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Sunday, February 7, 2010

Ukraine’s 2010 enigmatic Presidential Elections


Ukraine’s 2010 enigmatic Presidential Elections
Ukrainians are to vote tomorrow in the second round of presidential elections considered by some pundits as a replay of the 2004 presidential elections that stamped the Orange Revolution into the minds of pro-democracy and freedom loving peoples of the world. It might appear so to many, but Ukrainians would actually be passing a verdict on the Orange Revolution as they cast their ballots.


The 2004 Orange revolution was carried out in a backdrop of a booming economy, an unpopular President Kuchma, political assassinations, Russian meddling and an Ukrainian nation with an unsettling identify.
Viktor Yushenko, whose parents were ethnic Ukrainians, led the revolution strongly backed by Yulia Tymoshenko. They aligned themselves with all those who were against the Kuchma regime and Russia and promised to lead the country into the European Union and NATO. He failed in his electoral promises, except in propagating Ukrainian nationalism; a reason why he led in the first round of the 2010 presidential elections only in Lviv, Ternopil and Ivano-Frankivsk(formerly  Galicia or Halizia)--- Ukrainian provinces that pundits consider to be the most rabidly nationalistic. He even lost in his native Sumy.


Yulia Tymoshenko and her rival Viktor Yanukovych are both from the Eastern Ukraine where Russian and Surzhyk (an Ukrainian dialect that is a mix of Russian and Ukrainian) are spoken. They are both Ukrainian born, but while Yulia Tymoshenko’s father hailed from the Baltic, Viktor Yanukovych’s father was from Belarus (White Rus). Both candidates learned Ukrainian later in life and promise to have good relations with Russia. These factors make them less appealing to those Ukrainians who are rabidly nationalistic.
Haunted by a depressed economy and divisions, the majority of Ukrainians have come to terms with their identify as an East Slavic nation shaped by history into a people with two cultures(Russian and Ukrainian in all its forms) and who should have nothing against their East Slavonic brothers right across the borders. That makes being bilingual in Russian and Ukrainian a strong and growing basis of Ukrainian identity, an outlook that is in line with Ukrainians as a frontier people who thrived best dealing with others based on mutual compatibility and interest.


The election would be determined by Central and Western Ukraine, especially by those who voted for Serhiy Tihipko and Arseniy Yatsenyuk. And while Yanukovych should expect a huge margin in Eastern Ukraine, he would narrowly lose in Central Ukraine. Nonetheless, he stands to win in the historic Left Bank Ukraine including Sumy. Western Ukraine would be the most affected from Yushenko’s fallout with Tymoshenko. This would be reflected in more voter apathy there than elsewhere in the nation.


The expected Yanukovych victory would spell a defeat for the Orange Revolution, but it would force the new administration to be more heedful of the voices of the people and to continue with the positive legacies of the five years of Orange rule. And strangely enough, it would make Ukraine truly Ukraine.


By Janvier Chando

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The Union Moujik by Janvier Chando