Orange and Blue
Friday a week ago the two Viktors in Ukraine, main players on the political scene, one being the prime minister and the other being the president, were agreeing to hold new elections. Although at that time it looked like the crisis was over it appears now that the negotiations about the timing are taking a long time. A crisis which had also been referred to as the blue revolution and again highly destabilized political life in Ukraine raising memories of the orange revolution of 2004.
President Yushchenko is a former president of the national bank who successfully fought hyperinflation and wants to stabilize the countries economy also fighting corruption and the insane mixing up of political and economical interests that is characteristic in ukrainian society. He stands for a closer integration into western organizations like NATO and EU.
Yanukovych on the other side stands for a closer alignment with Russia and has the support of president Putin. He is coming from the eastern industrial region of Ukraine, the Donetzk which is also culturally pretty close to Russia. His party “Ukraine of Regions” got the most votes, during the March 2006 elections and cleared his way to become Prime Minister again. Since then Yanukovych and Yushchenko are having a kind of Cohabitation.
Recently Yushchenko's party “Our Ukraine” accused the governing coalition lead by Yanukovych's party to slow down and hinder negotiations on the elections timing. Yanukovych appealed to EU and Russia to mediate between the parties to reach a conclusion. Russia replied promptly being willing to do so. According to polls “Ukraine of regions” would gain 35.5% of the votes, slightly higher than in March 2006.
The Ukraine is a geopolitical linchpin as Zbigniew Brzezinski puts it in his book “The grand chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives”. With approximatly 48 million people of Slavic origin (amongst them 17% Russians) located between new EU members in the west and Russia in the east it is crucial for Russia to keep influence in Ukraine with it's 140 million decreasing population in order to maintain a supreme position in Eurasia. Alone the geostrategic location of Crimea makes the Ukraine important.
It appears to me that the conflict in Ukraine is nurtured by the colliding geopolitical interests of Russia and western Europe / the United States. My guess is that the recent political crisis is not the last one, there will be more to report on Ukraine in the future...
Posted at
09:56PM May 13, 2007
by Volker Seubert in Europe & Beyond |
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Comments[1]
Posted by Volker Seubert on May 16, 2007 at 09:41 AM CEST #