Ukraine Today - An Independent Political Review

If you think the European Union is having a difficult time in adopting a unified position on the establishment of a constitution to govern the Europe . The troubles facing the EU is nothing compared to the division that exist within Ukraine. The only point of agreement is that the constitution needs change. The current political crisis, brought about by the President, Viktor Yushchenko's dismissal of Ukraine's democratically elected parliament, has highlighted a number of issues that need to be addressed. Parliamentary Democracy versus Presidential Dictatorship There are essentially two main variants on the table, each with a multitude of variations within each variation. Viktor Yushchenko and the Our Ukraine group are advocating a return to a system of Presidential rule by decree where the power and authority of government is invested in the hands of the president, who would have the right to determine who should be prime-minister and hold ministerial positions with the parlia

LEvko of ForiegnNotes has translated the following text from an article by Sonya Koshkina (In Ukrainain). Sonya in her opinion piece raises a provocative hypothesis. A little out of date but worthy of consideration. Extract from Foriegn notes The formation of a democratic mega-bloc has fizzled out, as could have been predicted, in many respects because Yushchenko himself has personally taken over manual control of the process. He has done this in order to simultaneously neutralize both Lutsenko and Tymoshenko - two of his main opponents in the 2009 presidential elections. Once this is accomplished, then he can tackle Yanukovych. Current NU leader Vyacheslav Kirilenko is not a crowd-pulling political heavyweight so Yushchenko has bowed to former socialists Yuriy Lutsenko's demands and promised many of his National self-defence people top jobs in any NU government, in exchange for his joining forces with NU. In this way the popular Lutsenko may be kept in check. The smaller right-

The long and at times agonising negotiations over the formation of a political alliance between Our Ukraine and the breakaway dissident People's Self-Defence party has finally been signed. (Link: Ukrayinska Pravda ). The details of the agreement have not yet been published. The formation of the alliance will put pressure on Yulia Tymoshenko as the new political bloc could very well secure the most votes at the election and as such will decide who will become prime-minister. Previous polls have shown Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc and a possible Our Ukraine alliance neck and neck for public support. Each with around 16-19% of the vote. The established alliance may deliver much needed " public relations " benefits as Our Ukraine tries to bolster its public appeal and win back public trust . The down side is that according to recent polls the People's Self-defence group would receive more then 3% of the vote and as such would have had a reasonable chance of being elected to

There was one poll published on Union news site ,that was not well sourced, that claimed five parties would obtain 3% or more of the vote and enter into parliament. This poll goes against the trend and all other qualitative polls in that it shows a slender win to the opposition forces. Poll Results Party of Regions (PoR) 27.4% Bloc Yulia Tymoshchenko (BYuT) 18.3% Our Ukraine (OU) * 11.0% Communist party of Ukraine (CPU) 4.1% People's Self-Defence (PSD) * 4.5% Socialist Party of Ukraine (SPU) 2.9% Natalie Vitrenko Bloc (NVB) 2.8% Lytvyn Blok (LB) 2.7% Progressive Poll Graph - Percentage of Vote Progressive Poll Graph - Translated into Parliamentary Seats There are a number of inconsistencies in the UNIAN poll analysis. The poll has indicated support for the Lytvyn Party at 2.7% yet last week Lytvyn had announced that he would not be standing for election. The poll also shows The Socialist Party of Ukraine on 2.9% and Natalia Vitrenko block on 2.8%. The error of margin of most polls

Ukranews has published an interesting poll showing who is trusted and who is not in Ukrainian Politics. Once again Ukraine's Prime-minister, Viktor Yanukovych, (45%/51%) is ahead the pack with Ukraine's President, Viktor Yushchenko, (36/60%) trailing behind in the polls. Populist Opposition Leader Yulia Tymoshenko (35%/62%) is just behind Yushchenko followed by Mykola Azarov (33%/41%) and then Olenandr Moroz (33%/61%) Not one politician exceeded the 50% majority ( Which is not surprising, very few politicians enjoy a 50% or more trust rating - Russia's President, Putin who is rated 55% to 60% would have to be an exception rather then the rule ) Graph showing precentage of Trust and Distrust What is also interesting to look at is the spreed between trust and distrust. The greater the spreed the more negative the perception. With a spreed of 44%, Opposition Bloc spokesperson, Natalia Vitrenko (23%/67%) is rated worst then any other politician followed by Yuri Yekhanurov (25

Analysis of a recent poll undertaken by the TRN Ukraine "Omnibus" published by LexisNexis News indicates that Ukraine's President, Viktor Yushchenko would lose the presidential ballot if elections were held last week. Ukraine's Prime-minister, Viktor Yanukovych , received the highest vote on 29.8%, Yulia Tymoshenko on 15.4% and Yushchenko on 11.6%. With the expected fold up in preparation for a " Second round " ballot Viktor Yushchenko would lose to Yulia Tymoshenko . The results of the poll provide another example and reason for urgent electoral reform to abolish the two-round presidential ballot system . With the cost of each ballot estimated to be around 100 Million dollars the two-round system can not be justified given that there are more democratic and effective ways of conducting the election. Ukraine must consider the adoption of a single preferential voting election. One ballot with voters casting a numerical vote in order of preference (1, 2 3

The Ruzumov Center has just released its latest poll which shows similar results to all other polls. Had an election been held last weekend based on the polling survey Party of Regions in coalition with the communist party would have secured an absolute majority of parliamentary seats. Speculation is running think on the ground that Our Ukraine will when faced with reality of the return of the Yanukovych Government will breakaway from Yulia Tymoshemko and try and from an alliance with party of regions to freeze out any influence from the communist party. What is interesting in this poll is that it shows a growth in support for both the dissident break-away Socialist Party Peoples-self defence and the Communist Party of Ukraine. (Up 1.5% points). Poll Results Party Vote% Seats% Seats Party of Regions (PoR) 37.00% -46.60% 210 Bloc Yulia Tymoshenko (BYuT) 21.50% -27.10% 122 Our Ukraine (OU) 10.30% -13.00% 58 People's Self-Defence (PSD) 5.50% -6.90% 31 Communist Party of Ukraine (CPU)

The recent poll undertaken by Omnibus published by UNIAN 25, June 2007 shows that the Government is maintaining its support. Based on the recent polls the Party of Regions is expected to increase their representation to 221 falling just short of the 225/226 required to secure a majority in their own right. All other parties have registered a decline in voter support with the president's party our Ukraine registering only 8%. It is unknown if the poll had taken into consideration the redistribution of 1.2% of voters who had indicated they would support the Lytvyn party prior to Lytvyns announcement that he would not be seeking to contest the September election. Poll Results Party of regions (PoR) on 31.7% Yulia Tymoshcneko's Bloc (BYuT) on 17.8% Our Ukraine (OU) on 8.3% People's Self-Defence Party (PSD)on 3.5% Communist Party of Ukraine (CPU) on 3.3% The Socialist Party (SPU) on 1.4% have suffered the highest fall in terms of percentage of their 2006 poll result with m

The table below records recent public opinion polling results since the start of the current political crisis. The data below shows Our Ukraine and People's Self-Defence party as separate entries. If the two party's combine it is difficult to know at this stage  what percentage of the People's Self-Defence party will stay with the alliance. Clearly the battle ground is focused on the various split within the socialist's movement. If the People's Self-Defence Party is added to the Our Ukraine Vote then Yulia Tymoshenko will once again be the bride's maid and not the bride. The published polls are yet to redistribute the Lytvyn party bloc (1.2%) which recently announced it was not going to contest the September election.     Date 15/06/2007 29/05/2007 7/05/2007 24/04/2007 23/04/2007 19/04/2007 Poll Ukrainian Barometer Sofia Social Studies FOM-Ukraine Kyiv Internation