Curtain rises on political drama in former Soviet state

UKRAINE has not experienced the kind of intense political dramas seen in Russia and some of the other former Soviet states in the last 15 years, but now its turn may have come.

An election widely regarded as falsified, thousands of people on the streets, the official result rejected by a number of cities, parliament going into emergency session - it is a unique situation and no one can tell how it will end.

The closest parallel is the series of massive anti-government demonstrations in 2000 and 2001, following the murder of the opposition journalist Georgiy Gongadze.