Voting Could Move Ukraine Closer to Moscow

Voting Could Move Ukraine Closer to Moscow
By MARA D. BELLABY, Associated Press Writer

Sunday, March 19, 2006

(03-19) 09:12 PST KIEV, Ukraine (AP) --

Voters look set to deal President Viktor Yushchenko a rebuff in a parliamentary election next Sunday that could tilt their divided country back toward Russia just 16 months after a revolution that appeared to move Ukraine closer to the West.

It's a bitter twist for Yushchenko, whose Orange Revolution ushered in the very reforms that are making this contest the most democratic in the former Soviet republic's history.

Now he must contend with polls predicting the winner will be his arch-foe, ex-Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, the man whose fraud-marred run for the presidency in 2004 triggered the revolution that along with similar upheavals in the former Soviet states of Georgia and Kyrgyzstan has encouraged democratic restiveness in neighboring Belarus.

Yushchenko's presidency is not at stake in this election, but widespread disappointment with the peaceful revolution's unfulfilled promises of prosperity and an end to corruption has left Yushchenko's camp struggling even to win second place.
(snip/...)

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2006/03/19/international/i091235S30.DTL




Viktor Yanukovych with Putin, Yushchenko with Bush

How the hell can anyone actually write a backgrounder on this election and write:

Critics say it could slow Ukraine's West-ward turn and return power to some officials that the Orange Revolution leaders had vowed to jail.

"If this coalition is formed, what was the point of the revolution?" said former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, whose acrimonious split with the president last fall shattered the Orange Revolution team.

Acrimonious Split? Try...

Yushchenko fires government

KIEV, Ukraine (CNN) -- Ukraine President Viktor Yushchenko has sacked his entire 7-month-old government amid political squabbling among its members.

Several officials have resigned from the government in recent days, citing corruption. It is the first scandal under Yushchenko, who was elected after an "Orange Revolution" protesting results of the previous vote that put Yushchenko's opposition in office.

Those fired on Thursday included Prime Minister Yulia Tymoschenko. Yuriy Yekhanurov, a member of parliament, was appointed as acting prime minister.

Saying the government had lost its "team spirit," Yushchenko added that he would ask regional governor Yuri Yekhanurov to form a new Cabinet.

CNN

And how do you manage to write a profile like this and NOT even mention the natural gas 'war' with Russia as being one of the biggest single issues in these upcoming elections and caused the split to begin with...

Utterly amazing...the writer DOES manage to remind us about the Orange Revolution though...the relevence of which is at this date, dubious to say the least.

AKA BRIC. Similar to the situation prior to WWI, the world is dividing up into two capitalist blocks. One, the 'haves' block, has a lock on vital resources such as cheap ME oil, while the other the 'haves not' block is on the outside scheming to get even. Moscow is recollecting its splintered empire into a coalition of semi-democratic kleptocracies. Brazil India and China are all wondering how they are going to feed their energy needs with the US/GB camped out on top of the ever more important cheap oil fields of the ME. I think this is not a good situation. Who is going to play Archduke Ferdinand?

You got it...I often think that people will look back to 9/11 as the proverbial 'powderkeg' that got the ball rolling and a point in time when calming heads should have prevailed.

The ww1 fits much better than any Nazi-ww2 allusion...