I didn't realize it was an either/or proposition

In the Yushchenko-Tymoshenko conflict, both sides invoke Maidan, but do so in favor of different goals.

From Yushchenko, who recently called for "everybody to take the pragmatic and honest position for Ukraine" (in this long, long speech - please also look for some weak weaseling on his pact with Yanukovych),  and from Yekhanurov, the talk has mostly focused on achieving normalacy. The Maidan protesters wanted normalacy, they wanted to live in a normal country. The new government has this goal in mind as they restore fiscal prudence from Tymoshenko profligacy (never mind that they were for that profligacy before the effects began to be felt).

From Tymoshenko's side, all the talk is about corruption. It was corrupt under Kuchma, Maidan protesters were primarily sick of that corruption, it's still just as corrupt now. The Yushchenko government has failed to clean things up, so they've betrayed the revolution.

The battle between them begs a question, and I went sifting through some Tent City Stories to try to answer it.

What Did The Protesters Want?

Not surprisingly, protesters wanted both, along with clean election. Some quotes:

For Normalcy

From one camp organizer:

"I know what I want. I want to live in a normal Western European country. I want to be European. But there was no reasoning with [Yanukovych supporters], they already knew Yanukovych was an oligarch criminal but they didn't care." - Pora Leader Andrey, from Kharkiv

from tent city residents the day the election results came in:

When we got to the tents, I asked a few of the guys on guard duty:

So do you count this as final victory?

"Naw," one guy said, "it's not the ultimate victory."

"Well, when will it be then?" I asked.

"That victory we'll celebrate when everything is set down and official."

"What are you saying?" interjected another fellow. "Final victory will come down the line when we feel free and victorious. When the country is on a normal course, only then will we have achieved final victory."

"Well, yeah, that sounds about right," agreed the first.

For an End to Corruption:

Of course the corruption element is implied in the "Bandi Ghet!" (Clans Out!) slogan used so often. It's also the usual accusation leveled at Kuchma, and the corruption under Kuchma (referred to as "Kuchmism" by the following groups) was one of the major factors animating the Pora and Maidan activists.

For Clean Elections

from this collection of mini-interviews:

Alyona said lots of the people she knew in Donetsk and Luhansk had voted for Yushchenko, but when the numbers had come out, they'd been afraid to speak up. The rest nodded. Roman from L'viv said a number of his friends had had their teachers take away their passports at University just before the election...

One of the Maxes had been in a particularly difficult situation, he said. He'd been able to catch the town mayor taking part in the falsification of the vote in the town on video tape, and the tape had been his reason for coming to Kyiv...

"'Just vote for the candidate you want,' [Yushchenko election observer and tent city volunteer Katrina told an old woman she was bringing the mobile ballot box to]. But [the old woman] kept asking, and I had to keep repeating myself. Eventually she said to me, 'You know, I want to vote for Yushchenko, but I'm frightened. A bunch of people came to me recently and said they'd beat me if I didn't vote for Yanukovych.'

[more from Katrina]...That was just one person! They had lots of people scared, and I know that they were buying votes, too! Some people they paid twenty griven, fifty griven for votes. People would get cigarettes or bread and cast their votes, thinking they'd get something more for it. They didn't even know what they were selling." She went on to say they even had blank vote count protocols floating around that she didn't trust. Instead, she made up her own protocol and brought it to Kyiv to check against the results. It was from that protocol that she knew there'd been falsifications, and that was why she was here.

Elections Were Primary; They're Over Now; Can We Please Move On?

To me, the answer to which element was more important was in one of Tymoshenko's biggest speeches on Maidan. The thing to notice in the article is that, while discussion frequently referenced corruption , the action items were practical, short-term ones. At the end, even after all the shouting of "Bandi Ghet!", when she asked "Will you stay with us until the end?" we knew she wasn't asking us if we would support the Yushchenko government until 2023, we knew she meant "until the legitimate election on December 26".

The elections were primary, and all the posturing as the "real" defenders of the Orange Revolution merely sabotages the government's ability to make an forward progress now. When Tymoshenko ignored the economic woes in by saying that 4% growth is pretty good compared to developed western countries, or when Yushchenko ignored his commitment to massive social spending by blaming the resulting problems on Tymoshenko, they exhibit a strange kind of reformist schizophrenia. Of course protesters wanted what Ukrainians undoubtedly still want: a government that is clean and functional. If Yu and Ty didn't keep arguing past one another, they might find out they still have a lot more in common than some of their ostensible allies.

Side Note on Constitutional Reform

Speaking of the current political crisis, I also found an old quote by an Andrei from Kyiv. He should do political talk shows with commentary like this:

We asked him what he thought of the recent package reform bill that had passed, and which would reduce the powers of the President starting in September. We'd heard some of the volunteers were disappointed, not to mention Yulia Tymoshenko.

"Oh, I'm for Constitutional reform," he replied, "one person shouldn't have unlimited powers. And Tymoshenko, yeah, she's a radical or course," he chuckled a little.