What Ukrainians will need to find someone to vote for if new elections are held

It's again been over two weeks since my last post. For that I apologize to readers again. That's what I get for trying to study full time and work full time, I guess.

And while I've been learning the intricacies of Japanese grammar, the Ukrainian constitutional court has been ruling whether Yushchenko can dismiss Parliament and if new elections will be held. Ukrainian politicians have spent the time talking almost twice as much as usual, if that can be imagined.

Not to each other of course.

Ready for Anything Except Negotiation

To give you a bit of foreshadowing, a compromise may be in the offing between Yushchenko and Yanukovych (more later in the entry). But if so, it comes after truly astounding displays of irresponsibility.

Those of us who are married probably know how one should handle disagreements with our spouses. You meet with the person and both express what the issue is for you in non-emotional terms, and then try to work out a reasonable compromise.

Ukrainian politicians have never been as close as loved ones, in fact, they generally have about the same amount of affection for each other as piranhas. With no love to betray, they should logically be immune to any emotional hurt caused by one another, and thus the process of rational compromise should be that much easier for them. After all, even the toothy fish manage to reach some sort of agreement whereby they don't annihilate one another.

Instead, Yanukovych has been whining to PACE about Yushchenko, Yushchenko has been whining to the EU about Yanukovych. And Tymoshenko has been whining to the entire world... about Russia.

As Zerkalo Nedeli aptly put it:

The quest for international support started on the very first day of the confrontation, which some in the mass media have called Ukraine’s most serious political crisis since the Orange Revolution. By appealing to the international community so actively and loudly, the political leaders of both the pro-government coalition and the opposition have demonstrated their helplessness, narrow-mindedness, and inability to search for rational and acceptable solutions.

And how has the world reacted? About like you should expect a neighbor to react if you decided to unburden yourself about all your spouse's problems to them.  They quite reasonably refuse to take sides and give the standard answer that the politicians should work out their difficulties without violence. What were these three expecting?

But in the meantime, Yanukovych has said Yushchenko and his aids will be "carried out on pitchforks" for calling new elections, both he and Yushchenko have accused each other of coups. Tymoshenko snaked the price for least helpful from both of them, though, by delivering a laundry list of Russia's problems to Foreign Affairs which includes a comparison to Nazi Germany. 

Ok, so accepting that Russia does have significant problems. (One of the best pieces on these events so far, as is often the case, comes from Ann Appelbaum, and the conclusion is basically that the only good thing that can be said of what is going on in Ukraine is that as messy as it is, it's still loads better than in Russia)

However, I've had a going rule here at Orange Ukraine that the first time you mention someone you dislike and "Nazi" in the same sentence publicly, you lose 50% of any respect I have for you to date instantaneously. What in the name of all things holy is Tymoshenko doing giving Russia a public dressing down at a time like this? It is as if she's so unwilling to even speak to anyone else in the government she's taken to sulking in a corner and pointing out everyone else's flaws. Or perhaps she watched Putin's noteworthy attempt to reprimand Western European governments and, disregarding how obviously it flopped, has decided that looks like a good idea.

After Running Out of People to Whine To

Now, however, despite the lack of much negotiating going on, Yushchenko and Yanukovych may be edging towards a compromise. Yushchenko has always been a compromiser, though he doesn't generally have the consistency or resolve to make his behavior a virtue, so there is a good chance that some form of compromise will eventually be reached.

It's a toss up if this is progress or not. Having to choose from this lot of politicians again in a new election is not something I should in conscience wish on Ukrainians, but any time in which they are called upon to make the decisions for the country is another time when they are given political power. From the morass, also, Vitrenko, as a particularly oily kind of much, may float to the top again. Frankly, the Socialists may be preferrable to that. But again, the other body being called upon to choose here is the Constitutional Court, and if that body were forced to make an actual decision for a change, it would be some progress. Hard to tell what the best option is here.

All in all, it makes Ukrainians willingness to even consider new elections a remarkable display of civic duty. Either that or a new and understandable desire to vote "against all".