Ukraine's Invisible Presidential Election
KIEV—U.S. Vice President Joe Biden recently said that Ukraine’s presidential election may be the most important in the country’s history. But you wouldn’t know it on the streets of Kiev.
With one month until polling booths open, the threat of war dominates headlines. Election leaflets are rare. Just one of the 28 presidential hopefuls—Mikhaylo Dobkin, a marginal pro-Russian candidate—has placed campaign billboards in the capital. And neither of the front-runners are spending much time on the stump. Former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko has officially abandoned campaigning to turn her party into a “resistance” force. Petro Poroshenko, the chocolate mogul and favorite to win, has aired a TV ad—that he doesn't even appear in himself.
“This is probably the first time in the country when a presidential election campaign is essentially not happening,” said Ihor Tishchenko, a sociologist and founder of the Reiting sociological group. First of all, it’s against the backdrop of war. Second of all, the candidates are practically not campaigning.” Overshadowed by Moscow's annexation of Crimea and separatist brushfires on the eastern frontier with Russia, an eerie campaign twilight has settled over this country known for scrappy, mudslinging election cycles.
With the country frozen in post-revolutionary limbo until the May 25 election and facing the threat of war, many presidential hopefuls are trying not to stir the pot further as this traumatized nation waits for a polling day amidst threats from within and without. “Russia’s main goal is to destroy the elections and prove there is no authority here,” said 60-year-old Vasil Zolotoverkh, a resident of Chernobyl, who was on business in Kiev.
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/04/ukraines-invisible-presidential-election/361324/
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