Putting the orange back together
After his party came in third after the parliamentary elections, President of Ukraine, Yushchenko had the unenviable choice of making a coalition with either the first place Yanukovych, or second place Tymoshenko.
Now it seems he has made his choice.
My prediction is that this second marriage is going to be even shorter than the first.
In any case, while Yanukovych is in opposition, admiring this mess from a distance, his support can only grow.
Now it seems he has made his choice.
A spokeswoman for Mr Yushchenko's Our Ukraine bloc said its political council had agreed to team up with ex-PM Yulia Tymoshenko's party and the Socialists.The problem with Tymoshenko of course is that she wants Yuschenko's job. Her party did get more than his in the elections, and she is not going to accept some inferior post, her supporters would not accept that. I am very curious as to what position he is going to offer her.
Mr Yushchenko sacked Ms Tymoshenko as prime minister last September.
Ms Tymoshenko's key demand was to return as prime minister. It is not yet clear if she will get the job again.
My prediction is that this second marriage is going to be even shorter than the first.
In any case, while Yanukovych is in opposition, admiring this mess from a distance, his support can only grow.
posted by amitav at 4/09/2006 02:38:00 AM
2 comments
2 Comments:
But what was the "war of ideals a year and a half ago"? Surely the main issue was whether Ukraine would go closer to Russia or closer to the west. I don't think this issue is resoved, it's not going to go away for a while yet. If anything, these elections have shown that the Ukrainian public is dissatisfied with Yuschenko's ideas.
As for politics, it's very rarely about ideals and almost always about personalities. That's unfortunate, but we can't help that people tend to identify with traits to be found in a fellow human being, as opposed to some abstract idea. The trick of course is to make the idea less abstract and more personal to them. But who wants to do that, if you can hire a US PR company to get you a catchy one line slogan and create and appropriate image for you. (Check Spinning Boris for more details)
As for Tymoshenko, of course she is a good politician, but so is Yanukovych and Yushchenko. One can make an argument that whoever managed to get so many people to vote for them, has to be "clever".
BTW, thanks for posting.:) Do you know of any actual differences in policies of Timoshenko and Yushchenko? Coz it seems to me that their only argument these two have is about who is going to rule it all .
"You said it yourself partially - the war of ideals/ideas/approaches in 2004 was whether Ukraine goes down the road of Belarus and Russia or it tries to develop a real democracy with free speech."
Yes, it was about liberal democracy, but it was not just about free speech or lack of one. My point about the Russia and the West was about more than using these two political entities as substitutes for authoritarianism and lib democracy. This is also about economics. Being a friend of Russia brings one a sets of benefits (cheap natural resources), while being a friend of the West brings another sets of benefits (potential foreign investment etc). Both of these camps also present avenues for trade.
Unfortunately in the present political climate, the Ukrainian leaders are lacking the vision to get the best of the two worlds. I have not seen anyone pursuing Tito's policies and skillfully playing East against the West, and getting the best bargain from both. Instead, what I see is the appeal to nationalism. Nationalism is an easy card to play, but it does tie your hands when it comes to negotiating with international partners. It's hard to reconcile talking trash about Russia at a demonstration one day, and the next day trying to get a good gas deal. This is not a picture of a united country: Voting distribution in Ukraine in 2006 elections
So, I don't really consider Timoshenko a populist. It's hard to call anyone a populist who can only muster 22% of the vote. She is obviously pursuing populist policies, but fundamentally she is a nationalist. All three of them are. I also keep on hearing of numerous corruption scandals involving her. I usually get this info from Russian press, so tend to treat it as something between a myth and a rumour. What's your perspective?
As for the idea that many parties mean that people's voices are heard, that's not necessarily true. One only needs to look at Italy under Berlusconi. Besides you do have a 3% threshold to get a party into the Rada (which means that 18.5% of the people who voted, are not represented at all) But I do agree that other political forces gaining access to the media is a step forward.
It seems to me that you are a Yushchenko supporter and you probably feel that if only this guy had better people skills, things would be better. Free market etc, they are very nice ideals, but do you know what exactly he has been able to achieve in the last one and a half years?
We are still left with problem of what he is going to do about Timoshenko. I think it's very clear what Timoshenko is going to try to do about him.
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