Kyiv mayor Leonid “Kosmos” Chernovetsky will undergo a psychiatric evaluation, a temporary commission of the Verkhovna Rada has ruled, in a move long overdue.
The statement was issued by the press office of MP Volodymyr Yavorivsky (BYuT), Ukrayinska Pravda reports.
Meanwhile, UP also reports of attempts at “burying the hatchet” between BYuT and Chernovetsky's team, following Yushchenko’s recent criticism of Chernovetsky's stewardship of Kyiv.
Besides, BYuT has resorted to forum shopping to derail the March 15 local elections in Ternopil oblast, for fear of losing electoral ground to Svoboda.
Amid growing disenchantment with oligarch-packed BYuT and NUNS, many Orange-leaning voters are turning to smaller and more radical parties.
Sources:
http://kiev.pravda.com.ua/news/49ba0e94862cc/
http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2009/3/12/91217.htm
Friday, March 13, 2009
Kyiv Mayor to Undergo Psychiatric Exam
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
Growing disenchantment?
It seems to me that there's been 100% disenchantment for quite some time, including with the oligarch-laden Party of Roosha - well, except for those people who benefit from a corrupt oligarch system.
Here's a prime example:
Kolomoysky, who makes his home very, very comfortably in Switzerland, but sucks as much money as he can out of Ukraine into his pockets.
One doesn't have to read Ukrainian to get the picture - there's a map of where his house is on the lake in Switzerland, and pictures of his very nice house. He was away at the time, but his servants were there, as was the servants' van.
http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2009/3/10/91062.htm
Now, as far as "radical" parties in Ukraine - here's an article that talks about "left" and "right" in Ukraine.
Which to me is funny. Because "right" in Ukraine seems to refer not to principles of governing, but to whether one supports a Ukrainian identity, language and culture, and "left" refers to supporting Russia, Russian language, and subservience to Russia:
http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2009/3/11/91109.htm
Currently, there really are no political parties, as such, in Ukraine - only a corrupt oligarch-based system, with assorted factions competing, or cooperating, with each other on a minute-by-minute basis, and people be damned.
It's an all-out war, especially between Yushchenko and Tymoshenko.
Turns out, Yushchenko wants a psychiatric exam of the guy he supported for mayor - Chernovetsky.
Immediately, Tymoshenko makes nice-nice with Chernovetsky, does a 180, and, according to Ukrainian Pravda, buries the hatchet with Chernovetsky, where before she was publicly screaming to cut off his head, especially after the buckwits in Kyiv put the joker into office.
So how could there be any parties more "radical" than what exists now?
You’re right:)
In Ukraine, right largely refers to anti-Kremlin parties whereas left largely refers to pro-Kremlin parties. Political economy, as opposed to geopolitics, comes a distant second.
With 98 percent of the Ternopil oblast vote processed, the party breakdown appears as follows:
Svoboda, 33.8%
Yedyny Tsentr, 13.8%
Party of Regions, 9.7%
BYuT, 8%
UNP, 8%
NUNS, 5.5%
Lytvyn Bloc, 3.6%
As we can see, Yedyny Tsentr and the Party of Regions have made strong showings. (Interestingly, the Yedyny Tsentr experiment has worked, fulfilling its role as Baloha’s escape pod within NUNS.)
BYuT fell the hardest.
That the once-fringe elements like the Party of Regions now carry more electoral weight than BYuT speaks volumes about BYuT's standing in western Ukraine.
BYuT is also screaming the loudest.
First, the Ukrainian Parliament declared that early elections should take place in the Ternopil region in Western Ukraine.
Then, the same Parliament "cancelled" its declaration, according to one of the BYuT leaders, Turchynov.
This "cancellation" led to 2 - count 'em - 2 court fights in Lviv.
The Freedom ("Svoboda") party went to court in Lviv to annul the "cancellation." And got a ruling annulling the cancellation.
The BYuT Party of Tymoshenko, meanwhile, got an initial ruling in a Kyiv court upholding the "cancellation." The Kyiv Court then reversed itself.
Green light for pre-term elections to the regional council in Ternopil.
Then, virtually on the day of elections, BYuT declared that it was "withdrawing" from the elections. The ballots had already been printed, and the election was taking place.
Now, after the results, Ukrainian Pravda and Channel 5 are reporting that BYuT has declared that Victor Baloha, of the presidential secretariat, and founder of the United Center party, orchestrated ballot-stuffing "falsifications" of the election.
BYuT claims that only 30% of eligible voters actually voted, but at the last minute, Baloha and his party stuffed the ballot boxes.
The Freedom Party (Svoboda) is probably the only party that is not oligarch-based. It also identifies itself as clearly Ukrainian, as opposed to the "practical politician" approach used by some parties to justify close ties with the Kremlin.
The Socialists did not make it.
The support for the Party of Regions is surprising.
But the clear winner is the Freedom Party.
And it looks like Tymoshenko better:
1) re-think her kissy-face with Pootler and the Kremlin
2) re-think her own party's oligarchs and her own party's corruption, and her strong-man (rhetoric threatening to skin officials if they don't perform their jobs - one doesn't skin officials any more if they fall down on the job, one relieves them of their position).
"right", in the case of Svoboda, means - alas - somewhat more than "anti-Kremlin." Tyahnybok can't retroactively erase what he's said in the past, about Jews, Russians and the "p'yata grafa."
If Ukrainians want to elect him, methinks they should kiss goodbye to the EU.
Elmer,
I’d vote for Tymoshenko all the way, if only she actually skinned those officials. But, then again, she’d have to skin herself, too. (I’ll do another post on the issue shortly.)
I have my own reservations about Svoboda and its rhetoric.
As I noted at Neeka's Backlog, Svoboda is what happens when Tymoshenko goes East and Yushchenko goes South.
I have no quarrel with any Ukrainian citizen, as long as they respect Ukrainian culture and speak the Ukrainian language. I view Ukrainian citizenship as the responsibility to be able to speak Ukrainian in public and the right to choose other languages in private.
The problem is, one can find few such citizens among our elite.
Of the top four oligarchs, neither speaks Ukrainian and one even has dual citizenship and lives outside Ukraine. (Imagine something like this in North America or Europe.)
The issue of ethnicity looms into view when the ethnic makeup of the elite does not represent the general population.
Given Ukraine’s weak economy and its giant gap between the richest and the poorest 5% of its rapidly declining population, the issue will be a prominent one.
Anonymous,
Of course, Tyahnybok can’t erase anything. What’s said is said.
OTOH, Ukraine can’t kiss goodbye to something it doesn't have.
Because the EU keeps Ukraine at arm’s length — behind the Schengen Curtain — it doesn’t have a lot of leverage on such issues.
Post a Comment