[Ohio UZO News] Ukraine: OSCEPA; AP; CT; EDM (2)

[Deychak, Orest]

OSCE Parliamentary Assembly


http://www.oscepa.org/

 


OSCE PA President Urges Stabilization of Election Legislation in Ukraine


KYIV, 4 November 2009 - Concluding a two day visit to Kyiv today, OSCE
Parliamentary Assembly President Joao Soares called on the Ukrainian
authorities to finalize reforms of the electoral legislation in advance
of the upcoming Presidential election on 17 January 2010.

"Ongoing struggles over the election legislation have left the Ukrainian
people, candidates and authorities unsettled in advance of the January
election. Clarity is absolutely vital if the upcoming election is to
proceed smoothly and if the voters are to have confidence in the
system," said President Soares.

The visit to Kyiv was undertaken to continue preparations for the OSCE
PA's observation of the 2010 Presidential election, which President
Soares will personally lead. The visit included meetings with the
Central Election Commission Chairman Volodimir Shapoval and with
presidential candidates including the incumbent President Viktor
Yuschchenko; Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko; Chairman of the Parliament
Volodymyr Lytvyn; and Viktor Yanukovych; Inna Bogoslovska; Anatoliy
Hrytsenko; and Arseniy Yatseniuk.

Mr. Soares also met with representatives of the Supreme Court, media and
civil society, including domestic observer groups.

Associated Press 


European Union ready to help Ukraine cope with flu outbreak


BRUSSELS - The European Union says it is coordinating closely with
health experts in Ukraine to help it cope with a suspected swine flu
outbreak. 

EU spokeswoman Nina Papadoulaki says the EU is "following very closely"
the spread of the flu virus in Ukraine, which neighbors the 27-nation
bloc.

She said Wednesday many EU member states are ready to provide logistical
and medical support to Ukrainian authorities. Austria, Hungary, and
Slovenia have already said they will send disinfectants, vaccines and
respirators to help Ukraine.

The World Health Organization fears most cases in Ukraine are due to the
H1N1 swine flu virus. 

Chicago Tribune

November 3, 2009

KIEV, Ukraine

Urging its citizens not to panic, Ukraine on Monday closed the nation's
schools for a week to avoid the spread of swine flu and suggested that
nightclubs, cinemas and food markets in the western part of the country
also shut down.

The World Health Organization said Monday there was no evidence that
Ukraine had a bad outbreak of swine flu but that at the government's
request it had sent a health team there to help the country cope.

"But this is not an indication that the situation is severe," said WHO
spokeswoman Liuba Negru. "The information we have gotten (from the
government), we have to double-check it and make sure it is real,
evidence-based information."

Ukraine's Health Ministry said Monday that 70 people in the nation of 40
million have died of flu but did not say how many of those deaths were
related to H1N1. Worldwide, outbreaks of seasonal flu claim up to
500,000 lives each year.

Nevertheless, all schools have been closed for a week across Ukraine,
even in the capital, Kiev, where there have been no confirmed cases of
swine flu.

In western Ukraine, local authorities advised people to travel only when
necessary.

All outdoor markets have been shut in the western region of Lviv, where
the governor also urged cinemas, cafes, nightclubs and theaters to close
until further notice.

Some observers, including the speaker of the parliament, Vladimir
Litvin, suggested that these measures are the result of political
wrangling ahead of the country's presidential election in January. The
vote could overturn the 2004 Orange Revolution that swept a pro-Western
government to power.

"We are seeing a political competition to see who will be the first to
lead this process (of fighting H1N1)," Litvin said, according to the
UNIAN news agency.

Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko met a Swiss shipment of Tamiflu at the
Kiev airport on Monday.

"The government has declared the situation an epidemic, but there is
absolutely no need to panic," she said on national television.

Her main rival, President Viktor Yushchenko, said thousands of people
were infected and called for assistance from NATO, the European
Commission, the United States, Russia and other countries.

Konstantin Bondarenko, director of the Gorshenin Institute, a political
consultancy, said Tymoshenko has the most to lose from public sentiment
over the outbreak, as state health officials report to her.

Viktor Yanukovych, the Regions' Party candidate for the presidency, has
not commented on the swine flu uproar. Yanukovych, who was beaten in
2005 by Yushchenko, is leading in the polls with a platform that
emphasizes closer ties with Russia.

During Yushchenko's presidency, relations with Moscow have reached
historic lows. His approval ratings have fallen to single digits amid
the economic crisis.\

Eurasia Daily Monitor 

http://www.jamestown.org/programs/edm/

Ukrainian Presidential Candidate Viktor Yanukovych: Foreign Policy
Priorities

November 3, 2009 

Category: Eurasia Daily Monitor, Home Page, Domestic/Social, Ukraine 

By: Taras Kuzio
<http://www.jamestown.org/articles-by-author/?no_cache=1&tx_cablanttnews
staffrelation_pi1%5Bauthor%5D=126> 

 

Viktor Yanukovych was put forward as a presidential candidate at the
congress of the Party of Regions on October 23
(www.partyofregions.org.ua, October 23). Yanukovych's foreign policy can
be gauged from several policies that he and his party have previously
supported and the content of his January 17, 2010 election program
"Ukraine For the People!" (www.yanukovych.com.ua, October 28).

During the October 23 congress, Yanukovych promised to provide Ukraine
with a "new foreign policy" as a non-bloc state pursuing its "national
interests" (Ukrayinska Pravda, October 23). Yanukovych's foreign policy
would be more pro-Russian than the pro-Western multi-vector pursued by
President Leonid Kuchma in 1994 to 2004. In Kuchma's first term, Ukraine
actively sought cooperation with the U.S. and NATO and he announced in
2002 Ukraine's intention to seek NATO membership, while one year later
he sent Ukrainian troops to Iraq. Moreover, Yanukovych is more anti-NATO
than Kuchma who was more cognizant of the Russian threat, whether in the
1990's when Moscow refused to recognize Ukraine's borders until
1997-1999, or when it made territorial claims on the island of Tuzla in
2003. Kuchma cut short a visit to Brazil to visit Tuzla as
commander-in-chief ready to rebuff a potential Russian invasion.

In a visit to Brussels on September 14, 2006, Prime Minister Yanukovych
told NATO that Ukraine was not interested in receiving a Membership
Action Plan. Kuchma made Ukraine into one of the most active members of
NATO's Partnership for Peace program and no protests ever took place
that halted annual joint military exercises in Ukraine. Since 2005, the
Party of Regions and its Crimean Russian nationalist-separatist allies
have held protests that have on occasion halted joint exercises with
NATO (EDM, September 18, 2006).

In fact, formally the Party of Regions has never opposed Ukraine's
membership in the E.U., unlike NATO; but, equally they have not taken
any steps to move Ukraine towards E.U. membership. Yanukovych repeatedly
attacks the "Euro-romanticism" of his Orange Revolution opponents,
whether Viktor Yushchenko or Yulia Tymoshenko, believing that Ukraine's
relations with the E.U. should be "pragmatic." Yanukovych told the
October 23 congress that he would support a "new common market" with the
E.U. and the CIS. Ukraine and the E.U. are likely to sign a Free Trade
Zone (FTZ) next year, a step that became possible only after Ukraine
joined the WTO in 2008. One reason as to why the process of joining the
WTO took three years after Ukraine was recognized by the U.S. and E.U.
as a market economy was that the Party of Regions did not vote in
2005-2006 for the legislation that was required to join the WTO.

The Party of Regions has avoided joining any political group in the
European parliament, unlike Tymoshenko's Fatherland and Yushchenko's Our
Ukraine (members of the center-right European People's Party) or the
Socialist Party (members of the Socialist International). All three
members supported the Orange Revolution and Yushchenko's election. The
Party of Regions leaders, such as Mykola Azarov, are strong supporters
of Ukraine fully joining the CIS single economic space. Kuchma only
supported joining the first stage: a free trade zone.

Yanukovych has also adopted Moscow's position on the Georgian
leadership. The Party of Regions initiated a parliamentary commission
into the supply of arms to Georgia that backed Russian claims concerning
Viktor Yushchenko militarily supporting the Georgian President Mikheil
Saakashvili. It was Kuchma who had started a military relationship with
the former Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze -not Yushchenko.
Kuchma initiated the GUAM (Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, and Moldova)
regional group on the basis of common threats from Russian-backed
separatism and energy dependency on Russia. Three of the GUAM members
had frozen conflicts and a fourth, Ukraine, had a potential separatist
conflict in the Crimea. During the 2006-2007 Yanukovych government it
showed little interest in GUAM.

Yanukovych is unlikely to pursue alternative sources of energy in order
to reduce Ukraine's dependency on Russia, a major factor behind GUAM's
creation, and would not support supplying the Odessa-Brody pipeline with
Azeri oil (using it in a south-north direction, rather than north-south
with Russian oil). Yanukovych would invite Russia to join the pipeline
modernization agreement signed by Tymoshenko and the E.U. in March.
Yanukovych might also revive use of the corrupt RosUkrEnergo gas
intermediary that Prime Minister Tymoshenko successfully fought against
in 2006-2008 and finally removed in 2009 from Ukraine's gas relationship
with Russia. An influential gas lobby took control of the Party of
Regions in 2007-2008 and corrupted party politics, parliament and the
presidential secretariat. Energy corruption has proven a major factor in
undermining Yushchenko's presidency (Ukrayinska Pravda, February 12).

Crucially, Yanukovych is leader of a party whose main bases of support
are in Ukraine's two most pro-Russian regions: Donbas and the Crimea.
Yanukovych has faithfully followed the Russian position of blaming
Ukraine's leaders for the deterioration of bilateral relations with
Russia; for example, backing complaints in President Dmitry Medvedev's
August letter to Yushchenko. Yanukovych has supported Russia's lobbying
effort to extend the Black Sea Fleet's lease of Sevastopol indefinitely
beyond 2017 (Kyiv Post, October 24).

Kuchma was a strong opponent of separatism in Ukraine and abroad. For
example, he would never permit pro-regime centrist parties to support
separatism. Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka and other CIS
leaders have not recognized the independence of Abkhazia and South
Ossetia. Party of Regions and the Communist Party supported their
independence in votes in the Ukrainian and Crimean parliaments. Indeed,
140 out of 172 Party of Regions deputies supported the Ukrainian
parliamentary vote, but it failed to be adopted, unlike in the Crimean
parliament, where the For Yanukovych bloc has a majority. In the Crimean
parliament the Party of Regions is aligned with Russian
nationalist-separatists in the For Yanukovych bloc. In the Kuchma era,
the ruling centrist party in the Crimea (Kuchma's party), the People's
Democratic Party (NDP), would not have developed such close links with
Russian nationalist-separatists.

Yanukovych's and Kuchma's multi-vector foreign policies are
fundamentally different, pro-Russian rather than pro-Western and would
take Ukraine back even in relation to the Kuchma era. Yanukovych's
foreign policy is also different from Tymoshenko's pro-Europeanism and
Arseniy Yatseniuk's isolationist nationalism. Ukrainian voters,
therefore, have a clear-cut choice between three distinct courses in
foreign policy.

Eurasia Daily Monitor

November 4, 2009

Electoral Populism in Ukraine Prevails over Economic Wisdom

International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Dominique
Strauss-Kahn on November 2 called Ukraine "a big problem" when asked
about the situation in Central and Eastern Europe as the region worst
hit by the global crisis. Recent steps in the economy aimed to "buy"
voters ahead of the January 17, 2010 presidential election, taken by all
the branches of power without exception, have jeopardized the
implementation of the IMF assistance program worth $16.4 billion.
Ukraine has already received over $10 billion from the IMF, but it
hardly qualifies for the next $3.8 billion tranche expected in November,
as it has reneged on its promises to the IMF to increase domestic gas
prices and abstain from hiking pensions and wages.

A court in Kyiv on September 25 forbade the national energy regulator to
increase the price of gas for heating companies by 20 percent from
October 1. The court acted on a lawsuit filed by trade unions (Ukrainski
Novyny, October 1). The 20 percent price hike for households from
September had been outlawed by another court in August. Both court
verdicts were hailed by Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko who, although
her government promised the hikes to the IMF, is reluctant to increase
domestic gas prices as this may spoil her presidential election
campaign. The IMF demanded higher prices because the status quo over
burdens the budget as the state-controlled Naftohaz Ukrainy oil and gas
behemoth buys gas from Russia at much higher prices than those paid to
Naftohaz by domestic consumers.

Instead of increasing the prices, Tymoshenko approved their lowering in
her traditional electoral stronghold of Kyiv. Kyiv Mayor Leonid
Chernovetsky announced on October 13 that the prices of heating and
water supply would be lowered in November to their pre-June level. The
prices were increased by 50 to 100 percent from June 1 and although
initially many Kyiv residents refused to pay, they had to accept the new
prices. Chernovetsky said that the old prices would return until around
May 2010. He stated that this was possible thanks to Naftohaz Ukrainy's
consent to subsidize Kyiv. Speaking several hours before Chernovetsky,
Tymoshenko had boasted that her cabinet reached an agreement with the
Kyiv authorities to lower utility prices (5 Kanal TV, October 13).

On October 20, ironically when an IMF mission was in Ukraine to check
whether the country qualifies for the next tranche, parliament passed a
bill to increase the minimum monthly wage from the equivalent of $84 to
$109 from January 1 and further in several stages to $115 from December
2010. The bill was backed by all parties except, this time,
Tymoshenko's. This was a compromise solution as the opposition Party of
Regions, in order to please potential voters for its leader Viktor
Yanukovych in the presidential election, insisted on more than doubling
wages and pensions, threatening an open-ended blockade of parliament.
Nevertheless, even such a relatively small increase was in violation of
the promises that Ukraine made to the IMF. Tymoshenko called on
Yushchenko to veto the law (5 Kanal TV, October 20).

A disgruntled IMF mission left Kyiv on October 24 without saying whether
it would recommend that the IMF board disburse the next loan tranche as
scheduled. Instead, the IMF said in its October 25 press release that
the mission reached an agreement with the Ukrainian leadership on the
need for "corrective actions," including a presidential veto on the bill
on higher wages and pensions which, the IMF said, was "at odds with the
objectives of the authorities' program."

However, President Viktor Yushchenko defied the IMF on October 30 by
signing the bill into law. Explaining this decision, he said that it
would be "immoral" to solve state budget problems "at the expense of the
retired, poor and disabled people" (UNIAN, October 30). Similar to
Tymoshenko opposing higher domestic gas prices, Yushchenko's decision
was dictated by populist considerations as he will also run in the
January election. Strauss-Kahn immediately reacted to Yushchenko's
decision. "I'm very worried by the president's agreement to this bill,
which puts the program we had signed off track and in this situation I
am afraid it would be very difficult to complete the next review of the
program," he told Reuters on October 30.

Electoral populism clearly prevails over economic wisdom in Ukraine
ahead of the presidential election. Consequently, the IMF faces a
difficult choice. If Ukraine does not receive the loan tranche expected
in the middle of November, its national currency, which lost some 40
percent of its value in late 2008 and early 2009, will again fall making
economic recovery slower and more painful. If the IMF turns a blind eye
to Kyiv's failure to abide by its conditions, the IMF's prestige will
suffer and Ukraine's finances will be further unbalanced prompting it to
seek additional international loans, including from the IMF.

--Pavel Korduban

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