This election had been anything but peaceful from the very beginning.
Although the election was still underway and the results had yet to come out, the major media outlets had already split into two camps and started fighting!
One group of media outlets reported that Yanukovych held a substantial lead. Based on on-site interviews at polling stations, seven or eight out of every ten voters had supposedly cast their ballots for Yanukovych.
They said this aligned perfectly with reality. Ever since Yushchenko's sexual assault scandal had been exposed, Yanukovych had remained in the lead and had never fallen behind again!
Moreover, Yanukovych had always enjoyed tremendous support. He had been the hottest candidate from the start, without question!
The current result was simply the will of the people. He would secure the final victory with an overwhelming advantage.
But another group of media outlets claimed that serious problems had emerged during the election, and that someone was cheating!
One media outlet even released secretly recorded footage from a certain electoral district, filmed through unconventional means.
The video showed that the district's administration was in utter chaos. Someone had registered dozens, even hundreds, of ballots at once. It was obviously fraud.
Naturally, every name on those fraudulent ballots was "Yanukovych"...
The report caused a huge uproar.
The first to speak out were Yushchenko's supporters. During interviews, they angrily declared that the "old bureaucrats" represented by Yanukovych were engaging in "plunder and theft"!
Yanukovych's side had a terrible history of this sort of thing. For example, Yushchenko's so-called scandal from a few days ago had been deliberately fabricated by Yanukovych to smear his opponent.
And the fact that Yushchenko was still safely participating in the final election had already proven his innocence!
If there was no fraud in the election, then