Friday, August 03, 2007

Difficulties in preparation of election lists

Soon the main political parties in Ukraine will have to reveal their election lists for the September 30th VR elections. Each party submits 450 names in order from 1 to 450. If a party obtains at least 3% of the votes cast the party in question, then it receives the same percentage of seats in the VR as those cast for that particular party. Clearly the higher up the 'pecking order' any candidate is, then the more chance they have of getting into parliament. Those at the bottom are only 'making up numbers.'

The presence and position of specific names will, to some extent, cast light on the 'internal politics' taking place within the ranks of the main political units, and the direction in which they are headed.

An excellent article in 'Ukrainska Pravda', entitled 'Battle of the Donetsk bulldogs', describes the widening split between the 'businessmen', led by Rinat Akhmetov, and the 'administrators', led by Mykola Azarov and Andriy Klyuyev. I've posted on this several times recently. This article says Akhmetov is demanding at least 50% of the slots on the PoR list for his people, and that Yanukovych, in the event of a PoR victory will no longer receive carte-blanche to form his own team in the Cabinet of Ministers. At present the 'businessmen' have only two of their own in the cabinet - ecology minister Vasyl Dzarty, and coal industry minister Serhiy Tulub.

The writer says there are rumours of an Akmetov-Yekhanurov political project being launched for 2009. If Akhmetov's plans for the current election list are satisfied, then PoR will remain a unified structure after the elections. [Yekhanurov is a former 'orange' PM]. However, in the event that Yanukovych and his 'administrator' friends emerge victorious, then "Akhmetov's hands will be untied, enabling him to float freely away".

An article in 'Obozryevatel' entitled, 'Orange war: 'lyubi druzi' versus Baloha', discusses the internal problems inside the NU-NS bloc.

The foremost of the 'dear friends', Petro Poroshenko, has been excluded from the NUNS list, and next to go may be Oleksandr Tretyakov. Baloha [currently head of the presidential secretariat] is not on the list but is 'pencilled in' for the PM's chair, whilst his transcarpathian former associate, the odious Viktor Medvedchuk, rumoured to be looking for a place on the list, may be going to Russia as deputy head of Putin's presidential adminstration.

Yushchenko is demanding 10% of places on the election list for 'his boys and girls'.

Baloha has has established a good working relationship with Boris Kolesnikov [Akhmetov's closest associate and PoR election campain head] and shares common ideas about a "wide coalition". Head of State Yushchenko is aware of their contacts, and does not consider them problematic.

The article compares the relationship between the "lyubі druzі" and 'transcapathians' with the "old" [administrators] and "new" [businessmen] Donetskiites.

After the 2006 VR election campaign, new bodies have entered within the president's political orbits - first the Industrial Union of Donbas, "Privat" financial-industrial groups, and then people around Baloha, so the material resources provided by previous friends are no longer needed by Yushchenko. Ihor Kolomoysky, is allegedly one of NSNU's main sponsors.

There is still much fevered 'horse-trading' to be done inside the newly formed 9-party NUNS bloc. Although the the Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists signed the declaration on formation of the megabloc, they will not be included.

p.s. Worth reading, an exhaustive paper entitled: "Ukrainian Membership in NATO: Benefits, Costs, Misconceptions and Urban Legends" by John Kriendler, From the Defence Academy of the United Kingdom

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