Chicken in Kyiv: The pragmatist’s hope for Ukraine 2012
Currently watching events from Warsaw, Ukraine’s parliamentary elections look potentially messy. On the one hand, the election law is clearly designed to wrap things up for the incumbent powers that be, and this is being reinorced by various political technologies such as well-funded decoy parties and the invented ‘language issue’ most likely designed and timed to get Eastern and Southern Ukrainians’ eyes off the ball. On the other hand, the political capital built up by the previous three major elections (two parliamentary and one presidential) are the last remaining pillar of integrity that Ukraine has comparing to its peers Belarus and Russia. If election day is marred by ballot-stuffing, bussed-in voters and other tomfoolery that last remaining pillar will dissolve and two and a half years of deterioration of democracy and freedom in Ukraine will be utterly rubber-stamped. I’m personally sceptical about whether violations can be avoided given the disposition of the rank and file of those now in power, for whom the art of the possible trumps constitutionalism every time.