Ukaine is voting

Some 50% of the country's 37 million registered voters must have cast votes in order for the ballot to be valid. The results should be known on Monday. Then we will have A repeat, of the present coalition of the Party of Regions with left-wing allies or a restored Orange coalition of the Our Ukraine-People's Self-Defence and Tymoshenko blocs, which the leaders of both blocs say is their favoured outcome.

Ukrainiana offers some electoral videos (with transciption in english) as a summary of the Ukrainian Parliamentary Campaign 2007. Check Who's Who in Political Advertising.

In contrast to recent election campaigns, in which conflicting pro-Russian and pro-Western agendas were highlighted, the leading forces initially appeared to have heeded a call by President Yushchenko not to focus on divisive foreign policy issues. But as the campaign gathered pace, the Party of Regions called for a referendum to be held on giving the Russian language official status and on the possibility of Ukraine's Nato membership.

A Beast of Baku waiting for the end of Putin

The former 'Beast of Baku' wants now to bring down the Russian President next March, when Russia will hold its presidential elections. Drugaya Rossiya (Other Russia) is her political platform, an umbrella group of liberals, neo-Bolsheviks, and just about anyone else against Vladimir Putin. Kasparov is forty-four. He was the world chess champion for fifteen years. He was king of the 64 squares. Can he be a new tsar?

The Observer issued a short profile about him:

Born Garry Weinstein in 1963 in Baku, in the then Soviet state of Azerbaijan, Kasparov had a Jewish father and an Armenian mother. His father died when he was seven and his mother, Klara Kasparova, became and remains his inspiration and most loyal fan. She and former world champion Mikhail Botvinnik guided the prodigy to greatness. But despite establishing himself as the finest player in history, the half-Armenian, half-Jew was always going to struggle to endear himself to nationalist-minded Russians. He changed his name to avoid problems of anti-semitism in Soviet chess.

He is under risk now. As a precaution, Kasparov spends thousands of rubbles a month on security. He never eats in unfamiliar places and avoids flying with the state airline, Aeroflot.

Kasparov explained to The NewYorker why Mikhail Kasyanov, who had served for four years as Prime Minister under Putin and was now angling to run as the opposition’s Presidential candidate, would skip the Other Russia conference. Kasparov, unlike Kasyanov, believes that the opposition can challenge the Kremlin only after it grows, from the bottom up; his argument, which prevailed, was that the Other Russia had to hold extensive Presidential primaries in the Russian provinces, with numerous debates and public meetings, before choosing its nominee in October. “What’s the point otherwise?” Kasparov said. “The only chance to capture people’s attention and get the crowds to come, to get engaged, is by demonstrating that we act democratically.”

Although Kasparov’s popularity ratings are higher than Kasyanov’s, they are both marginal in the Land of Putin. Even if Kasparov decides to run (and he probably will), the government would not likely register his candidacy, and, even if it did, he could not win. The point is to create an alternative, not to be deluded into thinking there is an open election that can be won. Besides, Kasparov is half Armenian, half Jewish—not exactly an ideal ethnic mix for a politician in a country with deep currents of anti-Caucasian and anti-Semitic feeling.

But also the problem for Kasparov is that his liberal agenda of transparent democracy, freedom of speech and civil rights is not one that sets the great melancholy heart of Russia beating with pride. In the minds of many Russians, liberal democracy is strongly associated with the corruption of the Yeltsin years.

"All the polls show that no more than 1% or 2% of Russians would vote for the Other Russia coalition," said Valery Fyodorov from Russian Public Opinion Research.

He took part on a debate at El Mundo, a spanish newspaper, some days ago. There he said "Chess has got rules, but in Russia is the Kremlin who creates them".

Kasparov’s popularity ratings are higher than Kasyanov’s, but they are both marginal in the Land of Putin. Everyone thinks that Putin will select his successor, much as his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, designated him—unless he forgoes his promise to stand down and changes the constitution to allow a third term. Although a great many Russians would not object if he were to declare himself, Mobutu style, President for Life, it seems increasingly unlikely that he will stay.

While that, opposition finds it dificult to unite.

Vote and we will see how we fix it

The tomorrow's vote is being presented to the public as the solution to the ongoing political crisis brought about by feuding between President Viktor Yushchenko and Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych. This expectationcan be disappointinig. Ukraine’s political problems run deeper than another set of elections can possibly fix. President Yushchenko knows that the root cause of the friction between him and the prime minister is a struggle for power and authority in Ukraine’s political system.

The real battle will take place between the Party of Regions, headed by Yanukovych, the Our Ukraine – National Self-Defense coalition supported by Yushchenko and Yulia Tymoshenko’s eponymous bloc. And the two established parties are unlikely to do well in the voting. The Socialists may not even top the 3-percent cutoff to enter parliament, and the Communists, currently rejoicing at the woes of their former adherent, now Socialist leader Oleksandr Moroz, may not do much better.

Yanukovych’s personal slogan – “What Yanukovych says, he does” – harks back to Kuchma’s main theme in his race for the presidency in 1994, when serving President Leonid Kravchuk was lampooned as “all words,” while Kuchma was the “man of action.”

The Party of Regions is feeling confident, and for good reason, writes Ivan Lozowy in Transitions Online.

A “grand coalition” between these two antagonists looks likely to be short-lived and the same goes for a Tymoshenko government. One result looks certain: people will soon start talking about yet another election.

Ukraine, traditionally passive in its politics, has been mobilised by the young democracy activists and will never be the same again. Some analysts are whispering about the possibility of a worst-case scenario – the Party of Regions garnering more than half the seats in parliament together with the communists, allowing them to form a government on their own. The two parties have worked as solid coalition partners in the Yanukovych-led government.

Why to vote again for Tymoshenko?

Vera Gerasynenko, 56, who was attending the pro-Yushchenko rally with her daughter Maria, 21, said to AFP that the choice on Sunday was between Ukraine's entry into Europe and being swallowed by giant neighbour Russia.

"Russia needs Ukraine as their colony. They're an empire," she said, describing Yanukovych as "a criminal, a sick man."

Why to vote for Yanukovych?

"Tymoshenko has the character of a Nazi. Ukraine will turn into a second Yugoslavia if she takes power," he said.

For Ian Traynor, a US campaign behind the turmoil in Kiev Because while the gains of the orange-bedecked "chestnut revolution" are Ukraine's, the campaign is an American creation, a sophisticated and brilliantly conceived exercise in western branding and mass marketing that, in four countries in four years, has been used to try to salvage rigged elections and topple unsavoury regimes. This type of campaign was first used in Europe in Belgrade in 2000 to beat Slobodan Milosevic at the ballot box: funded and organised by the US government, deploying US consultancies, pollsters, diplomats, the two big American parties and US non-government organisations.

Officially, the US government spent $41m organising and funding the year-long operation to get rid of Milosevic from October 1999. In Ukraine, the figure is said to be around according to TheGuardian.

Stickers, spray paint and websites are the young activists' weapons.

photo by Carpetblogger

Tymo, the Iron Lady

Timoshenko was the orange hope. And for Українська правда she stills the Iron Lady of Ukraine.

Tymoshenko's plaited hairstyle became iconic at the time of the Orange Revolution. Taras, one of the best bloggers of Ukraine, writes about the Tymo, who remains a divisive figure.

In Ukraine, the Iron Lady franchise belongs to Tymo, who has reveled in the brand, despite casual zig-zags between left and right in her international political orientation. (Last year, her party subscribed to an ideology of solidarism and reportedly sought membership in the Socialist International. This year, in the runup to the French presidential election, Tymoshenko surprised experts when she made overtures to Nicolas Sarkozy.)

Is she coming back to power?

Photo courtesy of Ukrayinska Pravda

Putin after Putin?

With his popularity still high, the Russian press has been speculating that Mr Putin might change the constitution to seek a third term if, as expected, the ruling party, United Russia, wins the parliamentary elections set for December. But Russia's president created fresh uncertainty yesterday about who he wants to succeed him next spring when he warmly praised Viktor Zubkov, the virtually unknown bureaucrat he appointed this week as prime minister, and failed to mention either of the two senior figures previously thought to be frontrunners. Mr Zubkov was deputy to the future president from 1992 to 1993 in the external affairs department of the St Petersburg mayor's office.

But what will happen after Putin?

"We are developing a multi-party system. I've been thinking a lot about how Russia should be governed after 2008. I see no solution other than democracy and a multi-party system,"

Well-known political scientists set forth a number of suggestions in the interview with Московский Комсомолец, assuming that the president could possibly start a business of his own, become a diplomat, take a high position that doesn’t require overworking, or find another way to continue running the country. The most popular suggestion is that Putin will become the head of a large energy corporation based of Gazprom. Such is the opinion of Dmitriy Rogozin who believes it to be the only way for Putin to maintain his power. International Olympic Committee President is also mentioned.

"I don't interfere in your politics, please don't interfere in ours,"

Vladimir Putin’s interview today was during a meeting of about 40 foreign experts on Russia invited by the state news agency, Ria Novosti. Most were from the US, Britain, Germany,
China and Japan. He started the meeting with a two-and-a-half hour lunch in which he took questions then invited the group to a villa where he off ered drinks on a terrace with a magnifi
cent view to waves breaking 100 feet below. In a rare view for foreigners, he led the way through his own offi ce, past his desk where the Russian fl ag stood behind his chair. The group ,
known as the Valdai Discussion Club, has come to Russia every summer since 2004. Mr Putin has received them in diff erent venues each time. This year’s location, in the subtropical luxury of Russia’s Black sea coast, was the most exotic.

Mr Putin, looking relaxed and confident, suggested the Americans had not brought Iraq real democracy. "What kind of democratisation can they have in the context of military action?" he asked. He disagreed with those who recommend Iraq's partition as the best or only solution. "This would not end the Iraq problem but start a new one," he said.

Mr Putin was also directly critical of the US. "I don't interfere in your politics, please don't interfere in ours," he told a Washington academic referring to US funding for opposition groups and human rights organisations in Russia. He said independence was a very "expensive" thing in the modern world and only a few big countries such as India, China and Russia could afford it.

"Unfortunately, in some eastern European countries defence ministers are cleared by the US ambassador," before they are appointed, he said. "You know how decisions in Nato are taken," he said, hinting that the United States dominates the alliance undemocratically.

"Russia is a country which cannot live without its own sovereignty. It will either be independent and sovereign or it will be nothing," he said, acording to The Guardian.

Not in the same train

Not in the same train, originalmente cargada por nicointhebus [nicolas monnot].

"Russia is now saddly famous for its social contrasts, and it is true that they are really shocking. What in common between this old guy, that has probably fully experienced the hard years of communism and who is probably now having some hard time to survive, and with this young girl, living in the dangerous dreams of an extreme capitalism? They are both Russian, they take the same subway, but they do not go to the same destination" (Russia, Moscow, line 5, July 2006)

Congratulations to Nicola Monnot. (ranked #1 in Flickr Explore)