or should that be lowlives?

It's been a long while again since the last Orange Ukraine post. It's probably going to be even longer to the next one, since we'll be moving out of our place in Japan and then traveling for a month. But at the very least I owe y'all a pre-election roundup, yes?

Poll Numbers Steady, but Some PoR Decline 

The situation seems little changed since the middle of August. Polling numbers are holding steady with PoR at around 30%, BYuT at 16%, NUNS at 12%, and Communists at 6%. This mirrors "who would you vote for President" and "who would you vote for PM" poll numbers. (More fun numbers: Yushchenko can at least take heart that Ukrainians think he's the best President modern Ukraine has had, meaning better than Kuchma and Kravchuk.)

Essentially, it seems the only political names that matter are Yanukovych, Yushchenko and Tymoshenko. Much the pity that the parties themselves can hide under the skirts of their leaders, as it were. Ukrayinska Pravda has profiles of some of those skirt-hiders: politicians who get elected because they're on party lists, even though Ukrainians are given no idea who they are. Good to be reminded about the questionables and unknowns that move freely in Ukrainian politics, precisely because they are about big names.

During the campaign, NSNU has, as usual, not pitched anything worth hearing to the Ukrainian electorate, so its polling numbers have been unchanged. The Party of Regions has lost a few polling numbers. My mother-in-law clued me in to a particularly funny example. Tymoshenko, who's clearly been running the best campaign (no surprises), just visited Kharkiv. While there, she managed to turn out a crowd of tens of thousands, (estimated on UNIAN at 50,000) and raise her party's rating by 5%. However, as a result of the same visit, Yanukovych's rating fell approximately 12%. Now that's a populist firebrand: she can increase her own standing a little bit, sure, but boy can she deflate the other guy.

Should PoR deputies' surety of their standing decline sufficiently, they are likely to try to scupper the results. Foreign Notes, and others, have speculated that this is the reason for the meeting of the Rada over Yushchenko's objections on September 5 (this represented a bit of an about-face for PoR, which had rejected this behavior when Moroz proposed it in July). The gist of the meeting is that if the vote is questionable in any way, all results are null and void, the March 2006 Rada remains. It's certainly too early to know if they will want to annul the results, let alone if they'll be able to if they try.

Dead Words - This Campaign's Empty Promises

The slogans from March 2006 have all come back for a reunion tour, and remind me of a comedian I once heard on Satellite radio. She said that if she ever went into politics, every bill she ever submitted, regardless of its content, would be called the "Be Nice to Retarded Kids" bill. That way, whenever she was up for reelection, and things started to get difficult at the end she'd say "Y'know, I didn't want to say this, but my opponent did vote against the 'Be Nice to Retarded Kids' bill. Sad, sad...."

1) Deputy Immunity: Top of the list is getting rid of deputy immunity. Everybody, but everybody in this race has deputy immunity on their platform. PoR does, NSNU does, and BYuT does. None of them sincerely believe it will happen, because the majorities in their own parties will vote against it happening. Ukrainains know this (see the 63% who pegged "free publicity" as the reason for the September 5 Rada meeting). They know that deputies will not vote themselves more difficulties, whether or not it's the right thing to do. They know that the words of these promises were dead before they left the politicians' lips.

2) Shifting of Power to the President: Tymoshenko's biggest campaign slogan is distinguishable from this previous in that hers is actually sincere. She has been campaigning for a referendum vote to be held in conjunction with the parliamentary vote that would shift more power from Parliament to President. She wants this because, on current estimates, the next two presidential contenders will be her and Yanukovych. Assuming that she will win, she wants to have lots of powers waiting for her when she gets the presidency.

The legal problem is that the referendum needs to be scheduled at least three-months ahead of time. Tymoshenko certainly knows this, but it does her no harm to stump for something popular even knowing that it can't go through for legal reasons. (It's popular probably because voters dislike the Rada and are happier when they get to be the ones making decisions.)

She would have Yushchenko behind her, but one good way in which he has distinguished himself  in the past is that he works within legal guidelines. Even though he is also for more presidential power, (see this previous entry or this VOA article), he's sticking within the legal framework. For this he deserves some praise, though his desire for the increased power is not praiseworthy.

3) Clean Elections: Yanukovych wants to clean up the elections. Actually, considering his infamous linguistic follies, perhaps that was just a mishearing. Probably he meant "sweep", he would like to "sweep the elections". (Though I must add that I've heard he's been making many fewer speaking mistakes this time around. That he can speak in correct sentences is not a reason to vote for the guy, but it beats his behavior three years ago.)

Meanwhile, Akhmetov is making off with state assets at bargain prices, in a way that calls to mind his thievery of Kryvorizhstal (along with Pinchuk) before the 2004 presidential election. And miners are protesting against neglect of state-run mines, citing broken promises of state investment in the sector. I guess Yanukovych's famous camaraderie with miners and easterners didn't count for much, huh?

Economic Good News Roundup

Top of the good news is a report by Business Ukraine (nice to see more from another Ukraine-focused English-language news organization) on the fabulous growth of outsourced software development in Ukraine. There's also a BusinessWeek round-up of old news, and similar stats from the PR NewsWire (via Kiev Ukraine News Blog).

Other news includes the continued influx of foreign direct investment. In July, PepsiCo bought Sandora, Ukraine's leading juice maker.

Before we suck down enough percentages to get as optimism drunk as emerging market investors: the OECD has a report that is highly critical of Ukraine's long-term chances unless much needed political reforms start getting implemented soon (the eight-page policy brief).