Blue &Yellow: Politics and Economics in Ukraine

Roughly speaking, on a nationwide basis, exit polls show that the Party of Regions showed it commands the support of 35-40 percent of voters (the rough equivalent of first und support registered for President Yanukovych in the first election results from January 2010). While the Regions Party held on to its past levels of support, it made notable gains in Right Bank Central and Western Ukraine and emerged as the leading candidate for the mantle of Ukraine’s first pan-Ukrainian party capable of serious reach throughout the country. 

Adrian Karatnycky gives his post-mortem on the local election and its just as bad as the one he gave for the presidential election.For example, he notes that there were election irregularities for Tymoshenko's party, but dismisses the effect it had on the party's election fortunes.

This drop in support was further augmented by the unreported secret of these elections: the fact that Ms. Tymoshenko campaigned lightly for her slates in the municipal and regional elections and her central party apparat spent almost no money on billboards and advertising in the weeks leading up to the vote.

That choice, no doubt, was dictated by the limited impact of local legislatures on budgetary decision-making and policy, which are primarily determined now by the President and the government. But it was a choice that appears to have been consciously made with catastrophic results.

Emphasis mine, clearly Regions have an incentive to weaken Fatherland and it allies, but Karatnycky tries to argue that the party's decline is self-inflicted rather than a concerted effort by Regions. Karatnycky also makes the bizarre claim that President Yanukovych is a " founding father of the young Ukrainian state ", under such logic is Kravchuk, Kuchma, and Yushchchenko. Though technically, only Kravchuk actually founded an independent  Ukraine. 


Am I being picky? Probably, though the claim by Karatnycky that this not a descent into managed democracy is naive. Regions is interested in retaining and expanding its power. Perhaps BYuT would have done the same if Tymoshenko had won the presidential election, but she didn't. Instead Regions won and there is little to suggest the party is interested in maintaining a competitive democracy.