- The Guardian is reporting that Yushchenko plans to appear before the European Parliament on Tuesday. He’ll be presenting a plan to integrate Ukraine into the EU. He’ll be presenting a five-year plan to bring Ukraine closer to Europe. Lt’s hope this one works better than previous 5 Year Plans in this part of the world. . . This fits in with the agenda we were discussing on an earlier thread here.
- Poroshenko, a leader from the Orange Bloc, confirmed another aspect of the agenda that I mentioned – revisiting corrupt privatization schemes.
- The two newspapers responsible for publishing the official election results – Golos Ukraini and Uryadovoi Kurer are now printed. In one of those constitutional idiosyncrasies that could only exist in Ukraine, once they’re published it seems that they can’t be rescinded even by the Supreme Court. This publishing allows the Parliament to set a date for the inauguration. No firm word on when, but Saturday seems likeliest. With this printing, the campaign is now officially over.
- The EU is seriously considering granting Ukraine “market economy” status, which would help it avoid the brunt of the EU’s anti-dumping laws on things like steel. This would be a huge boost for Donetsk and Lugansk, which depend on steel exports. It’s a measure of the brainwashing of those regions’ residents that they so despise the man making this possible, while adoring Yanukovych, who would have kept the country a pariah. They remind me of alcoholics, fist-fighting anyone who tries to take away their poison of choice.
- Yanukovych’s people have put up seven tents and roped off 15 square meters in Lenin Square in Simferopol, Crimea and declared it a “Yushchenko-Free Zone.” That’s fine, we have the rest of the country.
- Shufrych, a representative for Yanukovych’s, announced today that their Swiss lawyers are taking the case to the European Court. In Shufrych’s opinion, the Ukrainian Supreme Court has already made its decision.
- Small-scale tent villages have gone up in the squares of several eastern Ukrainian cities. A partial list includes Simferopol, Odessa, Kherson, Donetsk and Mariupol. My gut is still that this won’t go very far. But we don’t know yet how mucb impact the actual inauguration of Yushchenko will have on people in the east. They really do fear and hate him. Plus, very little that’s happened since November has been predictable. So we’ll see.
- Polish political experts are saying that Ukraine might not pull out its troops as quickly as some expect. The Polish Minster of Defense says that a Ukrainian pull-out may have implications for Polish-Ukrainian relations, and that the Poles are in talks with Yushchenko about that fact.
- Independent MP Volkov has come out in favor of Tymoshenko, and said that it would be a huge mistake for Yushchenko to nominate anyone else for PM. Additionally, 41 deputies from Dnepropetrovsk also announced their support for Yulia yesterday.
- The Russian Foreign Minister congratulated Yushchenko on his victory on behalf of the Russian Federation. His enthusiasm was almost palpable. Or something.
Good point. Maybe it's those Lenin statues. 'Cause people's eyes to glaze over -- just like that.
Posted by: Taras at janvier 20, 2005 06:37 AMI have enjoyed your reports from Ukraine very much.
Your blog is definitely one of the most informative and interesting blogs.
Thanks to Instapundit that I came across your writings!
I just wonder what do you think about drafting Ukraine software engineers into some large scale US projects but having the work performed in Ukraine?
How good is the broadband there?
Thanks for your advice!
Posted by: sushizero at janvier 20, 2005 09:57 AMI work for a software company that has more offshore engineers than on-shore. We have about 30 ukrainians but have also used a St Petersburg company, 2 indian companies and are looking into chinese engineers. So far the engineers from L'viv are hands down the best. The are a very close comparison to our own onshore resources.
Posted by: HSM at janvier 20, 2005 01:42 PMWho is legally responsible for publishing the election results? I ask because the post mentions that the SC cannot rescind the results once they are published, but didn't the SC previously bar the publication of the results? In other words, it seems as though the court can't later declare new evidence means the results have to be rescinded, but it also seems as though they control the timing of the publication.
Or am I missing something? (Always possible, likely even!)
Posted by: Matt S at janvier 20, 2005 08:46 PMTaras-
Good point about the Lenin thing. Like I said the other day -- you can tell a lot about people from their friends. :-)
sushizero-
Thy have broadband in some places in Kiev, but not where I live. Sorry, no idea about it. Glad you're enjoying the blog, hope to see you often!
Matt S-
I actually confused myself reading your question. In lieu of a direct answer, I'll explain the procedure as well as I understand it. . .
The normal procedure is this: The Central Election Committee certifies the results. Then these two newspapers publish them, and then the campaign is officially over.
The Supreme Court put an injunction on the certification and then the publication. Normally though, they wouldn't have a role in the process.
I have to admit though, that I've had a learning curve on some of the finer points of Ukrainian constitutional law. They have some weird elements. And things are sometimes murky -- they don't have 200 years of precedents to sort some of the bugs out. :-)
Posted by: Discoshaman at janvier 21, 2005 12:07 AMDisco--
Thanks for the clarification. And sorry for the convoluted question. As if the whole situation weren't already convoluted enough!
On the murkiness and lack of precendents, well we discovered in 2000 that even two centuries of democracy didn't necessarily allow for a clean solution.
A lot of newer democracies have laws with clearer means of resolving disputes than we have. The advantage of the newcomer is the chance to write laws anticipating things that might come up. In that score, Ukraine has done quite well. Not without the help of all those protesters, of course. But as an outsider, I am impressed with how well the rule of law has prevailed under extremely challenging cicrumstances, to say the least.
Posted by: Matt S at janvier 21, 2005 03:05 AM