Spinning the Color Wheel: Constitutional Reform in the Ukraine (World IN REVIEW‪)‬

Over the last two years, Ukraine, the second-largest country in Europe, has fallen off the radar of international news and events. For most of its post-Soviet history, Ukraine struggled to adapt to world markets while its nascent democracy provided a thin veneer for a self-serving political and economic elite. The tension between the centripetal pull of a resurgent Russia and the promise of new economic and political alliances with the West created a slow and equivocal path of development. The Orange Revolution of 2004 tipped this uneasy balance. Current president Viktor Yushchenko survived an assassination attempt and rode a powerful and unanticipated wave of large-scale protests to successfully challenge a blatantly fraudulent presidential election. Having wrested the presidency from the incumbent regime's anointed successor, Viktor Yanukovych, Yushchenko appeared poised to realize his pro-Western political platform. It was thus assumed that Ukraine had broken free of pseudo-democracy and Russian neo-colonialism, the two arms of its heavy yoke. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]