Explain Ukrainian politics to me
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diptheriadan
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« on: March 28, 2017, 03:18:48 PM »

Same deal as the Dutch thing.
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CrabCake
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« Reply #1 on: March 28, 2017, 03:56:27 PM »

Western Ukraine is fiscally conservative
Eastern Ukraine is socially conservative
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kelestian
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« Reply #2 on: March 28, 2017, 04:17:23 PM »

Western Ukraine is fiscally conservative
Eastern Ukraine is socially conservative

It's not true. Both parts are socially conservative and fiscally liberal, as another countries of former USSR. Main differences are preferences in foreign politics (Western - EU, East - Russia), religion (Western - Ukrainian Orthodox, Greek-Catholic, Uniats, Eastern - Russian Orthodox), language (Ukranian for the West, Russian for the east) and more widely - cultural differences.
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MaxQue
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« Reply #3 on: March 28, 2017, 04:23:50 PM »

Western Ukraine is fiscally conservative
Eastern Ukraine is socially conservative

It's not true. Both parts are socially conservative and fiscally liberal, as another countries of former USSR. Main differences are preferences in foreign politics (Western - EU, East - Russia), religion (Western - Ukrainian Orthodox, Greek-Catholic, Uniats, Eastern - Russian Orthodox), language (Ukranian for the West, Russian for the east) and more widely - cultural differences.

It's an inside joke, someone answered that to that very question years ago.
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kelestian
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« Reply #4 on: March 28, 2017, 04:48:51 PM »

From 2004 presidential election Ukranian politics is the fight of two main forces - Blue (East Ukraine) and Orange (West Ukraine). In 2004 president Kuchma support Yanukovich as his successor (Blue party), and elections were rigged in Yanukovich's favor. It has caused public outrage and so-called Orange Revolution in Kiev. In the result, election was held again and Yuschenko from Orange party finall won.

So, Blue camp is associated with Party of Regions, which was Yanukovich's party in 2004. After that party came in opposition.
Heart of party were Donetsk region, but its important parts were political clans from Crivoy Rog, Luhantsk etc. Party dominated in south-eastern regions and had some power in Zakarpatie (single swing region) .Party declared support for Russian language as the state's second language (because of strong opposition, russian became only regional language during Yanukovich's presidency), importance of cultural and economical ties with Russia, opposition to West-Ukranian cultural views (such as glorification of Ukrainian Insurgent Army). Also party was strongly associated with oligarch Achmetov from Donetsk.

Communist party - strong where Party of Region was strong. Main supporters - old people. Life-long leader - Petr Simonenko. Party was strong during crysises in 1990-2000, when Simonenko was main rival of president Kuchma.  Later it became irrelevant, just Party of Region ally, more friendly to USSR, with red flag and maybe more left in economics.

Both parties disappeared after huge Blue-loss in 2014 (Maidan Revolution).

Now there are a lot of small smithers of Regions Perty and one big - Opposition Bloc. It hold power in Odessa, Zaporyzhie, parts of Donetsk and Luhantsk (parts under Ukrainian control) and Harkov. This party of course is less powerful than Regions Party, big number of Blue voters stayed in Crimea, LDNR and DNR. Also turnout in south-eastern regions has dropped dramatically in recent elections. But who knows, if Orange bloc fails again...


Of course, Ukrainian politics is more complicated, for example, political clan from blue region of Dnepropetrovsk is one of the main Orange clans (former prime-minister Timoshenko, former president Turchinov), and for example during Yuschenko's presidency Yanukovich was his prime minister in 2006-2007 (because of the controversies in Orange camp)
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BundouYMB
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« Reply #5 on: March 28, 2017, 04:53:01 PM »

There's a large cultural gap between eastern Ukraine, where Russian is the dominate language and there is a high cultural affinity towards Russia, and western Ukraine where Ukrainian is the dominant language.

Both sides believe the other discriminates against them. During Soviet times Russian was promoted and the government attempted to minimize the usage of Ukrainian in official documents, road signs, ect. Since the fall of the Soviet Union many Russian-speakers feel the opposite has happened, with instances of Ukrainian-only road signs in overwhelmingly Russian-speaking areas, ect.

This is the pivotal divide that politics are oriented around.

Political parties themselves are corrupt, oligarchic, personalistic, and almost uniformly have vague / nonexistent ideologies in the characteristic post-communist eastern-European way (if you're familiar with politics in countries like Bulgaria or Slovakia you'll understand what I mean.)

Elections since independence have been mostly free, although there have been cases of vote buying, ect. due to the corrupt nature of the politics.

The Ukrainian civil war was sparked by wide spread protests against softly-pro-Russian President Yanukovych after a large number of corruption scandals were unveiled, eventually leading to him being overthrown. The protests were of course oriented in the western part of the country and in overwhelmingly pro-Russian areas there remained strong opposition to the "coup." This prompted Russia to opportunistically step in to "defend" certain Russian-speaking provinces in eastern Ukraine.

Because the most Russian-speaking province is now under Russian control, and voting could not even take place everywhere in the remaining Russian-speaking provinces, the last election resulted in a President from western Ukraine and a parliament dominated by parties oriented towards western Ukraine (parliament however remains fractured between many different parties from western Ukraine.)

In conclusion you should attempt to understand Ukrainian politics through these lenses in this order: 1). Ukrainian-speaking vs. Russian-speaking 2). by understanding the various corrupt parties ties to businesses and where their oligarchic leaders financial interests lie.

(Note: this a summary and does not dive into the nuances of the subject. Feel free to ask me if you have any more questions though!)
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ApatheticAustrian
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« Reply #6 on: March 28, 2017, 04:53:35 PM »

One permanent rule of Ukrainian politics:

Oligarch populist Yulia Timohenko is going to get a lot of votes, if she isn't in jail.
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Crumpets
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« Reply #7 on: March 28, 2017, 05:08:49 PM »
« Edited: March 29, 2017, 02:12:18 PM by Crumpets »

Okay, this isn't going to be as well thought-out or authoritative as DavidB's post in the Dutch thread, but here's a primer:

Ukraine is roughly a continuum from West to East. In the Western extremes, the EU is generally seen as a force to be reckoned with, and Russia as an aggressive imperial power. In the far East, an area known as Donbass, and an area with a large Russian-speaking population, this logic is flipped, and Russia is seen as protecting Ukraine from Merkel and her EU cronies. Meanwhile, the areas in the middle are, generally, in the middle, with Kiev generally seen as more "western" than "eastern." Crimea, in a way, was an extreme version of this "eastern" way of political thinking, despite being located in the South. Crimea's population is overwhelmingly ethnic Russians, so this reasoning makes a lot of sense.

Here's a map of the election results in 2010 as an example of this divide:


One important note, however, as Crabcake somewhat jokingly put it, is that the "nationalistic" side of Ukrainian politics is generally associated with more pro-EU, Western-friendly politics, while the more "leftist" or "pseudo-leftist" side and support for "federalism" is associated more with pro-Russian politics. At the same time, basically all political parties try to portray themselves as "nationalist" and "populist" even if they don't use those words, or abide by them in any meaningful way.

From Ukrainian independence in 1991 until 2005, the president was Leonid Kuchma. Kuchma generally represented a light pro-Russian position, and relations between the two countries improved under his presidency. However, his main role was as a kleptocrat with almost comical levels of corruption. Long-simmering controversies blew open in 2000, when a bodyguard revealed secretly-taped conversations detailing massive amounts of corruption and numerous scandals.

In 2004, the pro-Kuchma, pro-Russia, and pro-federalist Party of Regions nominated Viktor Yanukovych to succeed Kuchma as president. Independent Viktor Yushchenko ran as the main opposition candidate, and had his main base of support in the West. In September, just before the first round, Yushchenko nearly died from a poison attack and became permanently disfigured. After Yushchenko narrowly carried the first round of voting, he lost the second round under extremely suspicious circumstances. This lead to mass protests known as the Orange Revolution, and resulted in a second election and a Yushchenko victory.

Just two years later in 2006, however, Yanukovych was elected Prime Minister in a sweeping victory for his party. The woman who came in second that election was Yulia Tymoshenko. At the time her party was simply called the "Yulia Tymoshenko bloc," but has since become known as Fatherland. Fatherland is a conservative, center-right-to-right-wing coalition of nationalist, anti-Russians and pro-Europeans. However, because of it's pro-EU leaning and (presumably) Tymoshenko's youth and beauty, it became known as the "good guys" in Ukraine's politics outside the country, and Tymoshenko became something of a darling in Europe and a key face of anti-Russianism, at least for a couple of years.

The result was an extremely combative and polarizing political situation which quickly fell apart and resulted in Tymoshenko's election as Prime Minister the very next year. Of course, this unified pro-EU government made opponents very nervous and Kiev was increasingly seen as gaining more and more power at the expense of the regional governments.

In 2010, Yanukovych and Tymoshenko finally squared off for the presidency, which Yanukovych won by just three points (the map of this election is the one I posted above). Of course, in the immediate aftermath of the election, Yanukovych decided to #LockHerUp, and threw Tymoshenko in prison for embezzlement. The next parliamentary election in 2012 saw the rise of a new political force to fill the void left by Tymoshenko (although her party still remained the second largest in the Rada) in the form of UDAR. UDAR was lead by professional Boxer and celebrity Vitaliy Klychko, and occupied a more centrist form of pro-Europeanism, and was generally more populist and less corrupt (although of course these terms are relative) than its counterparts.

Things came to a head again in 2014 when President Yanukovych decided against signing an EU association pact which would set Ukraine on a path toward EU membership. This lead to everyone in Western Ukraine generally freaking out and general chest-beating in Eastern Ukraine, resulting in the widely-publicized "Euromaidan" protests. Yanukovych fled to Russia in February 2014, and Ukraine appeared to be on the brink of Civil War. Tymoshenko was relased from jail and declared a presidential bid. The interim government was much more pro-European than Yanukovych's had been, and this resulted in Russia's re-annexation of Crimea, where the new government in Kiev was viewed as essentially fascist. Fighting also broke out in the Donbass region, as the provinces of Donesk and Lukhansk attempted to form their own government of Novorossiya (New Russia). These insurgencies are ongoing, and have reached a stalemate with swaths of the area not under control of Kiev.

The elections in the immediate aftermath of Euromaidan were very wide-open and featured some big changes to the political system.

The main parties:
Petro Poroshenko Bloc - Successor to UDAR, lead by it's namesake oligarch Petro Poroshenko, generally liberal and pro-European, although not extremely so.
People's Front - A splinter group from Fatherland lead by the interim ruler of Ukraine, Arseniy Yatsenyuk.
Self-Reliance - A Christian Democratic pro-European party.
Opposition Bloc - A (weirdly enough) socially liberal, pro-Russian party founded in part by our friend Paul Manafort.
Radical - An agrarian populist party
Fatherland - A much weaker version of its former self, still lead by Tymoshenko.

The Party of Regions didn't participate in the Parliamentary elections, although they did nominate a candidate for President, who did... not so well, placing behind several minor parties. The Opposition Bloc is generally their spiritual successor in the Rada.

The landslide winner of the 2014 election was Petro Poroshenko, which was kind of a sigh of relief to outside observers, since he is seen as one of the most moderate possible candidates. Inside Ukraine, however, governance appears to have returned to a much more pro-European setup, creating a great deal of unease across the east of the country. The war in the Donbass has somewhat died down, after numerous negotiations and ceasefires, but at this point, it's hard to see how it will resolve in the long-term.

Hope this helps and that all of the Eastern European posters will point out all of my mistakes. Smiley
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ApatheticAustrian
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« Reply #8 on: March 28, 2017, 05:14:17 PM »

Don't want to spam this thread and distract from the awesome long-term posts, just want to add that the fragile post-1990 partisan break-up between east and west got crushed by the war.

without Donetzk, the classical pro-russia-faction or - more to the core - the pro-sovjet faction isn't able anymore to outvote the west.

Usually the trainwreck which is the current government would led to another east-ukrainian-led government but they don't have the numbers anymore and wars usually are "helping" the current leaders.
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kelestian
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« Reply #9 on: March 28, 2017, 05:30:54 PM »

There are a lot of parties in Orange bloc, i'll describe parties with representation in Rada. All parties are strong in West and Central Ukraine (dominate in West), support integration in EU, strongly oppose Russia, support state discrimination of Russian language (more or less), light form of Ukrainian nationalism ('ukrainian nationalists during WW2 were heroes', anticommunism etc)

 Yulia Timoschenko's bloc - main opposition party during Yanukovich's presidency. Party united around its leader, now is strong in rural areas. Everyone thought that Vona (Yulia) would win 2014 presidential election, but this lady suffered terrible defeat. She hates Poroshenko for years, and circumstances forced Timoshenko became part of presidential coalition! Now some polls show, that she can win next election (her rating is about 20% and rating of Poroshenko - 15%)

Petr Poroshenko's bloc (union of Solidarnost and party Udar of Vitaliy Clichko) - party of president and prime-minister Groismann. Strange construction, includes former members of Party of Region, defectors from Timoshenko's bloc, young liberal journalists, militaries etc. Party is strong in Central Ukraine, especially in Poroshenko's stronghold Vinnitsa, and is stronger than other orange parties in South-Eastern regions.

Radical party - party of clown and populist Oleg Lyashko. Fraction includes criminals and models-like looked young girls. More piece of garbage than a party, i don't understand why people vote for it. Party and its leader are very similar to Russian LDPR party and Zhirinovskiy.

People's front - party of former prime minister Yatsenyuk, internal minister Avakov, head of NSDC Turchynov and Speaker Parubiy (former hard nationalist). More 'patriotic' party. Was part of Timoshenko's party before 2014 parliamentary election and will disappear before next elections.

Samopomich party - party of Lvov's mayor Sadoviy. Strong in cities, Western regions and between the youth. More economically conservative party. A lot of good members,  fraction doesn't include single memebers of former parliament (good decision). Two bad things: Semen Semenchenko, idiot and provocateur, is influential member; secondary, garbage scandal in Lvov definitely hurt popularity of party and chances of Sadoviy's future  presidency.

Nationalists (Freedom party, Right Sector etc) - radical ukrainian nationalists. Strong in western regions. Freedom party is extremly unpopular in south-eastern regions. Leftwing in economics, radical right in other fields. Don't support integration with EU; leaders want an alliance with Baltic countries and Poland.


All parties except People's Front and Poroshenko's bloc are now in opposition; they criticise him as weak, corrupt and too friendly in his relations with Russia (so other parties are more hawkish).


All of main blue and orange parties are controlled by oligarchs. Leaders of both camps are completely corrupt and incompetent (they proved it during 2005-2010 and 2010-2014). Single person who isn't so awful in my opinion is former orange president Yushenko, he had good record as head of National Bank and as prime-minister during Kuchma. Unfortunately, he had quarelled with another orange leaders and World financial crysis happened during his presidency. Also, in my opinion, his support of radical ukrainian nationalism was terrible idea.
Another more-or-less competent person - Turchynov, maybe.
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kelestian
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« Reply #10 on: March 28, 2017, 05:39:53 PM »

Great analysis, Crumpets!

Single mistake: Radical party isn't leftwing, i don't think it can be desribed other than "populist" and "corrupt in the heart".

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« Reply #11 on: March 28, 2017, 05:56:42 PM »

Wasn't Mikheil Saakashvili (lol) starting his own party?
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ApatheticAustrian
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« Reply #12 on: March 28, 2017, 06:09:30 PM »

Wasn't Mikheil Saakashvili (lol) starting his own party?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_Ukrainian_parliamentary_election,_2019

look at the party called "PYX".
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Crumpets
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« Reply #13 on: March 28, 2017, 06:22:13 PM »

Great analysis, Crumpets!

Single mistake: Radical party isn't leftwing, i don't think it can be desribed other than "populist" and "corrupt in the heart".



Good to know! I'll fix it.
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Famous Mortimer
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« Reply #14 on: March 28, 2017, 11:17:23 PM »

Radical Party is primarily anti-Russian.
Patriotic Front is differentiated from the Poroshenko Bloc by also being more hawkish towards Russia.
Poroshenko Bloc is generally pro-Western but much more willing to compromise than either the Radical party or the Patriotic Front, as Poroshenko is an oligarch with ties to East and West.
Fatherland/Tymoshenko is a wild card. Now it's publicly anti-Russia but unlike the others it has the potential to switch sides, Tymoshenko has a good relationship with Putin and the reason she was in jail is because she gave him a too sweet deal on gas.
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« Reply #15 on: March 28, 2017, 11:38:26 PM »

Wasn't Mikheil Saakashvili (lol) starting his own party?

He got chased out of Ukraine for being terrible and lives in Brooklyn now.
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Famous Mortimer
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« Reply #16 on: March 28, 2017, 11:42:55 PM »

Also, I've never heard the Freedom Party being characterized as left-wing on economics before. I know this is common with a lot of far right parties throughout Europe but I just never heard it with them. In general, Western Ukrainian politicians generally are pretty free market and Eastern Ukrainians more left-wing. Easterners are more likely to be explicit about their economic policies while Westerners usually just hide behind Ukrainian nationalism or anti-Russiaism because obviously free market capitalism isn't super popular in Eastern Europe in general.
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Zuza
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« Reply #17 on: March 29, 2017, 12:31:40 AM »
« Edited: March 29, 2017, 12:36:50 AM by Zuza »

I'm not sure "orange" parties tend to be more right-wing economically and I wouldn't say Opposition Bloc is "socially liberal" (even if they are somehow, by some metrics, happen to be more socially liberal than others, "social liberalism" means nothing to Ukrainian voters, most of American social issues such as abortion don't exist or barely exist in Ukraine). Although in the case of Freedom, I think, label "economically left-wing" can be applied indeed, they are more or less regularly described in this way and call themselves "social nationalists".

Most of Ukrainian parties seem to be populist personal vehicles. Typically, their programs are less relevant than persons of their leaders. Though different leaders appeal to different demographics: firstly there is still a well-known geographical cleavage, secondly, if we speak about the differences between "orange" parties, Radical Party and Fatherland (read: Lyashko and Tymoshenko) electorate is more agrarian and less educated while Self-Reliance (and, I presume, Saakashvili's party) is more popular among urban middle-class voters.

By the way, the most recent poll shows a party named For life, led by Jewish businessman Rabinovych (2014 presidential candidate, though I wouldn't call him a serious candidate and before this he was virtually unknown), at the 3rd place with 11.8 %. It seems to be another "blue" ("South-Eastern", relatively pro-Russian etc.) party. I can only guess, who and why votes for it, apparently South-Easterners disaffected with both the ruling coalition and Opposition Bloc.
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« Reply #18 on: March 29, 2017, 12:57:04 AM »

Orange parties are definitely more free market. Both Poroshenko Bloc and Fatherland are in the European People's Party. People's Front isn't but Arseniy Yatsenyuk is even more explicitly neo-liberal than either either Poroshenko or Tymoshenko. Our Ukraine, when it existed, was a big tent party but almost everyone in the tent was pro-market.
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Crumpets
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« Reply #19 on: March 29, 2017, 01:21:52 AM »

Wasn't Mikheil Saakashvili (lol) starting his own party?

He got chased out of Ukraine for being terrible and lives in Brooklyn now.

Dark horse candidate for NYC mayor?!?!?!
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jfern
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« Reply #20 on: March 29, 2017, 01:27:47 AM »

Wasn't Mikheil Saakashvili (lol) starting his own party?

He got chased out of Ukraine for being terrible and lives in Brooklyn now.

President of Georgia
Brooklyn Resident
Governor of Odessa, Ukraine
Brooklyn Resident

Hmm, not the usual thing to do.


Wasn't Mikheil Saakashvili (lol) starting his own party?

He got chased out of Ukraine for being terrible and lives in Brooklyn now.

Dark horse candidate for NYC mayor?!?!?!

Maybe he can get Garry Kasparov's support.
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kelestian
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« Reply #21 on: March 29, 2017, 04:01:55 AM »
« Edited: March 29, 2017, 02:37:09 PM by kelestian »

Wasn't Mikheil Saakashvili (lol) starting his own party?
few days ago he has become show host on ukranian TV) Of course, he is popular figure in Western and central regions, so if Saakashvili creates the electionary bloc with some young liberal post-maidan politicians, this alliance will be in next Parliament.


Also, I've never heard the Freedom Party being characterized as left-wing on economics before. I know this is common with a lot of far right parties throughout Europe but I just never heard it with them. In general, Western Ukrainian politicians generally are pretty free market and Eastern Ukrainians more left-wing. Easterners are more likely to be explicit about their economic policies while Westerners usually just hide behind Ukrainian nationalism or anti-Russiaism because obviously free market capitalism isn't super popular in Eastern Europe in general.

Freedom is left-wing economically, for example, there is one huge question: should government allows private citizens to buy state's lands (important for agriculture)? IMF and Poroshenko want it, but they faced strong opposition from nationalists and Opposition bloc.

2 months ago main nationalist parties (Freedom, Right Sector and National corps (civil structure of Azov regiment)) made union. Some points from their common programm:
"Return to the state ownership of subsoil, strategic facilities and factories illegally privatized after 1991"
"Prohibit sale of land"
"Create conditions for the development of effective trade union movement"
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ApatheticAustrian
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« Reply #22 on: March 29, 2017, 08:18:15 AM »

Tymoshenko has a good relationship with Putin and the reason she was in jail is because she gave him a too sweet deal on gas.

that was just the excuse, in fact she was ofc a political victim and her real crime was being too popular in the presidential election of 2010.

doesn't mean she isn't also corrupt and shady, like nearly everyone in ukranian politics but the Yanukovych administration was looking very hard to find any fault with her and also bent the law.
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Nhoj
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« Reply #23 on: March 29, 2017, 01:08:11 PM »

Wasn't Mikheil Saakashvili (lol) starting his own party?

He got chased out of Ukraine for being terrible and lives in Brooklyn now.
No you have that backwards he got chased out of georgia and moved to brooklyn. then he got a job as odessa Gov after that. Which hes since resigned and now is getting a political party going.
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Zuza
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« Reply #24 on: March 29, 2017, 02:39:17 PM »

Orange parties are definitely more free market. Both Poroshenko Bloc and Fatherland are in the European People's Party.

It's possible that if Party of Regions had any European affiliation, it would join EPP as well. Also, not all EPP members are very pro-market, some are centrist. By the way, this is 2014 Party of Regions economic program (from Wikipedia):
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Though I do not insist that "blue" parties are more economically right-wing. It's even very likely they are, on average, more economically left-wing (especially if you count Communist Party). What I say is that both "blue" and "orange" political camps include parties and politicians with very different stances on economy and these stances can change very significantly over time (depending, for example, on whether this party is in government or in opposition), so I would avoid making any generalizations.
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