Viktor Andriyovych Yushchenko (Ukrainian

Ukrainian language

Ukrainian is a language of the East Slavic subgroup of the Slavic languages. It is the official state language of Ukraine. Written Ukrainian uses a variant of the Cyrillic alphabet....

: ) (born February 23, 1954) is a former President of Ukraine

Ukraine

Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...

. He took office on January 23, 2005, following a period of popular unrest known as the Orange Revolution

Orange Revolution

The Orange Revolution was a series of protests and political events that took place in Ukraine from late November 2004 to January 2005, in the immediate aftermath of the run-off vote of the 2004 Ukrainian presidential election which was claimed to be marred by massive corruption, voter...

. He failed to secure a runoff spot during the 2010 Ukrainian Presidential Election

Ukrainian presidential election, 2010

The Ukrainian presidential election of 2010 is Ukraine's fifth presidential election since declaring independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. The first round was held on January 17, 2010...

.

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

Ukrainian presidential election, 2004

The Ukrainian presidential election, 2004 was held on October 31, November 21 and December 26, 2004. The election was the fourth presidential election to take place in Ukraine following independence from the Soviet Union...

. Yushchenko won the presidency through a repeat runoff election between him and Viktor Yanukovych

Viktor Yanukovych

Viktor Fedorovych Yanukovych is a Ukrainian politician who has been the President of Ukraine since February 2010.Yanukovych served as the Governor of Donetsk Oblast from 1997 to 2002...

, the government-supported candidate.