between the government and the opposition.

This may snowball towards some sort of conclusion before too long, unless negotiations fail. One thing to keep in mind though, is that unlike similar uprisings elsewhere, the democratic opposition does not enjoy anything like 85-90% of popular support. There is indeed a solid base of genuine support for Yanukovych, and most of this is based on the sense that a Yushchenko presidency would marginalize the Russian-speaking east that has very strong economic and social ties to Russia. If Yushchenko comes out of this with a win, he will have to be a President for the whole country and not the anti-Russian nationalist that Yanukovych has tried to paint him as. I think he could do it; I think Yushchenko could be a president for all of Ukraine. I do not think that Yanukovych could.