AFTER PRESIDENT YUSHCHENKO’s dramatic decision to dissolve the parliament on April 2 and schedule new elections on May 27, Ukraine has been plunged into yet another political crisis. In an address to the nation on April 4, deputies from the Verkhovna Rada have decried Yushchenko’s move as a coup d’etat aimed, they say, at “creating a precedent that will lead Ukraine down the path of former Yugoslavia.” Kiev’s Independence Square is once again filled with protesters, though bitterly divided among opposing factions.

The events unfolding on the streets of the capital and in the halls of government are the culmination of a prolonged political struggle that has engulfed Ukrainian politics since the zenith of the Orange Revolution in 2004. The precedent of “people-powered” democracy, noble as it may be, has nonetheless failed to dispel deeply-rooted regional divisions or the venal politics of that country’s elite. After much elation in the West over the “victory of democracy,” a battle between political ambitions and a genuinely free civil society, unhesitant in expressing its discontent, continues to rage.