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.

Lost in the euphoria a few years ago was the fact that nearly half of the country voted against the Orange Revolution--notwithstanding the few districts where enthusiastic supporters of Viktor Yanukovich employed "dead souls" to garner more than 100 percent of eligible votes. The hero of the revolution, Viktor Yushchenko, was no dissident in the mold of Vaclav Havel or Lech Walesa, having held a variety of administration posts during the ancien régime. Even Yulia

From Heroes to Foes: The Return of Viktor Yanukovich

The installation of "Team Orange" initially produced few tangible benefits for ordinary Ukrainians. Despite the common goal of bringing Ukraine closer to the West and rooting out entrenched corruption, Yushchenko and Tymoshenko instead squandered their political capital in bitter rivalry. The Ukrainian economy was perhaps the most damning indicator of Orange failure, it grew 12 percent under the stewardship of former president Leonid Kuchma in 2004, but declined precipitously in 2005. Promises to tackle corruption and to reverse shady privatization deals went largely unfulfilled, excluding the dramatic--and televised--public auction of Ukraine's largest steel producer, Kryvorizhstal.

In September 2005, only months after their display of gallant solidarity on the streets of Kiev, Yushchenko unceremoniously fired Tymoshenko from her post as prime minister. Ukraine's "Iron Lady" would not forgive easily. She reenergized her opposition movement--originally formed to propel Yushchenko to the presidency--into an eponymous party ("The Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc" or "BYuT") that claimed to uphold the "ideological purity" of the Orange Revolution.

President Yushchenko came off the worse in this power struggle. Last year, he had little choice but to arrange deals with Yanukovych's Party of Regions and oligarchic groups in order to steer the county through political and economic crises, resulting in the appointment of the centrist technocrat Yuri Yekhanurov as prime minister.

Curiously, President Yushchenko's position started to resemble the latter years of Mikhail Gorbachev--a beloved "liberator" abroad, awarded medals and standing ovations, but unable to escape a dubious reputation as a "spineless," "traitorous," and essentially powerless politician at home. To boot, the president lost most of his executive prerogative at the beginning of 2006, when the country's political system switched from super-presidential to a hybrid semi-presidential model.