Six months on, the appeal of Ukraine's 'orange revolution' is starting to fade

On the surface, the capital, Kiev is still high on the euphoria of "people power". Independence Square is a dawn to dusk festival starring hundreds of Ukrainians from all over the world feeling good about being Ukrainian.

You want a book by or about Yushchenko? No problem. A bust, a portrait? Pick the size, and take one of the Prime Minister, Julia Tymoshenko, while you are at it. The religious pictures and small, reproduction icons are laid out adjacent to the portraits of the revolutionary duo: the icons of yesterday and today, side by side.

But the chat behind the stalls is no longer uncritical. "Were you there?" One excited visitor asked a rough-hewn seller of folk music CDs. "Yes," he replied slowly, "and the crowds were unbelievable: they covered the square and went way down the Khreshchatik" (Kiev's renowned main thoroughfare). He went on: "And you know what: they set up stalls selling beer every few yards and there weren't any loos, and you can just imagine what it was like."

The disappointment is echoed in the columns of newspapers that had once been lavish in their support for the orange batallions. The revolution belonged in part to them, because it was they who insisted the elections conform to the law and then ensured that they did.

But it also belonged to Ukraine's young urban population, who saw in Mr Yushchenko and Ms Tymoshenko not only a different future for themselves and their country but a future in which they and Ukraine would be part of Europe. Of course, it was always going to be hard for the orange revolution to live up to the expectations invested in it. And, like the somewhat hazy and idealised vision of Europe, those expectations were often ill-defined. So far as the intelligentsia was concerned, they hoped above all for an end to the pervasive corruption. Many journalists hoped for the freedom to report as they wished, and without any financial constraints.

Such aspirations were utopian. But many Ukrainians - not only those who had flocked in person to Independence Square - had convinced themselves they had accomplished a revolution and thought that after December everything would be possible.

For those now swelling the ranks of doubters, all that the new government has produced to reward their heroic efforts in the snow are price rises, leadership squabbles and a series of excited and ill thought-out policy moves based on a free-market ideology very few Ukrainians fully understand.

Top of the list of misfired government initiatives is the review of earlier company privatisations, which were widely seen as corrupt. To the population at large, it seemed so simple: just confiscate the ill-gotten gains from the millionaire oligarchs and spread the largesse around. For an elected government, operating - or trying to operate - in an international context, however, it is not so easy. How can privatisations be reversed without destabilising Ukraine's fragile market and discouraging wary foreign investors? The prime example is the country's largest steel mill, Kryvorizhstal, sold last year for what was regarded as an unfairly low price to a consortium that included the then president's son-in-law and, in effect, renationalised last month. A new auction has been promised but the timing and mechanics seem to change by week, if not by the day, and lawsuits are already looming. Responsibility for reviewing privatisations rests with the prime minister, Julia Tymoshenko, herself a first-wave "oligarch" who has sworn henceforward to work by the book.

The President and Prime Minister had intended that 14 economic bills would be passed into law before the summer recess. They were crucial to fulfilling the conditions for membership of the World Trade Organisation and an integral part, too, of the "action plan" drafted by the European Union as a preliminary to agreeing a start date for talks on EU accession.

In the last week before the recess, however, the Rada descended into shouting and brawling between pro-Yushchenko reformers and their opponents.

Worse, all the antagonism produced only eight new laws. The one regarded as most crucial for WTO membership, on copyright, was passed but the rest have been held over until the autumn.

If, as some expect, the March elections reflect disillusionment with Mr Yushchenko and do not produce a more reformist parliament, then any chance of legislating for serious restructuring of the economy, let alone of early EU accession, could be lost for several years.

Among Mr Yushchenko's many foreign patrons, there is deep concern that progress is not nearly so fast as had been hoped. One visiting US dignitary with an interest in the success of the "revolution" said: "These people just don't know how to do politics. They are not schooled in the techniques and the necessary give and take".

He was not alone in his frustration. There is a growing consensus in Ukraine that Mr Yushchenko and Ms Tymoshenko have frittered away much of their political capital. If they cannot regain momentum in the autumn, there is a real risk Ukraine will sink back into inertia.

After a series of political and diplomatic gaffes last December, President Putin has left Ukraine to its own devices. Suggestions that Russia was involved in the murder of Ukraine's most celebrated investigative journalist, Georgy Gongadze, or in the dioxin poisoning of Mr Yushchenko before the election have been rebutted. Probably it was always unreasonable to expect tangible results from the Orange revolution so soon. But Mr Yushchenko's options for rallying his disappointed cohorts are decreasing. His call earlier this week for a comprehensive reorganisation of law enforcement, to include the disbanding of the notoriously corrupt traffic police, looked more like a crowd-pleaser than a serious blueprint for change.

Challenged to say what the government had achieved, the head of the Crimean administration, Ivan Matvienko, snapped at a local reporter: "You don't plant a potato one day, then dig it up the next because you are feeling peckish."