the kid nobody wants on his team 

After a few opening forays last month (a couple promises to voters snuck into other speeches as politicians tried to sneak past campaign laws here and there), the pitches are flying. Here's a helpful roundup of political slogans of the month, from ForUm. What do you all say: in this group of pitches, which are the foul balls, and which are the strikes?

And among the former orange parties, the repositioning continues. Current poll ratings indicate that the joint group of Yushchenko's Nasha Ukrayina (NU) and Lutsenko and Kyrylenko's National Self-Defense (NS) in a single bloc (NUNS) has already draw quite close to the ratings of Tymoshenko's BYuT. (Must... control urge to make "Nuns on the Run" jokes, must... control urge...). There is even some discussion of a BYuT and NUNS uniting for another election.

One development that may help NU reunite with BYuT is that it continues to sideline some of the opposing friends in its own ranks. The most recent two have been Yekhanurov and Bezsmirtniy. I've never thought much of Bezsmirtniy as a politician. so seeing him go seems like a good move to me. Yekhanurov, I'll admit I liked back when he became PM. I would have preferred no break with BYuT to having him, but he talked some economic sense and I was amazed at how much Zerkalo Nedeli seemed to like him.

He's always been part of the "rapprochement with Yanukovych before Tymoshenko" wing of NU, though, so in the interest of seeing Ukrainian voters get some options in the election, it's probably best that he's getting shunted back to the minor leagues off in Dnipropetrovsk.

Yushchenko maintaining his Kuchma-era stance, and abandoning it

However, in a way very similar to his past behavior Yushchenko is again trying court oligarchs at the same time as he's uniting with anti-oligarch parties. Here he is taking an active hand in ousting his own PoR-friendly deputies because they're losing voters for him, as well as trying to rescue NU by bringing it together with more confrontational anti-oligarch parties, but at the same time trying to appeal to oligarchs? I really don't get what his angle is, and it can't help his relations with either NS or BYuT to be chumming with their avowed opponents, let alone voters.

More troubling still than his reverting to past form is a contradiction pointed out by Zerkalo Nedeli: Yushchenko is also agitating for reforms to the Constitution that would increase presidential power, move the country towards authoritarianism, and create "a coffin for Ukrainian democracy". The quote isn't mine, and it isn't ZN's, either. It's Yushchenko 2000's quote, when Kuchma proposed exactly the same raft of reforms. Now would be a good time for him to cut the hypocrisy and work with what he's got.

The all center-rightist candidate list

 One group of people that no one is making overtures to now, though, is the Socialists. I've mentioned this fact in the last couple entries, but wanted to at least pause in this one to contemplate this important point. With the Socialists on their way out, by all poll numbers, and the Communists reduced to perhaps 5-6% of the Rada at most, Ukrainians electoral choices seem to include no significant leftist groups.

First take a look at the other parties to see where they're located. BYuT, like it's founder has ever been more populist than leftist; much more likely to dance around the middle where they might win points with voters on both sides than run out and stake an reduced-free-market stance. NS is pretty much a one-note party, with the note being "fight corruption". In any case, Lutsenko wasn't sufficiently devoted to left-leaning policies to give up a chance to join in a block with NU. NU has always had its allies in big business, and even if they're being sidelined now, Yushchenko seems determined to make new ones. That leaves, PoR, which has more big business ties than any other party in the Rada, and thus has even less incentive than they do to take a leftist stand that would damage those ties.

All of which means that Ukrainians can choose from different personalities this September, but not substantially different ideologies. What an amazingly narrow breadth of choice! Their ballot slips are going to look almost like Soviet-era store shelves: only a few things to choose from, and not much to differentiate any them.

This being a speculation about a non-phenomenon (the lack of left) I really don't have any links or events to hang this section on. But I would certainly love opinions and speculation on the potential effects of this imbalance.

Ideas?