Blue &Yellow: Politics and Economics in Ukraine

1. Most influential Ukrainians, you won't be surprised. [Kyiv Post]
2. From all I've read on Yatsenuik this is the first one that compares him to Khodorkovsky.[Moscow Times]
3. Another article that asks what many others have asked about Crimea. [NY Times]
4. Shevchenko returns to his old club, Dynamo Kyiv. [Guardian]
   

An article in OpenDemocracy by Louis O'Neal discusses the pitfalls that befell Ukraine and the lessons Moldova's new four party alliance can take from it.

Perilously, this little country's complex electoral legislation allows
only two relatively quick bites at the apple to elect a president; if
none emerges, parliament must once more be dissolved. The rub is that
the Moldovan constitution permits only one dissolution of parliament
per year, and that has already happened in 2009.

Thus, bar a deal on a grand coalition or a neutral president
acceptable to all, Voronin will argue that he remains acting president
until a new, elected president is sworn in. The opposition will say
that the new speaker of parliament (whom it will select quite soon with
its simple majority) should, by succession in the absence of a
full-fledged president, become the country's acting head. Both
arguments have support in law, and so it may fall to the constitutional
court - notoriously friendly to the Communists - to decide who will be
Moldova's leader until next year.

Democratic Party Chairman Marian Lupu has refuted rumors that his or his party would have any separate deals with the communists. On Monday, some online websites posted articles that the Communists are allegedly ready to vote for him as candidate for the Moldovan presidency provided he agrees to stand for the post as the candidate of the left-centrist coalition.

Lupu stated to Stirea Zilei portal that rumors are but an attempt to weaken the Alliance for European Integration."Apparently, the Communists proceed from the idea, being lately disseminated so massively, that Marian Lupu allegedly dreams to become President of Moldova by hook or by crook. I repeat I have never had an obsession to become the head of state", Lupu said.

However, comparison of the two can only go so far, Regions hasn't dominated in the same manner the Moldovan Communists have dominated politics this past decade. The problems in the "Orange" coalition was partly self-induced and thankfully the Rada doesn't elect the president.

Lovely choreography between a president and a front runner for the presidency. President Medvedev says he can't work with the present leadership. Yanukovych says, I can make things work. 

Recently, Yulia Tymoshenko called for a united front against Yanukovych. A somewhat self-serving gesture considering she's been running behind him in polls. The optimism of 2004 isn't there, Tymoshenko can't expect Yushchenko or Yatsenuik to abandon their bids for the sake of unity. What benefit does she see in working with Yushchenko? Perhaps access to presidential administrative resources, even though the budget code changes BYuT supported may strengthen her hand.

But Antonenko and other experts, such as Robert Legvold of Columbia University, say this pluralism brought about bitter political fights between President Yushchenko and his former "Orange Revolution" ally, now Prime Minister, Yulia Tymoshenko - squabbling that continues to this day.

"And that has produced not only a stalemate, political stalemate and an inability to make progress between the executive branch and the parliament, but a kind of poisonous, petty political competition among leaders that has alienated the public at large, which is for the most part very unsatisfied with all of the major political leaders in Ukraine. And that makes it very difficult for the government, even if it were to get its act together, to mobilize the population behind it," Legvold said.

The article later points out how the economic recession in Ukraine has further damaged the president's approval ratings, sending it into the low single digits. Tymoshenko's ratings have also suffered , while Yanukovych has watched from the wings has the two have grappled with the problems spawned by the crisis. The Rada overriding a veto by Yushchenko shows why unity seems unlikely. Meanwhile, Yushchenko interests in amending the constitution persists.His party wants to drum up support for the the new draft legislation. Lytvyn has come out against holding discussion on these amendments.

Independence Day (18th)  in Ukraine must include a letter (Ukrainian) to the people from the president, probably his last one and the prime minister (English). No sense in highlighting any passages from the letters, typical pleasantries and platitudes expected on this day. As part of the tradition there is also the Kyiv military parade, here's Ukr Pravda with pictures. 

1. Ukraine may be hedging itself against another "dispute" with Russia/Gazprom.[Jamestown Blog]
2. A profile of the Mayor of Kyiv. [NY Times]
3. Swedbank banking woes. [FT Alphaville]
4. Review of Paul Kubicek's article on post-Orange Revolution Ukraine. [via]
   
5. Tymoshenko and Putin may meet in Poland. [Interfax]
6. I'll believe it when I see it. Rumor, Tymoshenko and Yanukovych to share power post-Election. [Kyiv Post]

Ukraine's economy shrank by 18% in the second quarter and  NBU adviser, Valeriy Lytvytsky, forecasts a 10% contraction, a slightly better forecast than the IMF and World Bank forecasts. 
The NBU appears to have heard the politicians complains and will support the currency. 

Now that the bank crisis has possibly subsided, Ukraine's government is now looking into embezzlement of NBU money that was supposed to be used for refinancing banks.  Rodovid Bank is at the center of a 2 billion hryvnia scheme, reports the Kyiv Post. The scheme involved several dummy companies using the same plot of land as collateral in order to get access to bank credit. 

The Interior Minister suggests that all the funds illegally obtained at the above-mentioned banks could be used by one of the candidates running for presidency at the 2010 election.

Arsen Yatseniuk has been busy working on his image as a moderate and pragmatic leader. His commented on the financial crisis and the need to avoid populism in politics. He also had something to say on the Ukrainian public health system There was also this statement on the mayor of Uzhgorod , which allowed him to express his thoughts on racism and xenophobia. An appropriate response for someone interesting in taking the centrist vote in the presidential election. Over at the Kyiv Post, this article looks at Yatsenuik's weak support among young Ukrainian voters, but also his weak polling numbers. The former speaker of the Rada hasn't managed to overtake the two major candidates, Tymoshenko and Yanukovych, his also failed to catch the interest of the youth vote. The article doesn't focus on the statements his making. However, it does touch on his motivation.

A party representing the Hungarian minority is mounting a challenge in the constitutional court: it calls the law “19th-century language imperialism”. The Slovak response similarly accuses the Hungarians of hankering for the 19th century: they dominated the region in the Habsburg era. The Slovak prime minister, Robert Fico, said the real problem was those wanting to bully Slovaks in the south of the country into learning Hungarian.

This excerpt from an article in The Economist on a new law in Slovakia that fines people that do not promote Slovak in public. A reminder that language disputes don't just happen in Ukraine, but can happen in the heart of the European Union.

1. NY Times has a good article summing up the different problems that Ukraine has faced since being named co-host of the 2012 Euro.
2. One expert calls bottom for Ukraine's economy. [Kyiv Post]
3. Moldova has a board game that asks the eternal question, "Where is Moldova?".[RFE]
4. Codel pays a visit to Ukraine.
5. Pretty amazing sand based artwork. [Guardian]
6. Hryvnia still depreciating against the dollar.

Perhaps Medvedev's letter was the start of Russian intervention in the next election, but a recent religious visit by the Russian Patriarch demonstrated another aspect of this intervention: cultural and spiritual.  The recent visit by Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill  was an implicit political maneuver dressed up as a religious visit. A  Eurasia Daily Monitor (V.6, Issue 155) article on the visit noted the emphasis on spiritual closeness and common history between Ukrainians and Russians by the patriarch. An old move by Russia to de-emphasize an independent and separate Ukrainian identity. 

.... In line with Moscow's official rhetoric, Kirill spoke a lot
about the common roots of Russia and Ukraine dating back to the
medieval Kyiv Rus. One of his chief ideologists, Andrey Kuraev, was
more outspoken, threatening Ukraine with a civil war should a
single church fully independent from Moscow ever be established
(Ekho Moskvy, July 27).

Demonstrating that he views Ukraine as part of
the Russian space, Kirill ostentatiously refused to discuss local
Ukrainian issues at the first ever sitting of the Russian synod in
Kyiv. At the same time, he reported on a recent meeting of Russian
religious leaders with President Dmitry Medvedev (UNIAN, July 27).
Immediately on returning from Kyiv, Kirill met Medvedev to tell him
that the "spiritual unity" existing between Russia and Ukraine "for
millennia" "became a basic value that is not affected by political
considerations" (Interfax-Ukraine, August 6).

Unfortunately, as this slide-show from RFE shows, some Ukrainian nationalists showed up looking and acting like neo-fascists. While in another RFE article, the fuzzy line between politics and religion that Patriarch Kirill holds is noted. 

"This Church already exists, Mr. President. It is the local Church of Ukraine, and if it did not exist, Ukraine would not exist today," Kirill hit back. "There is no imperialism here, no domination over others. There is only a clear Orthodox doctrine: the patriarch is everyone's father, regardless of the color of passports in people's pockets or the state in which they live."

The patriarch went on to describe Kyiv as the "southern capital of Russian Orthodoxy," and dismissed Ukraine's breakaway churches as "wounds" on the body of the Russian Orthodox Church

An addendum to the Ternopil elections in March, which BYuT still sees as unlawful and fraudulent. The L'viv appellate court recognized the decision by the Ternopil Oblast Rada to close and create a new election commission. Here's a previous post on this.

President Dmitry Medvedev has decided to that its time for Russia to start using its "soft power" by criticizing President Yushchenko through a video blog and open letter. The Russian president has sharp words for a president that probably won't even break 10% in the next presidential election. A Reuters piece as a curious sentence in its piece on the open letter to Yushchenko from Medvedev.

Ukraine, a former Soviet republic whose population is divided between pro-Western and Russia-leaning camps, elects a new president in January to succeed Yushchenko, swept to power in the 2004 Orange Revolution.

Medvdev accusing Yushchenko of jeopardizing gas supplies isn't news, but I did find it interesting that the Reuters story explicitly acknowledges that Yushchenko will be replaced. No suggestion that he will win a second term.

1. The search for ex-BYuT deputy Viktor Lozinsky,added to Interpol list. [Ukrainian News]
2. Arsen Yatsenuik has a favorable impression of Putin. [Taras Kuzio]
3. Deputy head of NBU defends the current value of the hryvnia. [Kyiv Post]
4. Gas reforms in return for loans for gas deliveries to Ukraine. [Moscow Times]

From EDM (V.6, Issue 147), Taras Kuzio notes the current tension in Crimea with the Ukrainian side planning on expelling the Russian Consul General. Its described as a new diplomatic war between the two countries. While discussing the recent events in Crimea, he examines the reasoning behind the new toughness in Kyiv.
Den also explores the implications of having the Russian fleet based in Crimea, including the fear of a another August conflict. Ukraine wants to prevent any military dispute from erupting this month.