'Businessization' of politics - a post-Soviet disease

Tymoshenko repeats ad nauseam that BYuT will not work in one bloc with PR under any circumstances, and has challenged Yushchenko to declare this too, no doubt knowing he will make no such a statement, Yushchenko sensibly sticking to to old politician's maxim 'never say never.'

NSNU campaign chief Bezsmertnyi asserts that the only alternative to an orange coalition is the dismissal of parliament by the President, and reveals an orange coalition will be created as soon as polling stations close on polling day next Sunday; whilst Zvarych mumbles an NSNU-RU coalition is not possible due to ideological and political differences.

As for Yanukovych, during a visit to the Aviant aircraft factory in Kyiv today, when asked about the possibility of forming a coalition, he struck a statesmanlike pose and sensibly replied, "We have not and will not conduct discussions on principle, because we decided [to discuss this] only after the elections, once we see how many seats everyone has got in parliament." His statement may be interpreted he considers an outright PR victory unlikely, so his later threat of a blue and white maidan in the event of falsification is rather implausible as everyone knows this VR election, unlike the 2004 Presidential election, is not a winner-take-all scenario. The result will be a muddle - not clear-cut; and anyhow Kyiv is predominantly pro-orange.

Elections are supposed to be about parties' leaders providing electorates with their vision for the future, about aspirations and plans of action if elected. But to me these Ukrainian Parliamentary elections somehow have sham feeling about them. There has been too much talk of coalitions, behind the scenes deals, and of businessmen and commercial client candidates paying millions of dollars for places on election lists of all of the main parties...and so many candidates with very dubious previous histories on the lists, particularly PR's list.

Just a couple of examples how the elections may be more about inside deals and business than politics: there has been speculation that veteran Socialist leader Oleksandr Moroz was keen to see his daughter in the VR, but to avoid the accusation of nepotism, he proposed BYuT give her a good place on their election list, and in return the Socialists would place on their list West Ukrainian magnate Petro Dyminskyi, a close associate of Tymoshenko who is disliked by many of her close associates. [In the end the deal did not go through].

There's speculation that Tymoshenko would be prepared to accept the position of Parliamentary speaker in the event of a NSNU - BYuT coalition, if she were allowed to become gas princess again in total command of gas importation.

Similarly, conditions on how [and to whom] the important state Ukrtelekom enterprise is to be privatized have featured heavily in NSNU - RU coalition discussions.

One observer calls it the 'businessization' of politics - a post-soviet disease of Ukraine's political elite.

A visit from Yulia

Well, it was sort of a visit from Yulia. It was at least a visit from someone who works for Yulia. Okay, maybe it was someone who works way down on the front lines as far away as you could get from Yulia, but it has been the only visit by anyone from any political party, so we felt flattered.

It was a man and he rang the doorbell. Actually, he pushed it so hard that it stuck and we had to put up with the loud chirping of a bird until we could open the door and get it unstuck. He said he was from Yulia's party and asked if we supported her. My wife said yes and no, a good solid answer in my book. He said something about that, maybe an "uh-huh" or something equally perceptive. Then he left a slick little pamphlet and departed.

Kind of nice. It's the personal touch that Yulia's campaign has been much better at than anyone else's. As a matter of fact, they have had the personal touch field all to themselves--no one else has tried it. Or if they have tried it, the personal touch was all but undetectable in anything they did.

This has been the only visit we have had from any party. We live out here in the hinterlands of Kiev but still, if Yulia could do it, Our Ukraine could do it too.

Zhirinovsky et al

Vladimir Zhirinovsky and some others were on a show this weekend about Russian-Ukrainian relations. According to the radio, he was rewarded this morning for his efforts with the honor of being blacklisted for a visa to Ukraine--it was that bad.

He was with Boris Nemtsov, Gleb Pavlovsky, the Kremlin spin doctor, and a couple of others including a Duma deputy whose name I now can't remember. Nemtsov was more or less fine. Pavlovsky came across as reasonable. The Duma deputy though said at one point, "Russians want to know if you are our friend or our enemy?" It was in the context of a discussion on NATO accession and it was framed as a question but the tone was one of a demand.

Zhirinovsky though breathed fire and spit in the faces of a lot of Ukrainians. I wouldn't be surprised if he single-handedly set back Russian-Ukrainian relations for years all by his little lonesome. I think he got all the political parties there to agree with each other on Russia, except for Party of Region.

Nemtsov, at one point, said that Zhirinovsky was drunk. He had too much of his own label vodka on the plane over. His point was that Zhirinovsky was more Zhirinovsky than normal that night. He said this with a laugh and thought it a light thing. But I don't think it went over all that well with viewers here. I could be wrong but I don't think so.

The question is how many Russians Zhirinovsky speaks for. He's a fringe player in Russia and a hothead but how many people does he really speak for when he talks about Ukraine? That is a question that I think people here will ask.

I wonder what the Kremlin thinks about it? Maybe they are emboldened by Yanukovych's comeback to not worry about it. They are once again in the driver's seat, maybe, so who cares?

Potential outcomes

Markian Bilynskyj from the US-Ukraine Foundation lists three alternatives that might emerge from the elections and analyzes their likelihood. (I am looking for a link.)

THREE SCENARIOS FOR FORMING A MAJORITY IN NEW RADA

What, then, of events after March 26? Extrapolating from today's dynamics,three scenarios present themselves.

PRO-PRESIDENTIAL ORANGE MAJORITY

[1] The first is a pro-presidential Orange majority in the new Rada consisting of Nasha Ukraina, BYuT, PORA/Reforms and Order, and theKostenko- Pliushch bloc. Since there is a question mark over whether thelatter two will negotiate the 3% threshold into the Rada the hue of thiscoalition might be altered with the addition of the Socialists and, possibly, current Rada chairman Volodymyr Lytvyn's bloc.

But, clearly, the viability of any exclusively or predominantly Orange formation will be determined by the nature of the relationship between BYuT and Nasha Ukraina.

Given the extent to which their relations have deteriorated, the prospects for the creation of a majority capable of forming a government will depend on one of the Orange groups clearly 'defeating' the other at the polls, with the 'junior' side forced to submit, no matter how reluctantly, to a solution imposed by the electorate. Any Orange coalition is likely to be brittle, and will more often than not resemble a situational one.

The spirit of the Majdan is dead. But that does not mean that the Orange family cannot still live under one roof and choose on a selective basis whether to dine and entertain guests together. However, it is increasingly clear that the electorate will have to be the catalyst that brings theOrange forces to their senses.

ORANGE COALITION AND THE PARTY OF REGIONS

[2] A second scenario involves some sort of Orange coalition with the Party of Regions. To date, such an option appears to exist more in the minds of experts and observers than in the plans of the prospective Orange participants. Moreover, the discussion has focused almost exclusively on the pluses and minuses for the Orange camp without asking how palatable such a move would be for the Party of the Regions.

The Party of the Regions is widely expected to secure a plurality in the new Rada but one well short of allowing it to easily put together a majority.

Any Orange-Blue coalition would likely involve one, not both, of the Orange blocs for the simple reason that it would be considered only if the differences within the Orange camp were to prove irreconcilable.

BYuT has consistently declared the inadmissibility of such an accommodation, preferring even the dismissal of the Rada to this option. This leaves Nasha Ukraina, presumably on the grounds that last year's courtship with the Party of the Regions suggests that anything can happen. (Plus, Nasha Ukraina has still to categorically reject the possibility.) But such a hybrid would be even less stable than the Orange majority cobbled together under the first scenario.

Anyone doubting this would do well to recall the fate of last autumn's memorandum of cooperation between Messrs. Yushchenko and Yanukovych and the events that brought about its annulment by the President. Clearly, cooperation in the new Rada between any or all of the Orange forces and theParty of the Regions is possible on an issue-specific basis. However, creating a majority and coalition government consisting of these forces asthe necessary first step for getting to that stage is very difficult toimagine.

The Orange Revolution revealed that Ukrainians have largely rejected thevalue-neutral politics that the advocates of an Orange-Blue coalition are asking them to accept. While any formal accommodation would undoubtedly be presented as a grand gesture of reconciliation for the national good, it would actually be nothing less than an unambiguous expression of the participating Orange side's political bankruptcy.

It strains credibility, as well as the Majdan's self-imposed code of what constitutes political decency, to believe that President Yushchenko - or even those other significant Majdan actors, the Socialists, who would be critical to the creation of a Regions dominated majority - would sanction the idea of Renat Akhmetov as prime minister.

Indeed, that this coalition scenario is even being discussed (and advocated) testifies to possibly the Orange camp's single biggest failure since coming to power: the failure, not least because of the debilitating internal split, to develop a strategy for reaching out to the Yanukovych electorate in a concerted effort to separate it from the "criminal" elite that claims to represent it and to integrate this electorate into a clear vision of Ukraine'sfuture.

Calls by leading experts notwithstanding, the possibility of a formal Orange-Blue coalition is likely to be rejected - though later rather than sooner - by all of the Orange forces. Unanimity on this issue, however, should not be confused with a willingness to unite; which brings us to the third scenario.

PRESIDENT CAN EXERCISE HIS RIGHT TO DISMISS THE RADA

[3] This sees none of the three principal forces in the new Rada able to form a majority. Should this situation persist for a month after the new Rada convenes, the president can exercise his newly acquired right to dismiss the Rada. Moreover, should a majority be formed but be unable to agree on the composition of a new government within sixty days of its predecessor's dismissal, then the president can also choose to dismiss the Rada. (It should be stressed: this is a presidential right not an obligation.)

Critics of this scenario argue that too many people will have invested too much money in securing a deputy's mandate for this scenario to transpire. Others point out that the budget simply cannot afford another election. Certainly, the prospect of a presidential 'hangman's noose' could serve to concentrate the Rada's collective mind and might yet place at the head ofthe government a relative outsider as a "technical" prime minister.

However, those very real and to date irreconcilable differences discussed above, as well as the ever- lurking law of unintended consequences, create a very powerful dynamic pointing to the new Rada's early dismissal. Moreover, the financial argument seems to imply that a poor country has no choice but to learn to live with an equally 'poor' democracy.

If the current batch of parliamentary pretenders proves incapable of coming
to agreement and squanders scarce budgetary funds in the process, the public
might welcome the immediate opportunity to cut its losses and exercise itsright
and responsibility to then choose a viable Rada.

This is good analysis. I think the idea of Akhmetov as PM is a bit too wishful. A lot of it is premised on the assumption that Akhmetov wants to be respectable in the West. "He is doing it with his businesses; he'll do it with the government." Not very convincing to me even if we assume the first part is true.

Akhmetov would only be palatable to Our Ukraine as a way to whitewash a deal with Party of the Regions for power. Hard for me to believe that one's going to happen either.

Ukrainian journalists barred from Belarus

This is interesting--

The Belarusian authorities barred two Ukrainian television reporters from entering the country on Wednesday further straining relations between Minsk and Kiev ahead of the March 19 presidential election.

The move is the latest step in escalating tensions amid concerns over developments in Belarus just as President Alexander Lukashenka has been seeking re-election to the third term in office.

I don't know that Channel Five is known for its unbiased coverage. They were the only station that would broadcast anything about the Orange Revolution and Yuschenko early on. It's a Poroshenko concern and he was on the OR side. But I don't' know what a unbiased coverage really is. Lukashenko will say that they are biased against his rule in Belarus and they would have to admit that is true. That would be a bias naturally. But it is the right kind of bias.

He just doesn't want anyone around who is not sympathetic filming what will really be going on in Belarus.

The radio here is reporting that people don't want to be seen congregating on the streets in Minsk. Might provoke military reprisals. And they cite the law that gives Lukashenko the power to put down uprisings. Does anybody think that the law is what gives him the power to do something like that? He'd do it without any law because he can and because he will stay in power any way he can.

A bid to take over the SBU?

This is one of the problems with a government that lacks transparency and with courts that are up for sale to the highest bidder--people can't have any confidence in the end that a policy decision isn't some sort of power play. And the opposition can play the ambiguity for all it's worth, which can be a lot here.

A case in point:

Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko fired several high-ranking Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) officers, local media reported. The head of the Resources and Logistics department Vladimir Yaremtchuk, the head of the Personnel department
Vladimir Rogalin, the head of the Procedural and operative department Vladimir Porodko had to resign following the presidential decree. This may be connected with the recent taping scandal, connected to the ex-SBU head Aleksandr Turchinov.

Ukrainian Interior Minister wants to take over the SBU Ukrainian Interior Minister Yuri Lutsenko wants to take over Ukrainian Security Service (SBU), local sources report, quoting ex-Finance Minister Sergey Terehin. Answering the questions on the taping case involving ex-SBU head Turchinov, he noted that the latter resigned 7 month ago, but the taping scandal somehow was invented now, before the elections. Lutsenko, to his mind, initiated the scandal to take over this post, as the Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko plays to his hands, knowing that Lutsenko will not be supported to take the post of the Interior Minister again, as he made enemies with most of the local politicians. Yushchenko can place him to head the SBU.

To remind, AIA already reported that previously Lutsenko demanded to pass under his jurisdiction the control over the investigation of corruption cases on the highest levels of the government, control over the border guard units and subordination of the Emergency Control Ministry of Ukraine. The local experts noted that the next move of Lutsenko will be taking over the Security Service of Ukraine. He already hinted his intentions when recently criticized the SBU for hampering reforms inside its structures.

Corruption has always been the problem here. It is an added tax on everything; it deforms policies and politicians; it allows government officials to do pretty much what they want without any threat of reprisal; and it leaves the people without any confidence in government. ANd democracies, in the end, need the confidence of their people to function. This all means that reform, as difficult as that is, has always been the solution. That there hasn't been much of it is a real pity.

Price controls

There is a lot of talk around here about price controls. One of the candidates for mayor of Kiev has made it a central plank of his election campaign. Others have mentioned it too and it came up in the press conference day before yesterday with Yekhanurov.

The gist of the argument for it is that prices are rising rapidly here. I have mentioned something about this already. The price rises are steep and that hurts people here no doubt about it. The problem though is that the people with the thing subject to the price control don't have to sell. You can set a price but the people don't have to sell at that price. Or they can sell to some other country. Ukraine is not the closed system it once was. (And there is an argument that it never was. The Soviet Union was probably propped up by sales of natural resources to the west.)

And if people can refuse to sell or sell somewhere else, that means shortages. We already went through this with Tymoshenko's price setting. The price of gas was set and there were shortages. The response was to blame the gouging middlemen, middlemen who created jobs much as they do in any country in the West, and to make plans for the government to step into the market itself to create production at the price it wanted. The whole thing sounded and still sounds all kinds of retrograde. How would government pay for it all especially if foreign investment passed over Ukraine much as it has done? I guess you could always impress workers to build what you want. That has been a good source of cheap labor before, so at least there is a history behind that. It's a disreputable history but it is a history.

But if you don't do something of that sort, how are you going to pay for it? The people who argue for price controls say nothing about this. They are either ignorant about the effects, which isn't a good sign, or they are pandering to the public, which also isn't a good sign.

That people are hard hit is true. How you deal with that without making things worse is the problem. And price controls will simply make things worse.

Political jockeying

In the press conference mentioned by Scott, Pres Yushchenko, when asked about a possible coalition between PR and NSNU in the new parliament, replied: "I'll will be able to give you a reply to this question in 31 days" [i.e. a few days after the elections]. Yushchenko also blamed Tymoshenko for 'discrediting the Orange forces' but didn't want his statements to be considered as electioneering rhetoric. Yesterday Yuriy Yekhnanurov, when asked about coalitions, said: "Lytvyn bloc - yes, BYuT - yes, [Party of] Regions - no."

On the same topic BYuT parliamentary fraction leader Anatoliy Semynoha declared that his party is ready to form a coalition with NSNU and Moroz's Socialists, "[but] only in the event that they [ie BYuT] receive a larger number of votes" in the election on 26th March. He suggested that if a majority of electors support NSNU or other party, then NSNU will not form a coalition with BYuT. "This will be a coalition with Yanukovych...whose main aim will be preservation of power, and not development of the country."

Meanwhile Tymshenko in a <1+1> TV channel appearance on 13th March stated, "[We don't need] compromises with gangs, mafias, and clans, so, who am I to work with - if there is Yanukovych on one side, and Poroshenko on the other? I have only one way out - receive 51% of the vote. Then everything will be OK." She also pointed out to viewers that if they vote for BYuT they will know exactly who the leader is, and if her party gets sufficient votes, who the next PM will be. "People should elect a real person to govern the country, and not 'a cat in a sack' [ie an unknown entity]. [I have written about ambiguous statements made by Yuschenko on this matter previously].

It seems to me Tymoshenko is being quite smart in targetting NSNU voters, saying vote for me and I won't compromise with Yanukovych - vote for NSNU and you can't be sure who you will get. [Whether this will indeed be the case is an entirely different matter, of course. Once the election votes are counted, a fresh pack of playing cards will be called for, and completely new hands dealt and played out.]

Scott is quite correct - Yekhanurov is an asset that NSNU have not exploited anywhere nearly enough in this election campaign. Their hard-hitting TV prog shows they know where the danger lies, but their leadership have not driven this message home in their personal statements, allowing BYuT to appear more true to the ideals of the Maidan. Yekhanurov must maximize his media profile as current [and NSNU's future] PM in the time left if NSNU are to realize the full potential of their party.

p.s. watch a chilling trailer for TV series entitled 'The state of Russia' here
Which way is Ukraine going to turn?

Press conferences

There were two press conferences today, one from Yekhanurov and one from Yuschenko. My wife watched them both; I didn't have time to. She came away impressed with Yekhanurov. When asked a question, even a provocative question, he would smile and give straighforward answers.

One example: A woman said that the government promised to increase pensions but that when it did, the increase was all eaten up in higher prices. What did he have to say about that?

Yekhanurov said that she was right but that they government was not going to control prices. He said it will not work. And he is right.

Yuschenko came across as he always does. He tended to talk more and not always to the point. Be he came through as decent. He doesn't suffer what he considers to be stupid questions all that well though. When asked about RosUkrenergo, he responded that the press needed to be intelligent in fulfilling their responsibilities. Translation? Don't be stupid. That kind of response gets him into trouble.

In that forum, he doesn't come across as effectively as Yekhanurov does. Pity, pity, pity that Yekhanurov hasn't had more time.

A good joke

There's a good joke making the rounds here:

One dog asks another dog, "So what is it like living in a democracy?"

The other dog, "Well, the food is put further away and the leash is shorter, but they let you bark as much as you want."

Tymoshenko's conditions for coalition

In a long interview in the periodical 'Biznes' today, Yuliya Tymoshenko admits that some kind of coalition will have to be created in order that a government be formed after the VR elections, and gives a hint of what kind of coalition she would be prepared work with.

She again repeats that any possibility of coalition between BYuT and RU is out of the question, but also states, "I am not prepared to work with Roman Bezsmertnyi, nor Petro Poroshenko, nor Mykola Martynenko, nor Davyd Zhvaniya, nor Evhen Chervonenko, nor Alexander Tretyakov [some of NSNU's leading lights]..because these people destroyed the good name of the new authorities." She warns that several of Yushchenko's advisers are talking up the possibility of a RU-NSNU coalition, which, in her opinion, would be, "a full and irreversible return to the old regime."

When asked about a possible coalition formed by BYuT, part of NSNU, and Oleksandr Moroz..she replies, 'Yes, this is a possibility...[it would be] a base..'

She proceeds to give Yekhanurov a good 'thumping', accusing him of being Kuchma's 'eyes and ears', and of continuing to protect Kuchma's financial interests. Anatoliy Kinakh is not spared either, and is accused of inproprieties surrounding business affairs associated with Boryspil [Kyiv] airport.

Yekhanurov's riposte today was that he will not work with Tymoshenko "under any conditions."

Not to be outdone NSNU front man Roman Bessmertnyi, has claimed that when BYuT #2 Olexandr Turchynov was Ukrainian Security Service chief in the Tymoshenko government last year he authorized illegal tapping of 'phones of the high ranking officials e.g. the previous head of the National Security and Defense Council Petro Poroshenko, ex-Minister of Justice Roman Zvarich and others.

These declarations are merely examples of the mistrust and enmity that exists between NSNU and BYuT leaderships. But as I wrote previously, a BYuT - NSNU coalition is still considered a realistic possiblity. According to NSNU #3 Borys Tarasyuk, "pro-democracy parties are capable of bridging their differences and restoring the Orange coalition."

How can they possibly be reconciled? Tymoshenko has given some idea of her opening offer. But I have the impression that most of the Orange leadership would do a deal with the devil to stay in power, just as Yushchenko did when he offered PR his 'Memorandum' to get PM Yekhanurov approved by the VR last September.

Some questions

The commenter, DLW, asks some questions:

1. Is the fictional book based on Yulia Tymoshenko having some success in the election? The answer is, I don't know. It is reported to be a best seller and that means people are reading it. And it is a clever way to advertise for a campaign. The copies sell for a dollar. At that price the company can make a profit with the kinds of sales they are reporting, if they are reporting them accurately. (This is a political issue and Ukraine is in the midst of an election after all.) But I wouldn't know how you could measure the impact of a book on the electorate. They could poll it I guess but the polls here have been politics driven so that wouldn't get us much. (And are polls really all that accurate anyway in the best of circumstances?)

2. What is the impact of the civil society institutions having on the elections. The answer to this one is again, I don't know. I haven't seen anything or heard anything about that. There was a lot of activity on the part of various religious denominations, for instance, during the OR. There doesn't seem to be all that much now but that might be because the OR was so public and open. It might still be happening but not in a way that might be reported on or seen. That is it might not be as public as it was.

Confident NSNU

Ukrainian Foreign minster Borys Tarasyuk said in Washington on Friday, " We are confident that the pro-democracy forces will gain a clear majority in the future parliament. Despite the fragmentation between the pro-democracy political parties their combined approval rating has even slightly grown. There should be no doubts that the pro-democracy parties are capable of bridging their differences and restoring the Orange coalition." Yushchenko expressed similar opinions claiming the opposition will obtain no more than 30-35% of the vote.

The last OP's before the elections have now been published, they show PRoU leading, with 20 - 33% of the electorate prepared to vote for them.

We see Ukraine's smartly attired and manicured policians emerging from expensive automobiles, treading red carpets, waving to crowds... or immaculately coiffured, respectfully being interviewed on TV in glitzy studios....and tend to forget about the disreputable histories that many of them have. I guess we want to believe leaders are all honest and upright. But how many of the 'bandits' have gone to jail? How many will get into Parliament? Why are so many odious characters from the days of Kuchma who feature on Melnychenko's tapes still strutting on the Ukrainian political stage in the main parties?

If I was a voter, I would look at the electoral lists, and the go for the one which contained the least number of 'bad eggs'. Not the most satisfactory way of electing a government..

Election campaign warming up..

As Scott sggests, the VR election campaign may be coming out of its 'phoney war' stage at last. Roman Bezsmertnyi, campaign front man for NSNU, has publicly launched a 'Register of Falsehoods' that BYuT are apparently [shock-horror!] promulgating about NSNU. [Someone should tell Bezsmertnyi that beards are a no-no for politicians.] Their official website [also in English] shows that attacks on BYuT are being ratcheted up a couple of notches.

As a reposte, BYuT #3, Mykola Tomenko, one of the leading field commanders of the Orange Revolution, a young, urbane politician with, by Ukrainian standards, a 'squeaky-clean' reputation, has challenged NSNU #1 and current PM Yekhanurov to a public debate about how Yekhanurov, as State Property Fund chief in the '90's under the disgraced pair of former Pres. Kuchma and former PM Lazarenko, 'privatized' the Ukrainian economy and agriculture. "My knowledge of agriculture will be sufficient to demonstrate that the children and families of leaders of the then party and economy nomenclature acquired everything which our fathers worked for, for next-to-nothing," said Tomenko.

Tomenko claims that Yekhanurov hindered reprivatization of Kryvorizhstal during the short time Tymoshenko was PM; and when Yekhanurov became PM following Tymoshenko's sacking, Kuchma, called him, "the best of my pupils," and gave him his public blessing.

A few days previously Yekhanurov had praised Tomenko, even mentioning him as a possible Minister of Agriculture in any future coalition.

Meanwhile several of the main parties are talking up the possibility of falsifications, perhaps getting their excuses registered before the elections take place, in case they fare badly.

Until last night's TV program, the shady past of many of PR's candidates has not been heavily featured in the NSNU's campaigning. In the Kyiv Post piece 'Grand Coalition - Ukraine's Salvation,' its author envisages a scenario where

"Akhmetov would become the new "Renaissance Man" to lead Ukraine out of chaos and into a progressive future by forming a center-right "Grand Patriotic Coalition" of some 330 members from Regions, Our Ukraine, Tymoshenko’s Fatherland party, and Pora/Reforms & Order, assuming the latter passes the three percent barrier...[Akmetov] is using Euro-U.S. business experts to create models of efficiency and transparency. He is clearly interested in separating his businesses and himself from a controversial past, hoping to take Systems Capital Management, his primary business holding, and other companies, public on the London and New York Stock Exchanges."

The question for the Ukrainian electorate is, "Should you vote-in a highly placed political leader with such an uncertain background?" Would any other west European country, which Ukraine aspires to be, do so?

By grudgingly accepting the reprivatization of Kryvorizhstal, Akhmetov and Pinchuk may feel that they have repaid any dues to the Ukrainian State Treasury, and their slate is wiped clean. But surely the first time any decision has to be made that threatens their business interests in the new VR, Akmetov and his underlings will put their personal interest first.

Other leading parties have links to oligarchic groups too, so unfortunately the same can be said of them. As for the surgical operation to separate the Siamese twins of business and politics in the VR, of which Tymoshenko spoke in her inaugural speech on being appointed PM last year, the hospital has not even received planning permission for its construction.

A rogue's gallery?

It looks like the gloves may have finally come off. Last night, one of the local channels broadcast a broadside from Our Ukraine directed at Party of the Regions. The gist of the half hour show? That the election roster of Party of the Regions contains people who have a serious criminal past. To readers of this blog, this will not be news. LEvko has been posting about this for weeks.

The thing about that program last night was that it was so compelling. It had the style of one of those expose shows in America and it was well done, complete with film footage. I had to keep looking down at the corner to see the Our Ukraine logo to remind me that it was a political commercial.

This is welcome to see. To call these guys shady would be understatement in the extreme. Some of them are just bad and they have a real chance to be elected to the country's Parliament.

HBO should start another series on the mob when the Sopranos ends. Call it, The Verkhovna Rada.

TV debates

The plodding Ukrainian Parliamentary election campaign may perhaps be enlivened by a series of debates scheduled to take place on Channel 5 TV, but I'm sure they will not resemble in any way the truly memorable, incredibly tense and rivetting Yanukovych-Yushchenko duels during the 2004 Presidential campaign.

The debates with be head-to-heads between pairs of parties - with Socialists up against Lytvyn's bloc on 12th March, Communists against BYuT 18th March, and PRU against NSNU, [probably featuring Yanukovych vs Yekhanurov], on the 19th.

Whether you love her or hate her Tymoshenko is a class act on TV, and the others do not like being 'handbagged' by her. Much better to have had a three-way debate between the three largest parties. PR, NSNU, and BYuT, who currently lead the ratings.

Robotic Yanukovych against the more suave Yekhanurov could be interesting, but with other members' of their respective political parties also taking part, and the possibility of them 'pulling their punches' because of 'under-the-table' coalition deals, may mean that these confrontations may not be the show-downs viewers would like to see.

There was an interesting OP conducted in in the easternmost Ukrainian city of Lugansk showing PR at 31%, BYuT 9%, Vitrenko's bloc 8%, Ne Tak 6%, Socialists 5%, Communists 3%, NSNU 3%. PR are not as strong as perhaps would have been expected here. A significant degree of apathy of some of those questioned was also present, so across the country, there is still plenty to play for in this campaign.

There has been some talk by commentators of grand coalitions, while others have spoken of a 'technical' cabinet after the elections. 'Technical' is sometimes used by Ukrainian politicians to 'fudge' explanations, [e.g. political deals fail to be clinched for 'technical' reasons, or 'disappeared' gas is euphemistically called 'tekhnichniy haz'], so to me 'technical cabinet' has a whiff of informal deals made by oligarchic groups pulling the strings. PR #1 Yanukovych has been described as a 'parovoznik' - just the engine-driver or 'front-man' who will get PR into the VR, and then will be demoted by the oligarchic power-brokers.

Re: Sweet words...

I have been meaning to comment on what LEvko posted here from a radio address of Yuschenko's. LEvko quotes him as saying categorically that there will be no more privatizations and that he will work to forge a closer relationship between business and government.

On the business/government point, it is tempting to make an argument that business and government are too close as it is. One of the rather disgusting things about this Parliamentary election is how many people are on the rolls of the parties who have no experience whatever that would be useful for much of anything in terms of public policy. There are any number of personalities--singers and entertainers are big--on the rolls of the major parties, including Our Ukraine, I might add. They are there probably for the draw of their names but it is hard not to draw the conclusion that it is a good career move.

And there are any number of business interests lining up for their shot at a place in the Verkhovna Rada. Why is this? The usual reasons, money and power, or to be more accurate, power equals money.

But I think what Yuschenko means, and he means it sincerely, is that government needs to take into account the requirements of business more than it has in the past. And that is what is needed. There are any number of large businesses in Ukraine. They can fend for themselves quite well with their contacts and relationships. It's the small and medium sized business that suffers here. And it is those businesses that will create the jobs that will raise the standard of living of Ukrainians, not the large businesses. In the US, 80% or more of new job creation comes from small to medium sized firms. They need to be cultivated here and, I'm afraid, protected by the government. That Yuschenko says this and keeps saying it is a good thing. There is a need however to get things done to make it happen.

The privatization is something that has been known for awhile. That they won't privatize any more is no surprise.

The question I have though is why Yuschenko is making these points right now? His party is in the middle of a campaign for the Parliament where they are trailing. An assurance that there will be no new re-privatizations may make investors feel more comfortable but those investors are mostly foregin investors--they won't be voting. It is difficult to see how this will reassure average Ukrainians at all. As a matter of fact, most Ukrainians who participated in the OR want to see some justice meted out for the sins of the oligarchs and they see re-privatization as a way to it. To say there won't be any more may in fact hurt Our Ukraine.

And making the case that small to medium sized businesses ought to be cultivated without linking it to people and their lives doesn't help in the election either. In fact, they might see it as a case of just what I posted above-- more of the usual with businesses lining up to carve out for themselves a fat piece of the state hide.

So I am at a loss as to why he is making these statements now. Maybe there is some done deal that gives him confidence in some continuity as LEvko has suggested? Or maybe he just has a government to run and this is a matter of course?

Levko comments: Many of the Ukrainian electorate feel cheated that in the days of Kuchma, a favoured few benefited hugely in fixed privatization deals. Voters were led to believe that after the Orange Revolution these assets would be seized from their oligarchic owners, and resold properly, as in the re-privatization of Kryvorizhstal. [Yuschenko, unlike Tymoshenko, apart from Kryvorizhstal, to my recollection, played down the theme of re-privatization at the time.]

It's now apparent that any further large-scale re-privatization schemes would scare off desperately needed foreign investments Ukraine. There is a 'third way' possibility of which little has been heard - retrospective 'one-off' windfall taxes to be paid by those who bought former state assets at artificially low prices in rigged tenders. The slate would be wiped clean, and cash recouped for the state coffers.

One of the reasons why the lists of all of the leading parties in the Parliamentary elections are so loaded with the oligarchs and magnates who benefitted from 'prykhvatyzatsiya' [which means seizure, but sounds very much like pryvatizatsiya], is that when they take their seats in Parliament they will ensure that any possible laws on reprivatization or retrospective windfall taxes will be strangled at birth.

Day of Women

Today is the Day of Women an important holiday holdover from the Soviet days. It is a big holiday though and everyone, or most everyone, has it off including the elevator repairman for our building. Hiking up 13 floors with the littlest Clark in hand is not my idea of the perfect holiday.

And on the same theme, we saw the first TV ad for Tymoshenko. It was a nice picture of her holding her check symbol cupped in both hands. We didn't hear the audio portion but the picture was a nice one. It just brings home the fact that her party is all about her. That's all it's got really.

Anyway, Happy Day of Women.

Love one another, build Ukraine..

During the 15 years of Independence Ukraine's population has declined for various reasons from 52 to 46.9 million.

BYuT is proposing women to be paid 8.5 thousand hryven' for giving birth to a first child, 15 thousand for a second, and 25 thousand for a third.[5UAH ~ 1$] This additional state benefit is, no doubt welcome and would probably help increase the pitifully low birth rate.

But it rather reminds me of the old Soviet days when the state would give mothers 'The Silver Lenin Order of Motherhood of the Soviet Union Award' [or some such] on the birth of their fifth child....or they could go for the gold...for ten children...

Seriously though, all this is analysed in more detail in a rather depressing article in 'Obkom.' One major cause of the population decline is the increase in premature deaths of Ukrainians, especially males, in the 25-34 and 45-54 age brackets, particularly acute in rural eastern and rural central-western areas, as well as in the more industrialised cities. Western Ukraine has proved more resilient and not suffered to such an extent, despite economic migration of a significant portion of its population.

One would imagine that the rural population would be better fed, and better sheltered from industrial pollution, but in fact death rates caused by TB, syphilis, chronic alcoholism, and drug abuse have significantly increased there.

A few weeks ago I cut out a paragraph from an article in the FT: [I wish I could remember from which one]

"In a changing and uncertain world most decisions are wrong - success comes not from inspired visions of exceptional leaders, or the prescience achieved through sophisticated analysis, but through small-scale experimentation that rapidly imitates success and acknowledges failure - this is the genius of the market economy."

It is up to the government in Ukraine to establish a situation where such small-scale experimentation can take place in an unfettered manner, otherwise sad physical and moral decline will continue. You can do it..

Is this good news?

The Kremlin is happy these days.

Two key former Soviet states - Belarus and Ukraine - head into elections this month amid dramatic accusations of planned coups, state coercion, and vote-fixing. But Moscow isn't worried.

Instead, there is a sense of calm and fresh confidence here that contrasts sharply with the Kremlin's panicky reactions to the surge of "colored revolts" that swept through the region in recent years. That revolutionary wave - which began with Georgia's 2003 Rose Revolution and continued with Ukraine's Orange Revolution - seemed unstoppable just a year ago, when Krygyz President Askar Akayev was
overthrown.

But the inability of new leaders to fulfill revolutionary pledges, together with the failure of popular pressure to effect change in other Soviet satellite states, has opened the way for Moscow to reassert its influence in the region.

"Those upsurges were the response of people to bad governance and worsening conditions, and the new leaders that came in have shown themselves unable to offer improvements," says Gennady Chuffrin, deputy director of the official Institute of World Economy and International Relations in Moscow. "Ukraine could even see a reversal of what happened a year ago. Obviously the Kremlin would like to see a weakening of [Ukrainian President Viktor] Yushchenko, and I think that's what's going to happen.

"Ukraine's economic decline and disillusionment have propelled the pro-Moscow opposition party into first place in opinion surveys for parliamentary elections on March 26. In an ironic twist, the opposition leader Mr. Yanukovych, who was forced out of power after being accused of rigging Ukraine's 2004 presidential election in his favor, claims the authorities are preparing to steal the polls. "The orange team can only remain in power through massive falsifications, and this is what they are doing," he said last week.

Hey, guys, they got it this time for a whole lot less than $300 million--like, how about, basically, for free.

The fact is that Russian business fared worse under Kuchma/Yanukovych than it has under Yuschenko. But business in Russia has been brought to heel to do the Kremlin's bidding so this is of no concern to them. Power is of interest to them.