Ukraine May Tip to the West or to the Past in Voting

[NoPasaran]

KIEV, Ukraine — Amid fears that disputes over the vote count could trigger violence, citizens head to the polls here today in a presidential election marked by a fierce battle between pro-Western and Moscow-oriented candidates.

Opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko, widely viewed as a free-market democratic reformer, is facing Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich, who is popular in Ukraine's largely Russian-speaking east, in an exceptionally harsh campaign.

Thirteen years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the election marks a critical moment in Ukraine's history. The outcome could move this country of 48 million either toward warmer ties with Western Europe and the United States or back into a tighter post-Soviet relationship with Russia.

The election, said Igor Zaytsev, a 31-year-old businessman who supports Yushchenko, will decide "whether it will be yesterday or tomorrow in Ukraine."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-ukraine31oct31.story

[Ekova]

1. Huge election for Ukraine

Putin is becoming more crooked by the second... Hopefully the people will get the leader they chose.

[Wright Patman]

2. I knew an exchange student

from Ukraine. She spent a year at the local high school about 10 years ago.

She was from Lviv (or Lvov as it was known in Soviet times) in the western part of the country. The people east of the Dniepr River are predominantly Russians and Russian-speakers. They still call her city Lvov. It's a minor thing, but it grates on her.

Ten years ago there was an election which put a guy named Leonid Kuchma in office. He was the Russian candidate, IIRC. I heard the girl on the phone with a friend from back home who was a Russian-speaker. She told me the conversation had turned ugly over politics as the Russian speaker was gloating about his candidate's victory.

I don't know who is favored, but I would imagine that * is so hated that the candidate representing the interests of the eastern part of the country would probably win. I would imagine whichever party is responsible for Ukraine's contribution to the "coalition" would lose, assuming an honest election, which apparently can no longer be safely assumed anywhere in the world outside of possibly Western Europe and Scandinavia and maybe Canada.

[NoPasaran]

3. Ukrainian politics are very hard to follow

Because for the most part parties are goupings around powerful individuals, not coherant political platforms. For the past year or so I have been more concerned about the future of this country and have kind of lost track of happenings in the land of my ancestors (Ternopol area, the oblast to the east of Lviv). But it's clear that Kuchma is a thug who wants to hang on to power and so he hopes to install Yanukovich as his puppet.

[Wright Patman]

4. I didn't know Kuchma

was still in power. Well, forget what I said then. He was the Russian interests' representative to begin with.

If those who can trace their ancestry back there can't predict it, I sure won't even attempt to.