Voters to deliver Ukraine verdict

[Janus]

BBC News

Ukrainians are going to the polls, just over a year after huge crowds turned out in the "Orange Revolution" that brought Viktor Yushchenko to power.
But the popularity of Mr Yushchenko has fallen and analysts suggest his party may be beaten into second place.

Reform has been slow, the economy has slumped and the orange team has been split by a power struggle.

The elections are expected to be one of the most democratic ever held in the former Soviet republic.

Forty-five parties will be taking part and almost 2,000 international observers will be monitoring the election.

"This is the first election after the dust settled, so to speak, after the Orange Revolution. And it is really important to see how far the country has come in this time, looking at this election both politically and in terms of how it is organised," said Urdur Gunnarsdottir of the OSCE.

Coalition

The BBC's Helen Fawkes in Kiev says the election will be the first chance for Ukrainians to deliver their verdict on the Orange Revolution at the ballot box.
In 2004, Viktor Yanukovych was declared the winner of the presidential vote, but allegations of widespread vote-rigging sparked the Orange Revolution and the result was later overturned.

However, it appears Mr Yanukovych is on the verge of a comeback.

Opinion polls now predict his pro-Russian party is on course to win the most seats in parliament.

But it is expected that no party will get enough support to form a majority, so a coalition government appears likely.

[Sankara1983]

Ukrainian politics are too clannish to allow any real change. BBC News has a recent story about people's disappointment with the so-called "Revolution."

[Janus]

Pro-Russian bloc leads in Ukraine

BBC News

A pro-Russian opposition party led by a former prime minister will win the most seats in Ukraine's parliamentary elections, exit polls suggest.
One poll put his Regions Party on 33%, ahead of President Viktor Yushchenko and his former ally Yulia Tymoshenko, but short of an overall majority.

Mr Yushchenko's Our Ukraine party was placed third, with just 13.5%.

The election is the first since the Orange Revolution brought Mr Yushchenko to power, and his appeal has waned.

The president's rivals quickly talked up their prospects ahead of official results, which are due on Monday.
Viktor Yanukovych, who was defeated in an election by Mr Yushchenko in December 2004, said his Regions party had won the election.

"Our victory will open a new page in the history of Ukraine," the Associated Press reported him saying, adding that he was willing to work with any coalition partners.

But Yulia Tymoshenko, who served as prime minister for Mr Yushchenko but was abruptly sacked last September, said a new coalition based on the alliances formed during the Orange Revolution was "practically ready".

Analysts suggested that the newly emboldened Ms Tymoshenko would expect to regain her position as prime minister in any coalition.

Coalition talks

Voting was brisk throughout Sunday, with long queues at some polling stations and a turnout estimated at over 50%, officials said.

The Socialist party was expected to win about 5% of the vote and qualify to take seats in parliament.

Ahead of the vote, Mr Yushchenko said he hoped the Orange allies would reunite to claim a parliamentary majority.
Coalition talks will be complicated by constitutional changes that have increased parliament's powers at the expense of the president.

Following the poll, parliament - instead of the president - will choose the prime minister, and parliament also has to approve all members of the government.

Earlier the pro-Western Mr Yushchenko, who has been damaged by a weak economy and slow pace of reform, was upbeat.

The staging of democratic elections in Ukraine was itself a victory for the Orange forces, he said.

"I am in a great mood, a mood that comes before victory," he told reporters as he cast his vote with his family.

Mr Yanukovych said he supported ties with the European Union, as well as mending Ukraine's relationship with Moscow.

"Europe will support Ukraine, and Ukraine will build mutually beneficial relations with all nations, including the European Union," he said after casting his ballot.

The Orange Revolution took its name from the election campaign colour adopted by Mr Yushchenko in presidential elections held in November 2004.

Mr Yanukovych was declared the winner, but allegations of widespread vote-rigging sent hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians out on to the streets to demand change.

The election result was later overturned and Mr Yushchenko went on to win a re-run.

[Cheung Mo]

The "pro-Russian" side got crushed in the election (Pro-Russian is incomplete: Yanukovich supports closer ties with Russia AND E.U. membership. While he opposes NATO membership, he did get the backing of an outgoing President who sent troops to Iraq at Washington's behest): It just looks good for them because they're united under the Party of Regions banner while the pro-Europe side is divided between Tyomshenko's bloc, the Socialist Party (modern European social democracy), and Yushchenko's Our Ukraine Bloc.

One fascinating aspect of Ukrainian politics is that both sides and most blocs have parties that range in ideology from centre-"left" to nationalist conservative (of either the Ukrainian or the Russian variety, obviously).

[travisdandy2000]

29.03.2006 Source: URL: http://english.pravda.ru/world/ussr/77991-
Ukraine-0

The Party of the Regions, led by Viktor Yanukovich, has clearly won
the Ukrainian legislative elections, with around 33% of the vote –
twice that of Viktor Yushchenko's Our Ukraine, beaten into third
place behind Yulia Timoshenko's Bloc (20.4%). The Communist and
Socialist Parties will both be represented in Parliament, having
obtained the minimum 3% necessary.

So, how popular the Orange Revolution is barely a year after its
promises of a wonderful new Ukraine. Where are the NGOs, where are
the claims that the vote was rigged, where are the crowds of
hooligans, the darlings of the west, defying law and order,
thronging the streets, spreading litter and committing acts of
vandalism? Where is the Revolution? It has dissipated into a dull,
befuddled muddle of half-promises and pseudo-pledges, sold down the
river by a bewildered, unable, inept and inefficient clique of
wannabe politicians whose sole purpose to exist is to sell the
Ukraine and its interests to Washington in particular, the West in
general and NATO, that spear in the side, the constant thorn in the
crown

Yanukovich?

Yushchenko, in a position of political check, now understands that
playing politics involves more than being the pawn of Washington and
that however novel the call of the west may be, the fact of the
matter is that the Ukraine is going through a serious identity
crisis. More and more people realise that the idea of independence
is a romantic concept but the reality is that the Ukraine is
dependent upon, and not independent from, the Russian Federation, de
facto.

Therefore President Yushchenko will look to the largest opposition
parties and their leaders (Yanukovich or Timoshenko) to form a
government of national stability, albeit possibly in a period of
uncomfortable cohabitation. At present the most likely scenario is
an alliance with Yulia Timoshenko, who Yushchenko dismissed as Prime
Minister last year. She has declared that she would expect that post
back and also that she would favour cancelling the gas deal signed
with the Russian Federation. Timoshenko's pro-presidential party,
which was swept to power during the events of 2004 when Yanukovich's
Presidential election victory was overturned amid a popular uprising
and generalised lawlessness in central and western Ukraine, has
stated it favours a coalition with President Yushchenko's Our
Ukraine.

Timoshenko has, however, already revealed her true mettle, the cause
for her uncereminial sacking last September: she is a political
opportunist of the most naive kind, who confuses the beauty parlour
and chit-chat in hairdressers' salons with the real business of
government. Basically, she is all hot air, pretty pictures on
websites...and no action or substance.

An unlikely government duo would be Yushchenko as President and
Yanukovich as Prime Minister, due to the camps that both men
represent. However, would a Yushchenko/Yanukovich cohabitation be
such a bad deal for the Ukraine? For some reason Yanukovich today is
far more popular than the frivolous Timoshenko and the incapable
Yushckenko.

Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey

[Cheung Mo]

How can you compare the popularity of Yushchenko and Tymoshenko to the popularity of Yanukovich? Yushchenko and Tymoshenko are the figureheads of two equally powerful blocs commpeting for more or less the same group of voters (The
"left" flank of which is also up for grabs by the third way Socialist Party.). Yanukovich's bloc, on the other hand, has a group of voters more or less all to itself.

There's probably more overlap between Yushchenko and Tymoshenko supporters in Western and Central Ukraine than there is between NDP and Liberal supporters in downtown Toronto. (And since we're making such cmparisons, I'd like to say that Tymoshenko has a lot in common with Belinda Stronach...Both are rich bimbos who value style over substance and have more wealth than they deserve.)