Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Big beasts await Yanuk in the shadows


In my Monday blog I posted a photo from Party of Regions' swanky central Kyiv hotel press centre and said the party were in a state of shock immediately after polling stations closed and exit poll results declared.

The performances of their representatives on that evening's television programmes were far from those of a party who, as most western media reported: "were closing in on victory". In fact it was never in doubt that the ruling authorities would retain control in the new parliament because of the recent amendments to voting rules. Had the voting system remained "100% by party lists", PoR's deputies would be in opposition right now.

In Ukraine the power of the president is now almost absolute. He has a firm grip on the power structures such as the police and prosecutors' office, security services, constitutional court, the judiciary, customs and border control agencies, tax administration, state bank etc. etc. Only a parliament with 2/3 opposition constitutional majority can hurt him, and this is unlikely to ever be assembled.

Despite all of the money spent by PoR on advertising and bribes, despite control of vast portion of the media which churned out heavily biassed or 'purchased' reports, despite heavy pressure on minority independent media sources, despite locking away leaders of the opposition, despite fixing the composition of local election committees, despite suspect counting in dozens of simple-majority constituencies, despite widespread 'buying' of votes, despite pressure on workers in the public sector, despite a lacklustre and fractured opposition performance, despite generously funded and promoted 'planted' and now disgraced parties like those of Nataliya Korolevska, despite late generous social spending programmes, despite the afterglow and feel-good factor following the Euro 2012 soccer competition, despite all of this, Party of Regions have barely scraped together 30% of votes cast.

What awaits in the months to come is almost certainly a worsening economic situation.

Industrial production has declined around 7% this year. Gas and utility prices will increase soon, as will the price of foodstuffs resulting from poor global harvests. Unemployment on the up...pressure from Russia..pressure from the EU...

The so-called independents entering parliament by winning electoral constituencies will have much to ponder when they take up their seats and as the next presidential elections draws closer....they will still be parliament after the next presidential elections have taken place..

Yanukovych's big hope was the creation of a constitutional majority in the new parliament under his control - this has not happened.  In months to come Yanukovych will be facing a stark choice: become a Lukashenko clone, or face the electorate, and likely demise in the next presidential election... The handful of immensely powerful oligarchs in Ukraine will already be looking at the results of Sunday's voting...and weighing up their options for the future...

3 comments:

elmer said...

There was a real danger in these elections. A very real danger. And it was very evident - if the Regionnaires had gotten a clear majority, then the march towards dictatorship would be completed.

There were a few comments worth noting on the last "Freedom of Speech" show on ICTV, hosted by one of Ukraine's excellent journalists, Andrew Kulikov.


http://lb.ua/news/2012/10/30/176683_tv.html

The show was about the probable makeup of the "new" parliament, and what to expect.

The commie representative, in rebuttal to several previous remarks, stated: "Don't assume that the commies will automatically go into a coalition with the Party of Regions. That has not been authorized."

In other words, the commies will likely hold out for tons of money from the Regionnaires - maybe a few more $50,000 wristwatches for their leader, Symonenko.

At the end, during the experts' opinions, conclusions and summations (підсумки експертів), one of the experts said:




"This was an election in which the choice was between people who steal (the Regionnaires) and people who cannot organize themselves and cooperate (the opposition). The people made their choice (against the people who steal)."

A very astute comment.

The Regionnaires deserved zero votes. They deserved to be run out of town on rails, after being tarred and feathered.

As it is, I am glad that the people of Ukraine gave them far less than they wanted and expected, and put them in shock.

It's about time.

elmer said...

Look, I don't mean to hog the comments on the blog, but in your list of the various tricks used by the sovok mafia Regionnaires, you left out an important one:

criminal prosecution of opposition candidates.

That is, any time that anyone announced their candidacy in opposition to the sovok mafia Regionnaires, those candidates were immediately subjected to ----- criminal prosecution.

These are really psychotic monsters

LEvko said...

Thank you for your informative comments. The greatest victims of election fraud this time, have been the Communists and Svoboda. [Examination of voting statistics provides evidence here: http://blogs.pravda.com.ua/authors/shnurko-tabakova/509025e32dba2/]