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Ukraine

Is Yatsenyuk’s resignation good or bad news for Poroshenko?

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Another week, another crisis in Ukraine.Ukraine Flag Icon

Just days after the downing of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17, Ukraine’s prime minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk offered to resign after two parties left the five-month ruling coalition that formed in the wake of Viktor Yanukovych’s flight from office back in February.

Those five months have witnessed an incredible amount of activity in Ukraine: Russia’s annexation of Crimea, the rise of Russian-backed rebels in eastern Ukraine, the May election of Petro Poroshenko as the country’s new president, and the crash of Flight MH17.

Those two parties, the right-wing nationalist All-Ukrainian Union “Svoboda” (Всеукраїнське об’єднання «Свобода») and the Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reform (UDAR, Український демократичний альянс за реформи) of newly elected Kiev mayor and former heavyweight boxing champion Vitaliy Klychko, ostensibly left the government over the onerous conditions that Yatsenyuk was trying to enact into law pursuant to the $17 billion loan package provided by the International Monetary Fund, which contemplates that Ukraine will bring its budgets closer into balance. It’s understandable that lawmakers aren’t keen to introduce austerity measures with an ongoing insurgency in eastern Ukraine and with the economy still in shambles — it could contract by as much as 6.5% this year, and the Ukrainian hryvnia has lost nearly 30% of its value so far in 2014.

But Svoboda and UDAR, which joined the pro-Western government alongside Yatsenyuk’s own  ‘All Ukrainian Union — Fatherland’ party (Batkivshchyna, Всеукраїнське об’єднання “Батьківщина), knew the strings attached to the IMF loan from the outset.

Why now?  Continue reading Is Yatsenyuk’s resignation good or bad news for Poroshenko? →

Ukraine

Can Poroshenko deliver his fairy-tale promises to Ukraine?

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Петро Порошенко

Earlier this year, the two undisputed leaders of the pro-Western camp were Yulia Tymoshenko, a former prime minister who had been jailed by the government of then-president Viktor Yanukovych, and Vitali Klitschko, a heavyweight boxing champion who emerged in the 2012 parliamentary elections as the leader of a new reform-minded political party.Ukraine Flag Icon

Moreover, other capable leaders in anti-Yanukovych movement, including other officials within Tymoshenko’s center-right ‘All Ukrainian Union — Fatherland’ party (Всеукраїнське об’єднання “Батьківщина, Batkivshchyna), such as Oleksandr Turchynov, who ultimately became Ukraine’s acting president, and former foreign minister and economy minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, who ultimately became Ukraine’s interim prime minister.

So how did a chocolate tycoon with no obvious prior presidential ambitions find his way not only to the top of the polls in Ukraine’s troubled presidential election on May 25, but gather such an overwhelming lead that he could win the race in the first round with over 50% of the vote?

Petro Poroshenko is campaigning on a platform of greater economic ties to the European Union and a pledge to create more jobs. He’s promised to enact the EU association agreement that Yanukovych  refused to sign, a decision that led to the anti-Yanukovych protests in Kiev’s Maidan square late last year. He’s also promised to bring an end to the separatist protests in eastern Ukraine, by force if necessary.

Despite this threat, the Kremlin is signaling that Poroshenko is a Ukrainian leader with which Russia can work:

With the country still roiled by separatist violence in the east, the growing air of inevitability around Mr. Poroshenko, who has deep business interests in Russia, has redrawn the Ukraine conflict. It has presented the Kremlin with the prospect of a clear negotiating partner, apparently contributing, officials and analysts say, to a softening in the stance of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.

After weeks of threatening an invasion, Mr. Putin now seems to have closed off the possibility of a Crimea-style land grab in the east, and even issued guarded support for the election to go forward.

Still, Putin has argued that Ukraine should draft a new constitution that provides for greater federalism before holding new elections. In recent days, he’s urged calm in eastern Ukraine and he even tried to convince separatists to delay the referenda held earlier this month on independence in Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts. But there’s no guarantee that Putin, who in mid-April referred to Ukraine as ‘Novorossiya,’ or ‘New Russia,’ will recognize the election’s outcome.

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RELATED: How the eastern Ukraine referenda
relate to the May 25 election

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With no serious contenders, and no real national debate during the election campaign, Poroshenko, who has dodged between both pro-Western and pro-Russian governments for the past two decades, and who has ties to some of the country’s most notoriously corrupt oligarchs, seems to be promising everything to everyone — and polls show he’s going to succeed. He pledges to restore ties with Russia, even while enhancing Ukraine’s economic links with Europe. He will somehow reverse what’s been a near-comical bungling effort by the Ukrainian military to subdue a separatist movement that shows no signs of receding. While doing all this, he will create jobs amid an economic crisis that will require more than $15 billion to $20 billion or more in financial assistance from groups like the International Monetary Fund, which will almost certainly demand in exchange tough budget cuts, tax restructuring, the privatization of many  state-owned assets and the liberalization of Ukraine’s economy otherwise, steps that will almost certainly inhibit immediate economic growth that could bring about new jobs in the short-term.  All of this in a country that, among the former Soviet nations, has the absolute worst post-Soviet GDP growth rate.

In short, Poroshenko is arguing that he can do what none of Ukraine’s leaders have been able to do for the past two decades at a time when the country is more divided than ever.

Continue reading Can Poroshenko deliver his fairy-tale promises to Ukraine? →

Ukraine

What comes next for Ukraine following Yanukovych’s ouster?

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maidan

There’s apparently a limit on what Ukraine’s president can get away with.Ukraine Flag Icon

He could preside over massive amounts of corruption, he could jail his chief political opponent on ridiculously politicized charges, he could swerve disastrously between a pro-Russian worldview and a pro-European worldview, and he could even brazenly change Ukraine’s election law to win more seats.

But when the government of Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych became responsible for the deaths of 88 protesters last week, even members within his own Party of Regions (Партія регіонів) were defecting from Yanukovych.  Arguably, until his police force unleashed lethal fire on hundreds of civilians, Yanukovych could point to a relatively legitimate electoral mandate in the previous 2010 presidential election (and, though it was flawed, the 2012 parliamentary elections).

interim

Since Friday, when the European Union seemed to broker a deal between Yanukovych and Ukraine’s opposition leaders, events galloped at a dramatically rapid rate (though apparently not too fast for Ukraine’s leading oligarchs, Rinat Akhmetov and Dmitry Firtash), leaving Yanukovych in hiding in eastern Ukraine, under charges of mass murder.  The country’s parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, voted in quick succession to elect speaker Oleksander Turchinov (pictured above), an opposition, pro-European politician, as interim president.

It also elected to restore the 2004 constitution, which restores more power to Ukraine’s parliament and away from its president, and set a tentative May 25 date for new presidential elections.  The parliament also cleared the path to free Yulia Tymoshenko, a former prime minister and a leader of the center-right ‘All Ukrainian Union — Fatherland’ party (Всеукраїнське об’єднання “Батьківщина), who narrowly lost the 2010 presidential vote to Yanukovych.  Tymoshenko (pictured below) was jailed in late 2011 by Yanukovych’s government on charges related to her handling of the natural gas crisis in 2009 during her premiership.  That precedent, ironically, may be one of the reasons that Yanukovych remained so keen on holding onto power in Kiev — having established that he was willing to throw Tymoshenko in prison on politically motivated grounds, it’s Yanukovych who now faces imprisonment on the basis of far more serious charges.  Tymoshenko, who has ruled out leading Ukraine’s soon-to-be-announced interim government, will nonetheless be a leading candidate in the upcoming presidential ballot.  Though she’s been imprisoned throughout the current crisis, she’s also unsullied by having negotiated with Yanukovych, a group that includes another opposition favorite, heavyweight boxing champion Vitaliy Klychko.

tymoshenko

Russia, who had delivered $3 billion of a promised $15 billion bailout, is obviously dismayed.  Though Yanukovych was never quite the Russian puppet that some Western leaders believed him to be, it’s clear that his sympathies lied to the east more than to the west.

So what comes next for Ukraine?  Past experience demonstrates that the story won’t end with ‘happily ever after’ upon the appointment of this week’s new interim government.  As I wrote last December, the Maidan protests — even if they succeed — won’t by themselves end Ukraine’s political crisis.  Just a year after the ‘Orange Revolution’ of December 2004 and January 2005 that brought Viktor Yushchenko power, the pro-European government crumbled into infighting that lasted until Yushchenko left power, massively unpopular, in 2010.  Yanukovych took advantage of the ongoing disunity of the Ukrainian opposition in October 2012’s parliamentary elections, winning largely by dividing the supporters of Tymoshenko’s Fatherland and Klychko’s newly formed Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reform (Український демократичний альянс за реформи).

crimea

Almost on schedule, this morning brings news of serious counter-protests in Crimea, the peninsula that lies in the Black Sea on the southeastern coast, one of the 24 oblasts that comprise Ukraine.   Continue reading What comes next for Ukraine following Yanukovych’s ouster? →

Thailand, Ukraine

What protesters in Ukraine and Thailand are getting wrong

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The political crises in both Ukraine and Thailand took a turn for the severe last week, as government police forces clashed with protesters with even greater violence.  But what do the protesters want in each country — and can the protests, even if successful, bring stability?  Ukraine Flag Iconthailand

Amnesty: the root cause of the Thai protests

In Thailand, a country of 66.8 million people, anti-government protesters took to the streets in November (pictured above, top) after Thai president Yingluck Shinawatra tried to introduce an amnesty bill that would absolve both her supporters and opposition leaders from the worst charges, including murder, that spring from the political violence that’s engulfed Thailand sporadically throughout the last decade.  The bill died in the Ratthasapha (National Assembly of Thailand, รัฐสภา) after all sides turned against it.  Yingluck’s party, the dominant Pheu Thai Party (PTP, ‘For Thais’ Party, พรรคเพื่อไทย), the third iteration of the party Yingluck’s brother, Thaksin Shinawatra, founded in 2001 when he came to power, didn’t want to absolve the sins of their adversaries.  The opposition Phak Prachathipat (Democrat Party, พรรคประชาธิปัตย์) opposed the amnesty bill because they feared it would mean the return of Thaksin from seven years in self-exile.

Though Yingluck won the July 2011 parliamentary elections on a promise to de-escalate tensions in Thailand, the amnesty has brought the country back to the familiar standoff between the pro-Thaksin ‘red shirts’ and the anti-Thaksin ‘yellow shirts.’ 

EU relations: the root cause of the Ukrainian ‘Euromaidan’ protests

In Ukraine, a country of 45.5 million people, pro-European protesters also took their grievances to the streets in late November (pictured above, bottom) after president Viktor Yanukovych pulled out of an association agreement that would have engendered closer cooperation between the European Union and Ukraine.  Initially, the protests, centered on Maidan Square in the capital city of Kiev, assumed the form of the familiar political struggle between the Europe-oriented, Ukrainian-speaking west and the Russia-oriented, Russian-speaking east, which featured prominently in the 2004 ‘orange revolution’ against fraudulent elections that powered Viktor Yushchenko to power.

Yushchenko ended his presidential term massively unpopular, with his pro-Western allies fracturing into various camps, and in the February 2010 presidential race, the pendulum swung back to the pro-Russian Yanukovych, who defeated the EU-friendly former prime minister Yuila Tymoshenko (by 2010, a Yushchenko ally-turned-foe).  For much, much more background, here’s Max Fisher’s explainer today at The Washington Post.

In both cases, the protests have transcended their original rationales, and they now threaten to topple governments in both Kiev and Bangkok. What’s more, Yingluck and Yanukovych haven’t responded incredibly well to the protests. Continue reading What protesters in Ukraine and Thailand are getting wrong →

Ukraine

Why more protests won’t solve Ukraine’s political crisis (and why the Orange Revolution didn’t, either)

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kiev

Despite what you may believe from the example of Egypt and from the various ‘color’ revolutions of the past decade, power isn’t transferred by popular revolt, at least not in mature democracies.Ukraine Flag Icon

That’s important to bear in mind as much of the US and international media keeps its attention focused on Kiev, where protesters continue to demand the resignation of Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych, who is largely seen as favoring closer ties to Russia than to the European Union and the West.  Despite last weekend’s protests of up to 250,000 Ukrainians, which featured violent clashes with the police (the Ukrainian government has since apologized), Yanukovych has so far survived the blowback from his decision last month to reject an association agreement that would have brought Ukraine into closer alliance with the European Union.  While the most conspiratorial commentators believe that Yanukovych rejected the agreement at the insistence of Russian president Vladimir Putin, a more plausible explanation is that Yanukovych hopes to avoid the kind of short-term disruption to Ukrainian industry that could result from opening Ukraine’s markets to European-wide competition just months before he hopes to win reelection in February 2015.  Theres also plenty of blame for the European Union itself, which didn’t go out of its way to make the path for Ukraine incredibly easy, in light of Ukraine’s longstanding relationship with Russia.

But too much of the international media’s coverage attempts to frame the Ukrainian protests as some kind of ‘Orange Revolution’ redux, with Western media almost gleefully urging Yanukovych’s overthrow by mob acclamation.

It’s true that Yanukovych is relatively pro-Russian and many of his opponents are relatively pro-Western, and it’s very true that Yanukovych’s record is littered with authoritarianism and corruption.  But that interpretation both overstates the differences among the Ukrainian political elite (when hasn’t Ukraine been relatively corrupt?) and it understates the massive economic, demographic and social problems that Ukraine has faced since the end of the Cold War.  The much-hyped Orange Revolution didn’t settle the question of Ukraine’s relative identity vis-à-vis Russia and the West, and the current round of protests won’t likely settle the question either.

Here’s a look at the map of the 2010 Ukrainian presidential election results, which pitted Yanukovych against the relatively pro-Western Yulia Tymoshenko, a former prime minister who is now jailed on what many agree to be politically motivated charges:

ukraine2010

Here’s a look at last October’s parliamentary election results — blue represents Yanukovych’s governing party, the Party of Regions (Партія регіонів), and pink represents Tymoshenko’s party, the center-right ‘All Ukrainian Union — Fatherland’ party (Всеукраїнське об’єднання “Батьківщина), which emerged as the largest opposition party:

ukraine2012

Now here’s a map of Ukraine’s regions that shows the percentage of the regional population that speaks Ukrainian (rather than Russian):

ukrainan language

Notice any similarities?

You should — the lesson here is that Ukraine is split between a western Ukrainian-speaking population and an eastern Russian-speaking population that’s divided not only by language, but by cultural, political and economic differences.

Here’s a look at average salary by region, for example, which shows that the Russian-speaking east, where many of Ukraine’s major cities are located, is economically stronger than the Ukrainian-speaking west, except the region surrounding Ukraine’s capital Kiev (and, to a lesser degree, the region surrounding Odessa on the Black Sea coast, where tourism boosts the local economy):

percapitaukraine

It’s difficult to overstate the differences between the ‘two Ukraines.’ Continue reading Why more protests won’t solve Ukraine’s political crisis (and why the Orange Revolution didn’t, either) →

Ukraine

More final thoughts on Ukraine’s election and Tymoshenko’s future

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It’s been a busy week, but it’s worth taking a moment to explore the results from Ukraine’s parliamentary election on October 28 in greater detail.

We have a final set of preliminary numbers now, which lines up with what exit polls had forecasted after polls closed Sunday night — the governing pro-Russian party of president Viktor Yanukovych, the Party of Regions (Партія регіонів), won just 30.08% of the vote, but it will take 42% of the seats in the 450-member Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine’s unicameral parliament.  Indeed, Yanukovych and his allies quickly declared victory on Sunday night.

It was able to do so because of a change in the electoral law — in the previous election in 2007, all of the parliamentary seats were determined by proportional representation, but in 2012, half of the seats were elected through single-member districts, allowing Yanukovych’s united party to take advantage of a split opposition.

In this case, the opposition party of former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko, the center-right ‘All Ukrainian Union — Fatherland’ party (Всеукраїнське об’єднання “Батьківщина, Batkivshchyna) wound up competing, to some degree, with the new reformist Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reform (Український демократичний альянс за реформи), formed by heavyweight boxing champion Vitaliy Klychko.

 On the proportional representation vote, Yanukovych’s Party of Regions won 73 seats, versus 61 for Batkivshchyna/Fatherland and 34 for UDAR.

In the constituencies, however, Yanukovych’s party won 114 to just 42 for Batkivshchyna/Fatherland and a mere six for UDAR.

The result will be a parliamentary majority that gives Yanukovych and his prime minister Mykola Azarov slightly greater control over government.

The somewhat fragmented results also show, however, an electorate that is none too pleased with Yanukovych’s increasingly authoritarian rule, his grip over Ukraine’s economy, the graft benefitting his friends and family, and the ongoing economic malaise, unemployment and stalled economic reform.  Despite his apparent gains last Sunday, it’s not clear that Ukrainians — especially members of Ukraine’s increasingly fragile business elite — will remain pliant in the face of policies that pull the country further from the goal of eventual integration into the European Union.

Indeed, the victory comes in an election that was far from free and fair — the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe has a detailed report on the unfair advantages that Yanukovych brought to the election.

Tymoshenko, who served as prime minister in 2005 and then again from 2007 to 2010 under former reformist president (and ‘Orange Revolution’ leader) Viktor Yushchenko, narrowly lost the 2010 presidential election to Yanukovych.  Since then, she has been imprisoned on politically-motivated charges stemming from her negotiation of an energy deal with Russia following a 2009 crisis when Russia stopped the flow of natural gas to Ukraine and to the rest of Europe.  It’s puzzling, however, that the relatively more Russian-friendly Yanukovych would pursue those charges against the relatively more Europe-oriented Tymoshenko, and he certainly hasn’t bothered Moscow with a request to renegotiate the agreement.  Indeed, Moscow will be happy to see gains for the pro-Russian party, following a month of elections in former Soviet republics generally seen as wins for Russia’s attempt to restore its influence in what it calls the ‘near-abroad.’

Nonetheless, Tymoshenko’s support held up despite her imprisonment, with her party winning 25.47% of the vote.  That’s in no small part due to the capable leadership of Arseniy Yatsenyuk, who served as minister of the economy from 2005 to 2006, foreign minister in 2007 and chairman of the Verkhovna Rada from 2007 to 2008.  Although the party will have lost 53 seats since the last parliamentary election in 2007, they will retain the strongest opposition group in Ukraine’s parliament — by far.  It’s a tactical and political victory for Yatsenyuk, of course, who could well be the opposition presidential candidate in 2014, but it’s also a moral victory for Tymoshenko, whose imprisonment now remains the primary symbol of Ukraine’s legal, democratic and economic backslide under Yanukovych.

Although it was UDAR’s first elections in Ukraine, Klychko will have been disappointed to have won just 13.92% and 40 seats.  Surely, Klychko hoped that his campaign would install him as the major opposition figure in Ukraine and perhaps given him an opportunity for a knockout punch against Yanukovych as well.  That’s clearly not going to be the case, although Klychko has established himself as a key reformer in Ukraine, and I expect his bloc of reform-minded MPs will certainly work with Batkivshchyna/Fatherland to make the case for liberalization, other economic reforms, rule of law, and keeping Ukraine’s wider orientation toward eventual European Union membership.

But Klychko’s support was not much more than the other major parties in Ukraine — for example, the Soviet retro Communist Party (Комуністична партія України), which has allied with Yanukovych in the past, won 13.20% and 32 seats.

More troubling, the far-right nationalist All-Ukrainian Union “Svoboda” (Всеукраїнське об’єднання «Свобода») won 10.42% and 37 seats. Although Svoboda, like UDAR and Batkivshchyna/Fatherland, opposes making Russian a national language in Ukraine, the similarities stop there — think of Svoboda as closer to Greece’s Golden Dawn than to, say, a moderately nationalist Christian democratic party in Western Europe. Continue reading More final thoughts on Ukraine’s election and Tymoshenko’s future →

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Yanukovych declares victory in Ukraine with exit polls showing narrow win

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Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych (pictured above) and his pro-Russian Party of Regions (Партія регіонів) appear to have won Sunday’s parliamentary elections in Ukraine, and his prime minister Mykola Azarov has declared victory, although there were indications Sunday of electoral fraud. 

One exit poll out of Kiev early Monday morning showed the following result:

  • The Party of Regions has apparently won 30.1%, which may yield enough seats for a majority in the 450-member Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine’s parliament.  Because the vote is based one-half on proportional representation and one-half on direct districts, it’s believed that the Party of Regions will win a significantly
  • The main opposition party of former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko, the center-right ‘All Ukrainian Union — Fatherland’ party (Всеукраїнське об’єднання “Батьківщина, Batkivshchyna) won a robust 22.8%, according to the exit poll, a strong result notwithstanding Tymoshenko’s imprisonment.  Tymoshenko, who narrowly lost the 2010 presidential race to Yanukovych, has been convicted on charges related to the natural gas deal that she negotiated as prime minister in 2009 with Russia — European Union leaders have expressed concern that the conviction seems politically motivated.
  • Heavyweight boxing champion Vitaliy Klychko’s Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reform (Український демократичний альянс за реформи) finished a bit far behind in third place, with 14.8%, according to the exit poll.  The result will be enough to make Klychko a player in Ukrainian politics, but it will be a bit of a disappointment for his supporters who had hoped he could displace Tymoshenko’s party as the chief opposition.
  • The far-right, Ukrainian nationalist  All-Ukrainian Union “Svoboda” (Всеукраїнське об’єднання «Свобода») has apparently won a stronger-than-expected 12.6% — a troubling sign, perhaps, given the ultranationalist turn, but nonetheless a sign that Ukrainians are not incredibly enthusiastic about Yanukovych.
  • Ukraine’s Communist Party (Комуністична партія України), which is the current iteration of the former Soviet Ukrainian communist party and an Yanukovych ally, has apparently won around 11.6%.

Notwithstanding the vote, a loss for Ukraine’s minority could embolden Yanukovych to turn more toward Russia and away from Europe, and to allow a once vibrant movement for reform to wither under corruption and soft authoritarianism.  An absolute majority for Yanukovych’s allies would likely further stall Ukraine’s potential entry into the European Union.

But for now, let’s wait until we see some hard numbers from Kiev.

Ukraine

Klychko hopes to deliver knockout punch in Ukrainian election

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As Ukraine’s elections approach this Sunday, WBC heavyweight Vitaliy Klychko is hoping he can deliver a terminal blow to the government of president Viktor Yanukovych.

He’s in many ways the latest beta version of Ukraine’s opposition — after the disenchantment with former president Viktor Yushchenko, whose presidency from 2005 to 2010 degenerated into a splintered majority that failed to enact the promise of 2004’s ‘Orange Revolution,’ and after the imprisonment of former presidential candidate Yulia Tymoshenko, jailed on the politically-motivated charge of negotiating too unfavorable of a contract with Russia on behalf of Ukraine during the 2009 natural gas crisis (even though Russia had essentially turned off the gas to Ukraine and its neighbors), the newest kid on the block is Klychko, the reigning heavyweight world champion.

Klychko heads a new upstart opposition party,  the Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reform (UDAR, Український демократичний альянс за реформи) that has gained the most momentum throughout the campaign — the latest poll, heading into Sunday’s election, shows UDAR with 17.9%, versus only 23.0% for Yanukovych’s relatively unpopular pro-Russian Party of Regions (Партія регіонів) based in eastern Ukraine.

UDAR also means ‘punch’ in Ukrainian — get it? Vote for the boxer!

Within western and central Ukraine, UDAR will be competing for the more reformist pro-European vote with the center-right ‘All Ukrainian Union — Fatherland’ party (Всеукраїнське об’єднання “Батьківщина, Batkivshchyna), which wins 16.9%, although its leader Yulia Tymoshenko remains imprisoned over what most observes believe are politically-motivated charges.  Tymoshenko, who parted ways with her one-time ally Yushchenko, only narrowly lost the 2010 president election to Yanukovych.

Ukraine’s Communist Party (Комуністична партія України), which dates back to the Ukrainian branch of the Soviet Communist Party and which has backed Yanukovych in the past, won 12.8% in the latest poll.

Klychko has ruled out any coalition with Yanukovych — he is firmly in favor of liberalization and economic development and in favor of Ukraine’s continued turn toward the EU and toward further integration with NATO as well.  As someone who’s made his fortune as a boxer on the world stage, many Ukrainians see him as less likely to succumb to the temptation for corruption in the less-than-pristine environment of Ukrainian politics.

Klychko entered electoral politics with a run for mayor of Kiev in 2008 — he lost that race to Leonid Chernovetskyi, but placed a strong second and won a seat on the Kiev city council.  It probably made no difference, however, as Yanukovych essentially pushed a law through Ukraine’s parliament in 2010 to allow the president to appoint the city administrator directly; Yanukovych dismissed Chernovetskyi and named a loyalist in his place.

Yanukovych is hoping to take advantage of the split in this weekend’s elections for the 450 members of the unicameral parliament, the Verkhovna Rada.  Unlike in 2007 parliamentary elections, when all seats were determined by proportional representation, only half of the seats will be elected by proportional representation (parties with over 5% support will be awarded a share of those seats).  There are already doubts about how free and fair the elections will be, amid media suppression, political-based assaults and outright bribery, with Yanukovych’s government deploying state resources in the furtherance of winning the election. At stake is Ukraine’s potential entry to the European Union — a strong win by Yanukovych and his allies would pull Ukraine ever closer to Russia and further away from possible EU accession.  Yanukovych and his family enjoy considerable control over much of the country’s economy.

The other half will be elected directly in districts — a significant change from the last elections in 2007, which were fully determined by proportional representation, and which Yanukovych could win if UDAR and Batkivshchyna split too much of the opposition vote in the single-district constituencies.  Although UDAR and Batkivshchyna have agreed on a mutual support pact to withdraw certain candidates in favor of a united opposition candidate, but the two parties are still apparently fielding their own candidates in some of the more competitive districts in Kiev.

So while in many ways Klychko is essentially Reformer 3.0 in the mould of Yushchenko and Tymoshenko, and he seems to have the most momentum just two days before Ukrainians vote, the broader fear is that the pro-European opposition based in the western part of the country will splinter, allowing Yanukovych to consolidate power and pull Ukraine in a less democratic direction, toward Russia and away from Europe.  Continue reading Klychko hopes to deliver knockout punch in Ukrainian election →