Wednesday, November 09, 2005
Sent NOV 1, 2004:
Greetings Family and Friends,
Here is your definitive report on what's happening in Ukraine, coming to you from Pidhajtsi, where they once again have an internet connection (hooray!). Mind you, I will be writing only about the two major candidates likely to win this contest or to go on to a further run-off election:
It is Monday, the day after the presidential elections, and as of 1 PM, there still has been no official declaration about the outcome (things move more slowly in general in Ukraine than in the West, so this is no surprise).
Voting took place yesterday from 8AM to 8PM. Throughout the evening most official, i.e., state-sponsored exit polls consistently showed Viktor Janukovych, the status quo candidate, with the lead, however slight, over the opposition candidate Viktor Jushchenko. However, one needs to keep in mind that a) these are only exit polls, and b) that this is Ukaine, i.e., a post-totalitarian nation still not used to openness because openness still doesn't fully exist, a nation in which intimidation tactics still take place (although in limited fashion, but enough to make some people feel threatened), and so some people still fear answering such polls honestly.
However, one should also keep in mind that exit polls taken by the Viktor Jushchenko campaign--which has its own election observers in nearly every voting location throughout the country--have consistently claimed Jushchenko as having the lead over Janukovych.
At 7AM this morning the central electoral commission made an announcement that, with 60% of ballots counted, Janukovych was in the lead. This statement was repeated again at 11AM, with 90% of ballots counted. As of 11 AM, the official count was 40% for Janukovych, 38% for Jushchenko. However, the Jushchenko campaign also made a statement today that, according to their own election observers, Jushchenko had actually thus far garnered 46% of the vote, while Janukovych 33%. Regardless, it seems today that opinion is that there will be a second, run-off election on November 21, in contradistinction to the overall media consensus last night that one of the two candidates would gain a clear majority.
Ukraine's electoral system for the presidency is direct--there is no electoral college. To win the election one must garner at least 50% of the vote. If no candidate wins 50%, there will be a run-off election between the top two candidates. The run-off for this election is scheduled for November 21, but we still await the official statement of the central electoral commission.
As for the issue of the fairness and openness of this election, rumors and accusations of voting violations and intimidation tactics abound this morning and afternoon, with both sides--the status quo supporters of Janukovych and the opposition of Jushchenko-- pointing fingers.
The first rumor is that there has been tampering with voter rolls even before the start of the election. Many people had their surnames misspelled on voter rolls, and the news media throughout the night kept reminding people to take with them all possible documents to verify the correct spelling of their names and to back up their right to vote. There are rumors that election officials, most especially in the eastern and central part of the country, have attempted to use these incongruencies as a pretext for preventing people from voting. The sense is that this was a deliberate intervention designed to create enough confusion so as to discourage people--especially undecided voters--from voting, under the assumption that lower voter turn out, especially among the undecided who might be most discouraged, would help the campaign of Viktor Janukovych.
Another rumor concerns events in the Kirovohrad. According to the rumor, Viktor Jushchenko was announced as having won a clear majority there with well over 50% of the vote. Then, allegedly an order from on high came (via telephone) to the electoral commission, and some fiasco ensued in which the already-counted ballots have disappeared.
Another story is that altogether, in numerous places scattered throughout the country, but mostly once again in the eastern and central regions, thousands of names of dead people have been on voter rolls, and buses and trains of the formerly dead have been arriving to vote.
Then, last night during a press conference held by an official of the Janukovych campaign to discuss the progress of the election in general, the claim was made that people in parts of western Ukraine were attempting to vote on the behalf of relatives working abroad. Millions of western Ukrainians are working and living abroad, and the issue of giving these Ukrainians the right to vote from abroad has been a hotly debated issue leading up to the elections.
Then from my own Pidhajtsi--last night, two people working as election observers (one being my father’s first cousin) complained to me that a fellow election observer from the eastern Ukrainian city of Dnipropetrovsk was trying hard all day to prove or justify his claims that this or that violation had taken place. There are "independent" observers working at election centers all over Ukraine, including 3,000 foreign observers. Many Western Ukrainians have gone to the eastern parts of the country to be observers, as well as the vice-versa. A group of observers here in Pidhajtsi confronted this fellow and told him that if he is here as an observer and not as a Janukovych agitator, then he should get to the business of observing rather than obstructing the election proceedings by consistently crying wolf.
Mind you that all these stories with the sole exception of the one above from Pidhajtsi are unverified reports from Radio (Radio Era, one of the few sources of information hailed as fairly open and free in Ukraine), and should be treated as rumors until further notice. In the case of the Pidhajtsi story, however, the jury is still out as to whether or not this fellow was attempting to deliberately obstruct the elections, or was just an inexperienced or overzealous observer. Only time will tell, when comparisons can be made between this incident and other similar incidents being reported from around the country today--of which there are many. Both of the major sides of this campaign are making claims that this kind of interference has been engaged in by so-called neutral observers loyal to one or the other of the major candidates.
Thus, along these lines, Viktor Janukovych made a statement today announcing that there have been many violations, but since I did not hear the statement myself but just a brief radio announcement that gave no details, I do not know yet what specific violations he is claiming. Viktor Jushchenko also made a brief statement early today in which he claimed that according to the count of his own staff of election observers, he was in the lead with 46% of the vote and Janukovych at 33%. He also congratulated the citizens of Ukraine for participating in a successful election in a statement clearly designed to avoid giving any positive credence to the role of the presidential administration in this election.
Now to some general issues--yesterday before leaving L'viv for Pidhajtsi, I visited the cite where the activist group PORA! (Now's the Time!) had been gathering and spending the night in the days before election. PORA! is a group that is officially nonpartisan, and whose purpose is to get out the vote and to agitate for free and fair elections (although privately most PORA! activists are for Jushchenko). Students and activists had built a series of "barricades" around the base of the memorial to Ivan Franko (a 19th century Ukrainian writer, activist, professor, socialist, and hero of the people) which is located in front of the Ivan Franko National University of L'viv just on the edges of the historic center of the city, in a symbolic action designed to motivate people to vote and to announce that the Ukrainian citizenry would not tolerate any tampering with the election. However, Ukrainian law does not allow campaigning on the day of the election, and the students in L'viv feared that although they are nonpartisan, they would fall victim to police provocation, and abandoned their "barricades" while leaving behind a large banner, fastened around the base of the Ivan Franko memorial, stating:
MY NA VYBORAKH
BO NAM
NE BAJDUZHE!
MY HOTOVI
POVERNUTYS'!
WE HAVE GONE TO VOTE
BECAUSE WE
ARE NOT INDIFFERENT!
WE ARE READY
TO RETURN!
(sorry about the poor quality picture; I did not yet have a decent camera with me at the time. . .)
In the month and days leading up to the election, both PORA! and the Jushchenko campaign had called on supporters to peacefully demonstrate in front of the offices of the central election commission in Kyiv and in front of election offices throughout the country to demand free and fair elections, and they called on their supporters to hold vigil until the votes were counted and the official declaration of results were made. However, sometime either yesterday or the day before, Jushchenko called off his request for such demonstrations, as did PORA, apparently following his lead.
Now for my own personal analysis, this is a very regrettable decision. Many of the people I know here, and myself as well, would have woken up this morning feeling much relieved to know that there were (hopefully) thousands of people demonstrating and holding vigil for a fair election. The presidential administration of Leonid Kuchma, which supports the candidacy of Janukovych, does not want to see a repetition here in Ukraine of the Rose Revolution that last year swept the corrupt oligarchy out of power in the Republic of Georgia, and fears seeing people demonstrating on the streets. Viktor Janukovych himself stated last week just before the election that such demonstrations would put undo pressure on the electorate, misunderstanding to my mind two fundamental points: that the demonstrations were not to be for any particular candidate but for a fair election (which he actually probably accurately understood as a call for Jushchenko to win, since everyone projects that Jushchenko would win a fair election. . .), and second that demonstrations are the backbone of democracy. Democracy does not consist only in the right to vote but also the right to form whatever political bodies one so deems and also to meet with whomever in public and to demonstrate publicly for one's beliefs. Most likely, Jushchenko called off the demonstrations so as to avoid looking bad as he did after last week's debacle in front of the central electoral commission in Kyiv, and also it has been suggested that he may have feared police provocation with the result of turning the peaceful demonstrations into violent clashes that might turn some voters away from him.
However, regardless of all this, there are reports on the radio that students in the town of Chernivtsi have gathered in the central square and declared a student strike in support of the activist group PORA and the cause of a free and fair election. They have declared their intent to stay put until the results of this election are known. At the time I heard the report, around 10:30 AM, already 150 students had arrived, and more and more were coming.
Back in L'viv, posters put up by PORA! had also called for a gathering to take place today , the day after the election, at 11 AM in the place of their former barricades. I have tried getting info from friends in L'viv, as radio has said nothing about what's happening in L'viv, but as of yet I know nothing. Undoubtedly, the intention is the same as those gathering in Chernivtsi--to demonstrate for fairness. Thus, apparently demonstrations were called off for election day, but the general call for more demos may go out again today, while those already occurring may gain steam throughout the day, as people eagerly await the official announcement of the election result.
And one more thing--a CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) statement on the election in Ukraine (the CIS has its own observers here) has declared that the election, including the entire campaign season leading up to yesterday's still undecided contest, had been free and fair. This contrasts with the findings of every western agency to have observed the progress of the election campaign. Thus it is important to note that the CIS is just a puppet organization for all the oligarchs in each of the former Soviet republics except the Baltic states dedicated to maintaining their corrupt, oligarchic control, and in many ways is merely an institution of Russian neoimperialism, especially economic neocolonialism. Anyhow, it is abundantly clear from the perspective of anyone in Ukraine that the State television has given undo precedent to Janukovych, and that the presidential administration of Leonid Kuchma--which technically should remain completely neutral in the campaign--has used its what is called in Ukraine "administrative resources" to promote in every possible manner Janukovych's candidacy.
In conclusion I want to say that at least here in Pidhajtsi, people seem upbeat and hopeful. People are smiling at and greeting one another in a more upbeat and genuine spirit than is normal, and one fellow, after I greeted him with "Good Day," said in response, "Hooray Jushchenko!" There seems to be tremendous relief that this election has not--not yet, at least--been just completely, shamelessly, bald-facedly stolen by the powers-that-be, and that it seems that there will be a second round of voting. The sense seems to be spreading here that a huge battle has been won in the civil war for Ukraine's future. One cannot overestimate what a Jushchenko victory would mean to the people in this town, and in similar towns all throughout Ukraine. To many people, Ukraine desperately needs Jushchenko to win, a sentiment with which I also agree. Ukraine needs Jushchenko as president not because Ukraine stands on the verge of becoming a military dictatorship like Zabuzhko fears; and not because it in some absolute sense needs the West or the EU (to my mind, Ukraine is actually doing quite well directing itself between the EU and Russia, while also seeking other Asian and African partnerships, which is NOT a tacit approval of Kuchma, however. . .there are other ways of navigating between Russia and the EU than Kuchma's brutal and mostly proRussian path; and also, the EU expansion into central Europe is turning out to be something of a very mixed blessing for the central European states, in that the expansion seems to have created a European variant of NAFTA on an West-East axis. . .). Ukraine needs Jushchenko because it needs someone who will stear a clear course of autonomy and independence from Russia (which is possible, even outside of the EU. .). This is a cultural, political, and economic imperative. Thus far, throughout independent Ukraine's contemporary history, not enough has been done to curb the ever-increasing predominance of Russian economic, political, and cultural capital in Ukraine. Ukraine's economy and political system has drifted ever closer to reintegration with that of Russia's; the use of Russian has increased in homes in even the most Ukrainian parts of Ukraine (although a parallel development has also occurred in that use of Ukrainian in predominantly Russian parts has also increased); and Ukrainian arts and popular culture still drag behind their Russian variants in Ukraine. There are more movies and books from the west translated into Russian, and there are even defections of Ukrainian pop artists--singers--to a Russian-speaking audience. The list of things goes on and on. Ukraine's distinctive culture seems threatened, or that is what many people here in the western part of the country fear.
But beyond that, and perhaps more importantly, someone needs to reform the oligarchic system and to try to limit the corruption. That is, I don't think that corruption will ever totally disappear. The US government, especially under the Bush administration, has a lot of corruption going on within it as well, but its not as bald-faced and obvious as it is here in Ukraine; which is to say, corruption in Ukraine is way out of control and doesn't have to hide behind closed doors, secret meetings, midnight riders to bills, etc., as it does in the US. It is clear that Janukovych will only continue the oligarchy, and perhaps deepen it. And although there are other reformers running (I especially like Oleksandr Moroz, Ukraine's closest thing to a western European social democrat), Jushchenko is the only one likely to win (i.e., is the most popular of all the reformers). Of course, the path to reform is a long and arduous one full of many dangers and potential failures, and of course some his most enthusiastic supporters may become his most ardent critics if he does indeed become president and the pace of reform is slow. . .but that is a subject for another day!
It is safe to say that here, in western Ukraine at least, a Jushchenko victory would help greatly to increase people's self-confidence, the lack thereof, I have written elsewhere, is one of the biggest problems in this country. The people of this country need a government that is both very, actively and not just passively, proUkrainian and anti-corruption, to help them on the path of overcoming their postcolonial depression and underestimation of the value of their country and their own self-worth as a people.
Today, people in Pidhajtsi are indeed walking around more proudly than usual.
Stefan
Here is your definitive report on what's happening in Ukraine, coming to you from Pidhajtsi, where they once again have an internet connection (hooray!). Mind you, I will be writing only about the two major candidates likely to win this contest or to go on to a further run-off election:
It is Monday, the day after the presidential elections, and as of 1 PM, there still has been no official declaration about the outcome (things move more slowly in general in Ukraine than in the West, so this is no surprise).
Voting took place yesterday from 8AM to 8PM. Throughout the evening most official, i.e., state-sponsored exit polls consistently showed Viktor Janukovych, the status quo candidate, with the lead, however slight, over the opposition candidate Viktor Jushchenko. However, one needs to keep in mind that a) these are only exit polls, and b) that this is Ukaine, i.e., a post-totalitarian nation still not used to openness because openness still doesn't fully exist, a nation in which intimidation tactics still take place (although in limited fashion, but enough to make some people feel threatened), and so some people still fear answering such polls honestly.
However, one should also keep in mind that exit polls taken by the Viktor Jushchenko campaign--which has its own election observers in nearly every voting location throughout the country--have consistently claimed Jushchenko as having the lead over Janukovych.
At 7AM this morning the central electoral commission made an announcement that, with 60% of ballots counted, Janukovych was in the lead. This statement was repeated again at 11AM, with 90% of ballots counted. As of 11 AM, the official count was 40% for Janukovych, 38% for Jushchenko. However, the Jushchenko campaign also made a statement today that, according to their own election observers, Jushchenko had actually thus far garnered 46% of the vote, while Janukovych 33%. Regardless, it seems today that opinion is that there will be a second, run-off election on November 21, in contradistinction to the overall media consensus last night that one of the two candidates would gain a clear majority.
Ukraine's electoral system for the presidency is direct--there is no electoral college. To win the election one must garner at least 50% of the vote. If no candidate wins 50%, there will be a run-off election between the top two candidates. The run-off for this election is scheduled for November 21, but we still await the official statement of the central electoral commission.
As for the issue of the fairness and openness of this election, rumors and accusations of voting violations and intimidation tactics abound this morning and afternoon, with both sides--the status quo supporters of Janukovych and the opposition of Jushchenko-- pointing fingers.
The first rumor is that there has been tampering with voter rolls even before the start of the election. Many people had their surnames misspelled on voter rolls, and the news media throughout the night kept reminding people to take with them all possible documents to verify the correct spelling of their names and to back up their right to vote. There are rumors that election officials, most especially in the eastern and central part of the country, have attempted to use these incongruencies as a pretext for preventing people from voting. The sense is that this was a deliberate intervention designed to create enough confusion so as to discourage people--especially undecided voters--from voting, under the assumption that lower voter turn out, especially among the undecided who might be most discouraged, would help the campaign of Viktor Janukovych.
Another rumor concerns events in the Kirovohrad. According to the rumor, Viktor Jushchenko was announced as having won a clear majority there with well over 50% of the vote. Then, allegedly an order from on high came (via telephone) to the electoral commission, and some fiasco ensued in which the already-counted ballots have disappeared.
Another story is that altogether, in numerous places scattered throughout the country, but mostly once again in the eastern and central regions, thousands of names of dead people have been on voter rolls, and buses and trains of the formerly dead have been arriving to vote.
Then, last night during a press conference held by an official of the Janukovych campaign to discuss the progress of the election in general, the claim was made that people in parts of western Ukraine were attempting to vote on the behalf of relatives working abroad. Millions of western Ukrainians are working and living abroad, and the issue of giving these Ukrainians the right to vote from abroad has been a hotly debated issue leading up to the elections.
Then from my own Pidhajtsi--last night, two people working as election observers (one being my father’s first cousin) complained to me that a fellow election observer from the eastern Ukrainian city of Dnipropetrovsk was trying hard all day to prove or justify his claims that this or that violation had taken place. There are "independent" observers working at election centers all over Ukraine, including 3,000 foreign observers. Many Western Ukrainians have gone to the eastern parts of the country to be observers, as well as the vice-versa. A group of observers here in Pidhajtsi confronted this fellow and told him that if he is here as an observer and not as a Janukovych agitator, then he should get to the business of observing rather than obstructing the election proceedings by consistently crying wolf.
Mind you that all these stories with the sole exception of the one above from Pidhajtsi are unverified reports from Radio (Radio Era, one of the few sources of information hailed as fairly open and free in Ukraine), and should be treated as rumors until further notice. In the case of the Pidhajtsi story, however, the jury is still out as to whether or not this fellow was attempting to deliberately obstruct the elections, or was just an inexperienced or overzealous observer. Only time will tell, when comparisons can be made between this incident and other similar incidents being reported from around the country today--of which there are many. Both of the major sides of this campaign are making claims that this kind of interference has been engaged in by so-called neutral observers loyal to one or the other of the major candidates.
Thus, along these lines, Viktor Janukovych made a statement today announcing that there have been many violations, but since I did not hear the statement myself but just a brief radio announcement that gave no details, I do not know yet what specific violations he is claiming. Viktor Jushchenko also made a brief statement early today in which he claimed that according to the count of his own staff of election observers, he was in the lead with 46% of the vote and Janukovych at 33%. He also congratulated the citizens of Ukraine for participating in a successful election in a statement clearly designed to avoid giving any positive credence to the role of the presidential administration in this election.
Now to some general issues--yesterday before leaving L'viv for Pidhajtsi, I visited the cite where the activist group PORA! (Now's the Time!) had been gathering and spending the night in the days before election. PORA! is a group that is officially nonpartisan, and whose purpose is to get out the vote and to agitate for free and fair elections (although privately most PORA! activists are for Jushchenko). Students and activists had built a series of "barricades" around the base of the memorial to Ivan Franko (a 19th century Ukrainian writer, activist, professor, socialist, and hero of the people) which is located in front of the Ivan Franko National University of L'viv just on the edges of the historic center of the city, in a symbolic action designed to motivate people to vote and to announce that the Ukrainian citizenry would not tolerate any tampering with the election. However, Ukrainian law does not allow campaigning on the day of the election, and the students in L'viv feared that although they are nonpartisan, they would fall victim to police provocation, and abandoned their "barricades" while leaving behind a large banner, fastened around the base of the Ivan Franko memorial, stating:
MY NA VYBORAKHBO NAM
NE BAJDUZHE!
MY HOTOVI
POVERNUTYS'!
WE HAVE GONE TO VOTE
BECAUSE WE
ARE NOT INDIFFERENT!
WE ARE READY
TO RETURN!
(sorry about the poor quality picture; I did not yet have a decent camera with me at the time. . .)
In the month and days leading up to the election, both PORA! and the Jushchenko campaign had called on supporters to peacefully demonstrate in front of the offices of the central election commission in Kyiv and in front of election offices throughout the country to demand free and fair elections, and they called on their supporters to hold vigil until the votes were counted and the official declaration of results were made. However, sometime either yesterday or the day before, Jushchenko called off his request for such demonstrations, as did PORA, apparently following his lead.
Now for my own personal analysis, this is a very regrettable decision. Many of the people I know here, and myself as well, would have woken up this morning feeling much relieved to know that there were (hopefully) thousands of people demonstrating and holding vigil for a fair election. The presidential administration of Leonid Kuchma, which supports the candidacy of Janukovych, does not want to see a repetition here in Ukraine of the Rose Revolution that last year swept the corrupt oligarchy out of power in the Republic of Georgia, and fears seeing people demonstrating on the streets. Viktor Janukovych himself stated last week just before the election that such demonstrations would put undo pressure on the electorate, misunderstanding to my mind two fundamental points: that the demonstrations were not to be for any particular candidate but for a fair election (which he actually probably accurately understood as a call for Jushchenko to win, since everyone projects that Jushchenko would win a fair election. . .), and second that demonstrations are the backbone of democracy. Democracy does not consist only in the right to vote but also the right to form whatever political bodies one so deems and also to meet with whomever in public and to demonstrate publicly for one's beliefs. Most likely, Jushchenko called off the demonstrations so as to avoid looking bad as he did after last week's debacle in front of the central electoral commission in Kyiv, and also it has been suggested that he may have feared police provocation with the result of turning the peaceful demonstrations into violent clashes that might turn some voters away from him.
However, regardless of all this, there are reports on the radio that students in the town of Chernivtsi have gathered in the central square and declared a student strike in support of the activist group PORA and the cause of a free and fair election. They have declared their intent to stay put until the results of this election are known. At the time I heard the report, around 10:30 AM, already 150 students had arrived, and more and more were coming.
Back in L'viv, posters put up by PORA! had also called for a gathering to take place today , the day after the election, at 11 AM in the place of their former barricades. I have tried getting info from friends in L'viv, as radio has said nothing about what's happening in L'viv, but as of yet I know nothing. Undoubtedly, the intention is the same as those gathering in Chernivtsi--to demonstrate for fairness. Thus, apparently demonstrations were called off for election day, but the general call for more demos may go out again today, while those already occurring may gain steam throughout the day, as people eagerly await the official announcement of the election result.
And one more thing--a CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) statement on the election in Ukraine (the CIS has its own observers here) has declared that the election, including the entire campaign season leading up to yesterday's still undecided contest, had been free and fair. This contrasts with the findings of every western agency to have observed the progress of the election campaign. Thus it is important to note that the CIS is just a puppet organization for all the oligarchs in each of the former Soviet republics except the Baltic states dedicated to maintaining their corrupt, oligarchic control, and in many ways is merely an institution of Russian neoimperialism, especially economic neocolonialism. Anyhow, it is abundantly clear from the perspective of anyone in Ukraine that the State television has given undo precedent to Janukovych, and that the presidential administration of Leonid Kuchma--which technically should remain completely neutral in the campaign--has used its what is called in Ukraine "administrative resources" to promote in every possible manner Janukovych's candidacy.
In conclusion I want to say that at least here in Pidhajtsi, people seem upbeat and hopeful. People are smiling at and greeting one another in a more upbeat and genuine spirit than is normal, and one fellow, after I greeted him with "Good Day," said in response, "Hooray Jushchenko!" There seems to be tremendous relief that this election has not--not yet, at least--been just completely, shamelessly, bald-facedly stolen by the powers-that-be, and that it seems that there will be a second round of voting. The sense seems to be spreading here that a huge battle has been won in the civil war for Ukraine's future. One cannot overestimate what a Jushchenko victory would mean to the people in this town, and in similar towns all throughout Ukraine. To many people, Ukraine desperately needs Jushchenko to win, a sentiment with which I also agree. Ukraine needs Jushchenko as president not because Ukraine stands on the verge of becoming a military dictatorship like Zabuzhko fears; and not because it in some absolute sense needs the West or the EU (to my mind, Ukraine is actually doing quite well directing itself between the EU and Russia, while also seeking other Asian and African partnerships, which is NOT a tacit approval of Kuchma, however. . .there are other ways of navigating between Russia and the EU than Kuchma's brutal and mostly proRussian path; and also, the EU expansion into central Europe is turning out to be something of a very mixed blessing for the central European states, in that the expansion seems to have created a European variant of NAFTA on an West-East axis. . .). Ukraine needs Jushchenko because it needs someone who will stear a clear course of autonomy and independence from Russia (which is possible, even outside of the EU. .). This is a cultural, political, and economic imperative. Thus far, throughout independent Ukraine's contemporary history, not enough has been done to curb the ever-increasing predominance of Russian economic, political, and cultural capital in Ukraine. Ukraine's economy and political system has drifted ever closer to reintegration with that of Russia's; the use of Russian has increased in homes in even the most Ukrainian parts of Ukraine (although a parallel development has also occurred in that use of Ukrainian in predominantly Russian parts has also increased); and Ukrainian arts and popular culture still drag behind their Russian variants in Ukraine. There are more movies and books from the west translated into Russian, and there are even defections of Ukrainian pop artists--singers--to a Russian-speaking audience. The list of things goes on and on. Ukraine's distinctive culture seems threatened, or that is what many people here in the western part of the country fear.
But beyond that, and perhaps more importantly, someone needs to reform the oligarchic system and to try to limit the corruption. That is, I don't think that corruption will ever totally disappear. The US government, especially under the Bush administration, has a lot of corruption going on within it as well, but its not as bald-faced and obvious as it is here in Ukraine; which is to say, corruption in Ukraine is way out of control and doesn't have to hide behind closed doors, secret meetings, midnight riders to bills, etc., as it does in the US. It is clear that Janukovych will only continue the oligarchy, and perhaps deepen it. And although there are other reformers running (I especially like Oleksandr Moroz, Ukraine's closest thing to a western European social democrat), Jushchenko is the only one likely to win (i.e., is the most popular of all the reformers). Of course, the path to reform is a long and arduous one full of many dangers and potential failures, and of course some his most enthusiastic supporters may become his most ardent critics if he does indeed become president and the pace of reform is slow. . .but that is a subject for another day!
It is safe to say that here, in western Ukraine at least, a Jushchenko victory would help greatly to increase people's self-confidence, the lack thereof, I have written elsewhere, is one of the biggest problems in this country. The people of this country need a government that is both very, actively and not just passively, proUkrainian and anti-corruption, to help them on the path of overcoming their postcolonial depression and underestimation of the value of their country and their own self-worth as a people.
Today, people in Pidhajtsi are indeed walking around more proudly than usual.
Stefan
