Viktor Yushchenko

Viktor Yushchenko

Viktor Andriyovych Yushchenko (Ukrainian: Ві́ктор Андрі́йович Ю́щенко; born February 23, 1954) is a former President of Ukraine. He took office on January 23, 2005, following a period of popular unrest known as the Orange Revolution. He failed to secure a runoff spot during the 2010 Ukrainian presidential election.

As an informal leader of the Ukrainian opposition coalition, he was one of the two main candidates in the October–November 2004 Ukrainian presidential election. Yushchenko won the presidency through a repeat runoff election between him and Viktor Yanukovych, the government-supported candidate. The Ukrainian Supreme Court called for the runoff election to be repeated because of widespread election fraud in favor of Viktor Yanukovych in the original vote. Yushchenko won in the revote (52% to 44%). Public protests prompted by the electoral fraud played a major role in that presidential election and led to Ukraine's Orange Revolution.

Following an assassination attempt in late 2004 during his election campaign, Yushchenko was confirmed to have ingested hazardous amounts of TCDD, the most potent dioxin and a contaminant in Agent Orange. He suffered disfigurement as a result of the poisoning, but has been slowly recovering in recent years.