Shapeshifting pros con and cough in the rubble of dubious elections. Watching the charades of recent misgivings, Urkraine humps the notch to show what for and "what the hell is going on?" in the political bowels. Climates push votes, leaning the left to the right and back again for the sake of an agitated bowel.
Opposition front runner, Viktor Yushchenko, unhappy with a face that looks back in the mirror, returns to Kiev from the Rudolfinerhaus clinic in Austria. Bearing results and confirmation of a clubber's dose of dioxin in the system, the man is a little unwell and haggling for a refund from the ice rink of death. A thousand times over limits of sanity and safety—and with a spiked soup expected in the interrogation array—the dosage left Yushchenko's face in crumbles, barely recognisable.
Walls and floors are lined with old newspapers ready for urine soakage. Paranoia fingers the allotted slot of incumbent Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich's sugar daddy, President Leonid Kuchma.
Down the ballot stretch, pro-Western Yushchenko saddles the horse, pro-Russian Yanukovich licks the dust of what may be a new scene. Swallows are heard, faces are blurred and the ghast disrupts a nation. All the president's men shovel doubts with food poisoning and a weeklong night on the town.
From the berth alongside death arises a man many believe to be a scarred Yushchenko. With a face like rotten pears left far too long in another office worker's desk drawer, things can be uncertain. Actor? Clone? Evil twin brother of Yushchenko who has formed an alliance with Yanukovich? Peel the face, win a prize.
Third time's the charm, two previous attempts at an election garnered little media attention from the world around as ballot fraud is now de rigueur.
"This is the work of the government," said Yushchenko.
Bringing the Ukrainian election to your dinner time.
27.12.2004 - Forgone conclusion.
Written on Tuesday, 14 December 2004