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Reuters, Kiev, Ukraine, Thursday, October 30, 2008
BBC Monitoring Service, UK, in English, Thursday, October 30, 2008
5. UKRAINE MAY DEFAULT WITHOUT IMF LOAN SAYS HEAD OF CENTRAL BANK
By Daryna Krasnolutska & Kateryna Choursina, Bloomberg News, NY, NY, Wed, Oct 29, 2008
10. SETTLING OF PROMINVESTBANK’S PROBLEM IS PRELIMINARY MEASURE FOR RECEIVING IMF CREDIT
Personality politics means a repeat of Ukraine’s troubles.
Opinion: by Adrian Karatnycky, The Wall Street Journal Europe
New York, New York, Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Ukraine’s political leaders seem oblivious to the global financial crisis and the worldwide media exposure that depicts them as unstable
Op-Ed: By Adrian Karatnycky, Kyiv Post, Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, 23 October, 2008
18. USA TRYING TO SET UKRAINE, RUSSIA AGAINST EACH OTHER WITH
1. UKRAINE’S PARLIAMENT PUTS OFF VOTE TO SECURE IMF LOAN AGAIN
Reuters, Kiev, Ukraine, Thursday, October 30, 2008
KIEV – Ukraine’s parliament on Thursday put off final approval of financial legislation needed to secure a $16.5 billion IMF loan, pending further
consultations. Chairman Arseniy Yatsenyuk told deputies when the chamber began deliberations in the morning that committees hoped to produce a single
draft of the legislation later in the day.
He later acknowledged that disagreements had persisted and debate on the package to stabilise Ukraine’s financial position and banking system was
postponed until Friday. “The three committees have yet to reach a final agreement on the text,” he said.
“It is proposed … that two additional committees examine this and that we return to the draft tomorrow morning to ensure against a hasty, foolish decision that would fail to win the required number of votes.” There was no fresh attempt to blockade proceedings as had occurred for more than a week in a row over an early election.
The chamber gave initial backing to the package on its first reading on Wednesday, urged on by leaders saying the credits depended on quick approval
of measures required by the IMF.
Ukraine’s hryvnia currency, which lost nearly 15 percent of its value on Wednesday, bounced back from historic lows on Wednesday to trade at 5.9-6.07
to the dollar after the central bank offered to intervene with no limits on the currency volume.
IMF demands include helping banks to recapitalise, working to lower inflation and balancing the budget next year, according to the respected Ukrainska Pravda Web site, which published what is said was a memorandum of the IMF-Ukraine agreement.
The accord also called for the central bank to abolish a corridor for the hryvnia to trade against the dollar, a demand met by the bank this week, and
establishment of an official rate varying no more than 2 percent from the daily market rate.
Battered by a gaping current account deficit, the hryvnia plunged to a record low of 7.2 to the dollar on Wednesday, despite central bank intervention that has sapped 10 percent of its reserves. (Writing by Ron Popeski; Editing by Ruth Pitchford)
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2. UKRAINE CURRENCY STRENGTHENS ON HOPES OF SECURING IMF LOAN
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3. MP SAYS UKRAINIAN ANTICRISIS BILL READY FOR FINAL APPROVAL ON FRIDAY
BBC Monitoring Service, UK, in English, Thursday, October 30, 2008
KIEV – The parliamentary committee for tax and customs policy has completed the finalization of the anticrisis draft law [that parliament needs to pass to get a large stabilization loan from the IMF] and the document is about to be handed out to members of parliament, the committee head, Serhiy Teryokhin, has told journalists.
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4. UKRAINE CAN MEET ECONOMIC CHALLENGES, IMF MISSION SAYS
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5. UKRAINE MAY DEFAULT WITHOUT IMF LOAN SAYS HEAD OF CENTRAL BANK
By Daryna Krasnolutska & Kateryna Choursina, Bloomberg News, NY, NY, Wed, Oct 29, 2008
KIEV – Ukraine may be forced to default on billions of dollars of debt should it fail to secure a promised $16.5 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund, central bank Governor Volodymyr Stelmakh said.
The Oct. 26 agreement on a 24-month IMF loan to help support the nation’s financial system needs approval by the country’s Parliament, which has put off a vote on the aid four times, and the Washington-based lender’s executive board.
Without the loan package, “we will not be able to show our creditors that we have a reliable mechanism to repay our debts,” said Stelmakh today at a
joint press conference with the IMF mission in Kiev, Ukraine. “We will discredit ourselves and thus we may have to announce a default.”
Ukraine, like Belarus, Hungary, and Pakistan, is seeking IMF funds to support its national currency and keep banks from running out of cash as emerging market economies feel the pinch of the global economic crisis. Lawmakers have yet to cast a vote on legal changes needed to accept the money as the nation’s top leaders squabble over early elections, probably to be held in December, and the agenda for the next parliamentary session.
Ukraine has $100 billion in total debts, 80 percent of which is corporate debt, President Viktor Yushchenko said on Oct. 23.
The hryvnia plunged 12 percent against the dollar, the most in 10 years, to a record-low 7.1250 per dollar as of 1:18 p.m. in Kiev, from 6.3500 yesterday. It was the biggest intraday decline since September 1998. The currency slid to the lowest level since it was introduced in 1996.
BAD CREDIT
The state, sandwiched between Russia and the European Union, has the worst creditworthiness of Europe’s emerging markets, based on the cost of
credit-default swaps, which protect bondholders against default. Its credit rating was cut by international agencies, including Fitch, Standard &
Poor’s, Moody’s this month, which allows creditors to demand Ukrainian companies and the government to repay their debts ahead of schedule.
The IMF executive board’s final decision cannot be made until the eastern European country’s legislature completes its tasks. When that is done,
“Ukraine will get its first component,” said Ceyla Pazarbasioglu, the head of the IMF mission to Ukraine.
Among the new laws needed, pushing “strong bank recapitalization is key for the IMF loan,” said Pazarbasioglu. The IMF also wants to see a “strong
monetary and exchange rate policy, prudent fiscal policy, strong financial policy and reforms to improve investment climate.”
MELTDOWN RISK
Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko, whose allies physically blocked Parliament last week, told lawmakers today that Ukraine is seeking to lock in an
interest rate of 4 percent for the loan.
The inflation rate almost tripled in a year to a record 31.1 percent in May before easing back to 24.6 percent in September. If Ukraine fails to get the
IMF loan, inflation will also surge, said Stelmakh.
The current-account deficit widened to $8.4 billion, or 5.8 percent of gross domestic product, in the first nine months of the year, according to the central bank’s Web site. The current- account gap will probably total $15 billion this year, said Stelmakh earlier this month.
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6. TO BE BORROWED
A Ukrainian newspaper details the conditions on which Ukraine can obtain the IMF’s loan, following as a package of anti-crisis laws has passed the first reading in the Ukrainian parliament. The IMF’s terms are: freezing wages and benefits paid in the public sector, reducing taxes and allowing the agricultural land to be sold, the paper says.
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7. RESERVE REQUIREMENTS TO UKRAINIAN BANKS TO BE TOUGHENED, SAYS MEMO WITH IMF
KYIV – The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) will increase interests on deposits and reserve requirements to banks to fight inflation in 2009. The commitment is stipulated in a memo agreed by the government and the National Bank of Ukraine with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
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8. NBU COUNCIL’S POWERS MAY BE RESTRICTED, SAYS MEMO WITH IMF
early withdrawals from fixed deposits,” reads the document.
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9. UKRAINE’S AUTHORITIES TO CREATE SPECIAL BODY FOR
KYIV – Ukraine’s authorities plans to form a body to monitor the state foreign debt, according to a memo agreed by the government and the National Bank of Ukraine with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
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10. SETTLING OF PROMINVESTBANK’S PROBLEM IS PRELIMINARY
KYIV – The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is ready to issue a stand-by stabilization credit if the problem with Kyiv-based Prominvestbank is settled.
This is stipulated in a memo agreed by the government and the National Bank of Ukraine with the IMF, where the settling of the problem with Prominvestbank was indicated as a preliminary measure.
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Personality politics means a repeat of Ukraine’s troubles. OPINION: By Adrian Karatnycky, The Wall Street Journal Europe
New York, New York, Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Once again, Ukraine’s fractious and confusing politics are on display. Early elections have been called — but one major party has been blocking the
parliamentary tribunal, stuffing paper and chewing gum wrappers into voting machines, and using the courts to keep the poll from going forward.
The IMF may be stepping into the financial breach with a $16.5 billion loan — but not as long as the aid package and comprehensive legislation to
deal with the crisis remain hostage to the personal ambitions of Ukraine’s leading politicians.
This is nothing new. Partisan bickering and electoral rivalries have long trumped political compromise and stalled reforms, earning Ukraine an image
as a country beset by crisis and instability.
Ukraine’s politics shattered anew on Oct. 8, as the year-old government headed by Yulia Tymoshenko fell after being abandoned by President Viktor
Yushchenko’s Our Ukraine coalition. Rather than reconfigure a fragile pro-Western coalition stymied by endless rivalries, President Yushchenko instead called new elections in the hope they will strengthen his hand in shaping the country’s domestic and international policy and improve his chances for re-election.
This was the second collapse of a governing coalition headed by parties and leaders that worked together in the democratic Orange Revolution of 2004. In
2005, the first collapse of an “Orange” government led to elections in which the pro-Russia Party of the Regions gained power.
That President Yushchenko has now opted to risk a similar outcome amid a global economic crisis, at a time when Russia is behaving belligerently, and
as Ukraine is under review for a closer relationship with NATO, shows just how toxic are relations between the president and prime minister. It also
shows how little trust Mr. Yushchenko and sections of Ukraine’s elite have in Ms. Tymoshenko’s stewardship of Ukraine’s government and economy.
So bitter are relations among the country’s political elite, in fact, that they cannot set a date for elections. The poll originally was slated for Dec. 7, but that date has been put in doubt by a combination of court challenges by the Tymoshenko bloc, the necessary “freezing” of the decree dismissing parliament so that lawmakers can tackle emergency financial legislation, and growing anxiety in the president’s camp over very poor showings in recent public opinion polls.
But the collapse of the Tymoshenko government is more than a parting of ways among intense rivals for the presidential election of 2010. The Tymoshenko
government was the victim of aftershocks from two international crises: Russia’s invasion of Georgia and the global financial crisis. These crises have further fragmented an already messy political scene, creating new cleavages among Ukraine’s “Orange” politicians and within the major opposition Party of the Regions.
The war in Georgia split the Orange coalition. The hawks, represented by President Yushchenko and Our Ukraine, sought to speed up Ukraine’s entry into NATO and forthrightly condemned Russia’s aggression. The doves, meaning Ms. Tymoshenko and her bloc, gingerly skirt the issue of NATO membership,
which only three in 10 Ukrainians support, and have criticized both Russia (mildly) and Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili (severely).
The war also fragmented the opposition Party of the Regions into a firmly pro-Russia camp headed by former Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, who
endorsed Russia’s invasion of Georgia, and the business wing, which made clear that Russia violated international law.
The global financial crisis, too, exacerbated internal differences among the major political players. President Yushchenko’s interest in removing Ms.
Tymoshenko as prime minister was reinforced by nervous business interests who mistrust her populist inclinations, and thus her stewardship of the
economy at a time of crisis.
But business groups also appear to mistrust Mr. Yanukovych, who as prime minister from August 2006 to December 2007 showed a predisposition to
accumulate unchecked power and used the state’s power to advance the economic interests of his closest backers.
As a result, business would prefer to see a solution that leads to a depoliticized government of competent technocrats who can steer the country in economically challenging times.
But such a coalition would be possible only after new elections and could be headed by an economically competent leader such as the current parliamentary speaker, Arseniy Yatseniuk, or the former prime minister and current Defense Minister Yuri Yekhanurov.
For Ukraine, whose state independence was one of the most important geopolitical outcomes of the collapse of communism in 1989-91, this means further uncertainty. Uncertainty means no progress on NATO integration, and little predictability for global investors.
At the same time, the current political turmoil masks the realities of the country: dramatic improvements in living standards over the last five years; an electorate that rejects the far left and far right; growing national pride; deepening democratic pluralism; and significant influence of entrepreneurs and business leaders on the major political parties.
Given the toxic personal relations and climate of mistrust among Ukraine’s key leaders, political stability will come only with the emergence of new voices and new parties. And given the fact that polls indicate that the majority of Ukraine’s citizens are unhappy with the political choices on offer, this perhaps is Ukraine’s best hope for long-term success.
In the meantime, we can count on more of the same Ukraine: radical rhetoric and Byzantine political jockeying that concludes in a centrist compromise
and just averts the country’s collapse.
NOTE: Mr. Karatnycky is senior scholar at the Atlantic Council of the U.S.
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12. UKRAINE FINDS ITSELF FINANCIALLY SQUEEZED FROM ALL DIRECTIONS
Ukrainians are bracing for an extended rough patch as global financial turmoil gives way to global economic recession. The purchasing power of the country’s most vulnerable citizens is being mightily reduced.
With the option of default not acceptable, economists say Ukraine has little choice but to accept this painful dose of help.
“We can expect further depreciation of about 10 percent next year as export prices continue to fall,” said Oleksandr Zholud, an economist with the International Center for Policy Studies.
The cost of certain every-day items has surged.
“The graduating class of 2009 will have as tough of a time finding a job as everybody else because the job market has gotten more competitive,” said Kolombet. Companies are adjusting to keep sales up in these cash-crunch days.
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13. UKRAINE’S FERREXPO ISSUES PROFITS WARNING
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14. UKRAINE’S EMBARRASSING SHOW
Editorial, Kyiv Post, Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, October 30, 2008
Ukrainian politicians seem clueless about how national leaders should behave.
Considering the selfish and childish behavior of Ukraine’s political leaders, it is a constant wonder why anyone would take this nation seriously – let alone lend it $16.5 billion, as the International Monetary Fund is prepared to do.
The latest juvenile antics took place in the Verkhovna Rada. That’s where members of Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko’s bloc seem to have acted as
not-so-petty vandals on Oct. 24 by stuffing rubbish into the slots of the electronic voting system to break it. Tymoshenko’s camp denies involvement. But it looks like only the latest shenanigan in a bitter and paralyzing rivalry between Ukraine’s leaders.
for Ukraine — and the principles of justice and democratic elections. Instead, the two heroes of the revolution have been degrading themselves in their pathetic attempts to cling to power at all costs. Turning to ex-Prime Minister Victor Yanukovych, whose rigged election triggered the 2004 revolt, is not the solution.
Even with an IMF bailout, the nation faces a rough road ahead. The loan will be needed to stabilize the sliding hryvnia, which is trading at all-time lows. Passing a no-deficit budget will mean lean times for millions of people dependent on state benefits. Likely borrowers will face higher interest rates in a further drag to the economy.
The nation may be forced to sell its remaining prized assets, such as telecoms giant Ukretelecom, at unattractive prices. But the most complicated task is building an economy that will reverse the huge imbalance between the nation’s increasing imports and dwindling exports, particularly of steel and other commodities.
The current leadership has proved itself too inept – and too subservient to the interests of the nation’s oligarchs – to inspire much hope. But out of crises, new leaders sometimes emerge to take charge with courage, imagination and determination. Let’s hope that happens in Ukraine.
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Ukraine’s political leaders seem oblivious to the global financial crisis and the worldwide media exposure that depicts them as unstable OP-ED: By Adrian Karatnycky, Kyiv Post, Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, 23 October, 2008
President Victor Yushchenko’s decision to dismantle parliament and to call new elections – as well as his recent reaffirmation of this step – means Ukraine will have a weak interim government for at least the next three months.
Whatever the intrinsic merits of the president’s determination to break the policy deadlock, the decision shows scant regard for the scale of the international financial crisis that has rapidly brought growth to a screeching halt in the richest economies, led to huge job losses and obliterated financial institutions that were once “worth” hundreds of billions of dollars.
As recently as two weeks ago, Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko was taking an equally bold position, declaring that the country was immune to serious consequences from the international downturn as it was not fully integrated into the global economic community. And statistics on the country’s gross domestic product growth seemed to bear her out. The most recent data from Ukraine showed growth continued smartly upward through the end of September at an annual rate of 7.1 percent.
Only Victor Yanukovych – a man with a Ph.D. as legitimate as the court ruling that annulled his criminal convictions – emphasizes the economic threat to Ukraine. But he does so because he is in opposition, not because he understands the issues.
Nor do Ukraine’s leaders seem to understand that they live in a global media environment. Accusations by the president that his rival, the premier, is a “traitor,” or her Oct. 21 blocking of the parliament, are shrugged off as “business as usual.” But to the international community, they are dire signals that the country is unstable.
Despite the political “trash talking” and “theatrics” of Ukraine’s leaders, with the global financial crisis having accelerated, there will be no escaping it. The hryvnia, Ukraine’s currency, is already in a steep slide, with citizens rapidly converting significant portions of the 200 billion in hryvnias held in banks into safer dollars and euros.
Construction is in steep decline, too. And with steel prices plummeting globally, Ukraine’s former growth engines – its steel conglomerates – could lay off workers in an effort to adjust to the tougher times.
All this has already had a massive toll on the value of equities on the PFTS, Ukraine’s leading stock exchange. Inflows in foreign direct investment are also likely to be significantly affected, reducing available capital for growth, modernization and expansion.
Nor does the global slowdown necessarily mean that Russia’s price for natural gas will decline with the overall global decline in commodities. Not a chance. The bad news is that it usually takes about a year for gas prices to catch up with the price of oil. So there will be no real relief to Ukraine’s natural gas price tag come new year.
Given the domestic political chaos, it is small wonder that Western investors worry that, in the wake of the failure of Prominvestbank, the country’s sixth largest, there will be further financial tremors. As a result, rightly or wrongly, given the current political and policy turmoil, Ukraine is now viewed by many Western investors as the next potential Iceland, a country in the throes of bankruptcy.
Luckily, Ukraine’s increasingly sophisticated and enterprising business elite is sensitive to the challenges and threats posed by the global slowdown. Through their powerful influence on the three major political groupings, business is likely to press politicians to responsible action.
All these are important reason for long-term optimism. In the mid-term, too, there may be good auguries for Ukraine.
The International Monetary Fund and World Bank project that, as a result of the global financial crisis, Europe and the United States will have something approaching zero growth in the coming year. Emerging markets are believed to be on the path of growth of between 3 and 7 percent in 2009, with Ukraine at the lower part of the range.
This should make Ukraine an attractive place to invest, if the country’s currency and financial system is not in a free fall. And that means the politicians must do their job and ensure that all sources of standby financing, including a loan package from the International Monetary Fund, is pre-negotiated and in place in case there is a need.
If Ukraine’s leaders understand that they personally will be blamed by the public for any serious economic setbacks, there are strong prospects Ukraine can ride out the current global financial crisis. That is certainly what President Yushchenko, with support for re-election in early 2010 at single digits, must hope for. Otherwise, he would be far better served to allow Yulia Tymoshenko to continue serving as premier and to bear the brunt of public anger at steep economic decline.
Of course, it would be best if Ukraine’s leaders agreed to a short-term compromise and created a government of national unity that could cope with the economic crisis. But given the worry of Yushchenko and the business elite about Tymoshenko’s populist proclivities, and their lack of confidence in her stewardship of the economy, such an outcome appears unlikely.
Still, the odds are that, even without a global political compromise, Ukraine’s leaders will find a way of cobbling together and implementing policies to prevent an economic meltdown. That, alas, has been the standard operating procedure of Ukraine’s elite for most of the 18 years of independence.
NOTE: Adrian Karatnycky is senior scholar with the Atlantic Council of the United States and managing director of the Myrmidon Group LLC, a small New York-based consultancy that works with investors and corporations seeking entry into the emerging markets of Ukraine and Eastern Europe.
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16. YUSHCHENKO’S ALLIES DESERT HIM
The Popular Movement for Restructuring (commonly known by its Ukrainian abbreviation as “Movement” [Rukh]) has broken ranks with President Viktor Yushchenko’s political force, Our Ukraine-People’s Self-Defence (OU-PSD). This is the latest in a long line of senior personalities and political parties to have broken with the president, after standing shoulder to shoulder with him during the Orange Revolution.
The list of those deserting the president lengthens each month. Notable names include: Oleksandr Zinchenko, the head of Mr Yushchenko’s 2004 campaign; Petro Poroshenko (Chairman of the National Bank of Ukraine) and Davyd Zhvannia, both financiers of the election campaign and godfathers to Mr Yushchenko’s children; Party of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs leader Anatoliy Kinakh; Party of Reforms and Order leaders Taras Stetskiv, Mykola Tomenko and Viktor Pynzenyk; the head of the People’s Self-Defence bloc, Yuriy Lutsenko; long time business and political ally Oleh Rybachuk and the head of Mr Yushchenko’s 2004 campaign analysis and research; and former Defence Minister Anatoliy Hrytsenko.
A CASE OF DEJA VU
One of the last to break with Mr Yushchenko is former Foreign Minister and head of Rukh, Borys Tarasiuk. In an open letter addressed to Rukh members, dated 13 October, Mr Tarasiuk tells of the déjà vu he feels today. He recalls the intense pressure (from Leonid Kuchma in the late 1990s and Mr Yushchenko today) applied to make Rukh conform, with failure to do so backed up by threats to artificially split the party.
As in the past, the presidential apparatus is threatening to split Rukh if it does not obey orders. Today, three Galician branches of Rukh support the president’s desire for pre-term elections rather than joining an enlarged orange coalition.
The president’s demand is for Rukh to merge with his People’s Union-Our Ukraine party into a new pro-Yushchenko party. A refusal to take this step, Mr Tarasiuk told his members, will lead to the presidential apparatus attempting to ensure that Rukh does not enter the next parliament.
GRAND COALITION
Furthermore, Mr Tarasiuk predicted that there will be a grand coalition of the Party of Regions with the remnants of the OU-PSD bloc in the newly elected parliament. In this eventuality, Rukh would go into opposition with the Bloc of Yulia Tymoshenko (BYuT).
In conclusion Mr Tarasiuk warns, “Rukh could not be destroyed by the former anti-people’s authorities and it cannot be destroyed by “our” authorities for which we struggled so long!”
Rukh has had a presence in the Ukrainian parliament ever since the March 1990 elections and was led by the legendary former dissident Vyacheslav Chornovil until March 1999. Later that month Mr Chornovil died in a suspicious car crash still under investigation.
LIMITED OPTIONS
Mr Tarasiuk does not mention in his open letter with which political force Rukh would enter the new parliament? If Rukh refuses to accept disbanding and fusing with the People’s Union-Our Ukraine, as Mr Tarasiuk has stated, then Rukh has only two options.
Firstly, to campaign alone or with other disaffected parties from the nine parties in OU-PSD. This though is doubtful as it is unlikely such a bloc would win sufficient votes to enter parliament. Yuriy Lutsenko, leader of the People’s Self-Defence bloc, has already expressed his intention to campaign on a single list with BYuT.
The second option is to campaign with BYuT as its fourth political party (BYuT is composed of Ms Tymoshenko’s Fatherland party, the Reforms and Order party and the Social Democratic party). Negotiations towards an enlarged BYuT coalition with Rukh have reportedly been on-going during the last month.
Since its formation in 1987-1988, the biggest electoral victory for Rukh came as a member of the Our Ukraine bloc in the 2002 elections, when the pro-presidential bloc came first. The Communist Party was pushed into second place for the first time and then into fifth and fourth place in the 2006 and 2007 elections.
DECLINING FORTUNES
Unexpectedly, Our Ukraine’s unification of centre-right parties unravelled in the Yushchenko era. Our Ukraine and OU-PSD received a 13.95 percent and 14.15 percent share of the vote respectively in the 2006 and 2007 parliamentary elections, compared with 23.57 percent in 2002. This was largely attributable to disillusionment and disappointment with the president over backtracking on implementing pledges made during the Orange Revolution.
Since the 2007 elections, support for OU-PSD has declined even further to 5 percent. As in the case of Mr Tarasiuk, Mr Yushchenko has broken with all of his leading allies from 2002 (when Our Ukraine was established) and the 2004 elections that sparked the Orange Revolution.
With such a narrow support base, fewer political allies and depressingly low opinion poll ratings, the president’s strategy of fighting an election is tantamount to political suicide. It is likely the People’s Union-Our Ukraine party will fight the next elections renamed “Our Ukraine Yushchenko bloc,” to recall the success of Our Ukraine in 2002. The first five on the list will be Mr Yushchenko, Vyacheslav Kyrylenko, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, Yuriy Yekhanurov and Yuriy Kostenko.
FLAWED STRATEGY
The Yushchenko bloc is expected to go into the next elections comprising only two parties: the People’s Union-Our Ukraine and the People’s Party. This means it will fight for the same votes as the other former parties that made up its ranks. However it will be disadvantaged by a narrower support base that translates into a narrower voter catchment. Ironically, its disintegration contrasts with the Party of Regions, which has been busy enlarging its base by absorbing former Kuchma parties.
Low support for the Yushchenko bloc will ruin the president’s already weak chances of re-election – a situation made worse by putting his name behind pre-term elections that are deeply unpopular with a public that has grown increasingly tired of politicians. [Email us at nlysova@beauty.net.ua]
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17. UKRAINE POLL SUGGESTS SUPPORT FOR PRESIDENT MINIMAL
KYIV – Five parties would win seats in Ukraine’s parliament if elections were held today, and the Party of Regions would receive the largest single proportion of seats in the legislature, an opinion studies group said on Tuesday, citing an opinion poll.
The returns of the survey, carried out by the Razumkov Center and announced at a news conference in Kyiv, suggest that 28.3% of Ukrainians would vote for the Party of Regions, while the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc would receive 27.5%, the Communist Party 7.8%, the Lytvyn Bloc 6.9%, and a hypothetical party supporting President Viktor Yushchenko 5.7% of the vote.
Each of the other groups would be unable to achieve the 3% mark needed to win representation in parliament, while 5.5% of the population would vote against all the parties and 6.8% are undecided.
Asked whether they would go to the polls if the next parliamentary elections were held next Sunday, 35.9% of respondents answered they most likely would, 28.8% said they definitely would, 14.6% said they had not yet made up their mind, 9.5% said they would definitely not go, 5.3% said they would be unlikely to go, and 3.3% were undecided.
The Razumkov Center also said 81.8% of those questioned in the same poll said Ukraine is in general moving in the wrong direction, 5.3% expressed the opposite view, and 12.9% were undecided on the issue. The Center questioned 10,865 people in all regions of the country in the survey, conducted on October 7-19. The returns were said to have a 1% margin of error.
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18. USA TRYING TO SET UKRAINE, RUSSIA AGAINST EACH OTHER WITH
He said the United States was thus “resolving the hard task of pushing Ukraine into NATO while 80% of Ukrainian citizens objected to the Ukrainian
drawing into the North Atlantic alliance.”
The U.S. and British delegations were rude and kept interrupting the chair of the UN General Assembly’s General Committee, which was considering the Assembly agenda, Churkin said. The General Committee discussed the possible attachment of the Ukrainian draft resolution on the Great Famine to the agenda.
“The Great Famine and Ukrainian genocide claims create a certain background for another mainstream ideological action of the Ukrainian administration, i.e. glorification of Ukrainian accomplices of the Nazi,” he said. “The most illustrative example of this glorification is the Hero of Ukraine title posthumously awarded by the Ukrainian president to one of the most notorious leaders of Ukrainian Nazis, Shukevich, in 2007.”
“The Babiy Yar tragedy is the most vivid symbol of Holocaust,” Churkin said. “Plenty of those who killed Jews in Babiy Yar were Ukrainian accomplices of the Nazi.”
All that “is totally discordant with the United Nations Organization, which was established amid the victory of the anti-Hitler coalition, and principles of this organization,” he said.
“European nations regularly abstain in the vote on the draft Russian resolution that condemns glorification of the Nazi. Maybe, the United States, which has taken up history and has become hyperactive in the Great Famine issue, will finally support the resolution. So far, only two states the U.S. and the Marshall Islands voted against our resolution last year for reasons I would call inexplicable,” Churkin said.
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19. THIS IS WHAT YOU GET FOR USING THE WRONG APPROACH ON THE UKRAINIAN
The European Parliament has recognised the Ukrainian famine of 1930s as crime against humanity, according to the EP official web-site.
In a resolution on the commemoration of the Holodomor, the artificial famine in Ukraine in 1932-1933, MEPs describe it as “an appalling crime against the Ukrainian people, and against humanity”.
According to the resolution, the Holodomor famine of 1932-1933, which caused the deaths of millions of Ukrainians, “was cynically and cruelly planned by Stalin`s regime in order to force through the Soviet Union`s policy of collectivisation of agriculture against the will of the rural population in Ukraine”.
[WRONG, WRONG, WRONG! LEMKIN HAD THE RIGHT REASON: “… The Soviet plan was aimed at the farmers, the large mass of independent peasants who are the repository of the tradition, folklore and music, the national language and literature, the national spirit of Ukraine”.
& the Communist activist Prokopenko was exact when he admitted: “Starvation in Ukraine was brought about in order to reduce the number of Ukrainians, resettle in their place people from another par of the USSR, and in this way kill all thought of independence.” Roman Serbyn]
MEPs believe that “recalling crimes against humanity in European history should help to prevent similar crimes in the future” and they stress that “European integration has been based on a readiness to come to terms with the 20th century`s tragic history and that this reconciliation with a difficult history does not denote any sense of collective guilt, but forms a stable basis for the construction of a common European future founded on common values”.
The resolution therefore makes a “declaration to the people of Ukraine and in particular to the remaining survivors of the Holodomor and the families and relatives of the victims”.
It “recognises the Holodomor (the artificial famine of 1932-1933 in Ukraine) as an appalling crime against the Ukrainian people, and against humanity”.
The text then “strongly condemns these acts, directed against the Ukrainian peasantry, and marked by mass annihilation and violations of human rights and freedoms”.
It also “expresses its sympathy with the Ukrainian people, which suffered this tragedy, and pays its respects to those who died as a consequence of the artificial famine of 1932-1933”.
Lastly, the resolution “calls on the countries which emerged following the break-up of the Soviet Union to open up their archives on the Holodomor in Ukraine of 1932-1933 to comprehensive scrutiny so that all the causes and consequences can be revealed and fully investigated”.
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20. EU PARLIAMENT SAYS UKRAINIAN 1930S FAMINE WAS SOVIET “CRIME”
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