«Пора!»: Украина жастар қозғалысы мен саяси партиясы

Pora! (Пора!, Russian: Пора! ), meaning “It's time!” in both Ukrainian and Russian, is a civic youth organization (Black Pora!) and political party in Ukraine (Yellow Pora!) espousing nonviolent resistance and advocating increased national democracy. The group was established in 2004 (as only a civic youth organization) to coordinate young people's opposition to the Kuchma government in opposition to what they claimed was the authoritarian governing style of Ukraine's president Leonid Kuchma. After the Orange Revolution Pora! split up in two different entities, Black Pora! (since 2006 OPORA) and Yellow Pora!

Pora! was inspired and partly trained by members of the Serbian Otpor movement which helped bring down President Slobodan Milošević, and is also allied to related movements throughout Eastern Europe, including Kmara in the republic of Georgia (itself partly responsible for the downfall of President Eduard Shevardnadze), Zubr in Belarus (opposing President Alexander Lukashenko), Oborona in Russia, and MJAFT! in Albania. According to Pora! has never received U. S. funding and that while 10 members traveled to Serbia in the spring of 2004 and met with Otpor leaders at a seminar in the city of Novi Sad, they paid for themselves. Prior to the 2004 presidential election, pro democracy movements such as Pora! had created political networks throughout Ukraine, including 150 groups responsible for spreading information and coordinating election monitoring, 72 regional centers, and 30,000 registered participants. This allowed Pora! to mobilize protesters after widespread reports of electoral fraud. Pora! supported Viktor Yushchenko in protests following the disputed 2004 presidential election. It claimed to have about 10,000 members. Its methods have apparently been influenced by Gene Sharp's manual From Dictatorship to Democracy. Apart from the mass demonstrations of the "Orange Revolution", the group's tactics have included the use of visually striking posters showing confrontational images such as a giant boot crushing a cockroach, and stickers with "revolutionary" slogans such as "Time to Arise!". Not surprisingly, this has aroused the ire of the Ukrainian authorities and Pora! activists have often been harassed and arrested. Pora! activists were arrested in October 2004, but the release of many (on what was reported President Leonid Kuchma's personal order) gave growing confidence to the opposition. Pora! was seen as being on the radical wing of the reform movement.

After the success of the Orange Revolution in defeating election fraud, from early 2005 Pora formally split into two branches with different goals for the future. The difference, however, always existed without being publicly known, between the original Black Pora! a student movement associated with civic resistance and anti Kuchma campaigns and the Yellow Pora! – organized by a group of politicians more closely connected to oppositional parties in the Parliament – such as Nasha Ukraina (Our Ukraine) of Viktor Yuschenko and PRP (Reforms and Order Party).

Black Pora, functions mainly as a pro democracy watchdog trying to clean Ukraine of 'Kuchmism' (i. e. the legacy of the former authoritarian President Leonid Kuchma) and does not see the possibility of exporting its experience to other countries. Black Pora! remains a non partisan movement and has formally registered as an NGO All Ukrainian Civic Organization Pora! Part of its public campaigns – such as the one aimed at pressuring major political parties to clean their electoral lists of notorious personalities – connected to the old regime or having criminal background. Around the March 2006 Parliamentary elections Black Pora changed its name to OPORA (Foundation) (ОПОРА, Russian: ОПОРА).