Ukraine 2010

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The first round of the Ukrainian presidential election in January 2010 is a bit more than a month away.

Main candidates:

President Viktor Yushchenko (Our Ukraine): Incumbent President, massively unpopular with an approval of like 3%. Intends to run again.
Fmr. Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych (Party of Regions): Pro-Russian crook, main opposition guy since 2004
Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko (BYuT): Pro-Western rival of Yushchenko, and by now the main pro-western force.
Fmr. Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Arseniy Yatsenyuk (Front for Change): Generally pro-western 'centrist'-populist candidate. Peaked in the summer, going down now. Wants massive political change etc.
MP Petro Symonenko (Communist): Nutty Communist who notably denies the 1920s famine. Also candidate of a bunch of similar fringe parties.
Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Volodymyr Lytvyn (Lytvyn Bloc): Incumbent speaker, member of the pro-western parliamentary majority. Populistic guy.
Serhiy Tihipko (Our Ukraine): Businessman. Kind of centrist on western/Russia divide, and is surprisingly good. I like.

Yanukovych is between 25% and 32%, Tymoshenko between 16% and 20%, Yatsenyuk is now between 6% and 8% (peaking at 15% in the summer), Lytvyn between 2% and 4%, Tihipko at 4%, Symonenko in the 3% range, Yushchenko between 2% and 3% in last of serious contenders (lol).

Yanukovych leads by a large margin in the runoff because his voting base in the east is solidified, while the west is more divided (though still favours Tymoshenko) and undecided. Apparently a lot expect her to win in the end.

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http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/view/34650/yanukovych_is_definite_frontrunner_in_ukraine

Yanukovych 29.8
Tymoshenko 14.8
Tihipko 5.7
Yatsenyuk 4.8
Yushchenko 4.3
Symonenko 2.9
Lytvyn 2.5

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Is Our Ukraine likely to dissolve after this?

Hard to say. Ukraine doesn't have political parties per se, but rather personalist movements based around a person or group. Assuming Yuschenko loses badly, I would assume his movement would fold rather quickly or become politically irrelevant.

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Yanukovych will win with 55+ because he's now seen as a "stable" candidate, more "conservative" in the everyday meaning of the word.

I think Ukraine is far too divided these days to allow anybody to win a mandate of 55% or more. I wouldn't be surprised if Yanukovych won, though. The pro-western experience has been, by far, a failure. And Ukraine seems to be warming up to the idea of throwing out incompetent crooks.

The geography of Tigipko and Yatsenyuk's vote will offer a better answer to the question. The east and the Donetsk basin isn't ready to vote for a westerner, and Galicia isn't ready to vote for a Russian crook.

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The differences in the Cyrillic-Latin translation of Tigipko and Yatsenyuk's names are quite fun, especially the former.

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Yanukovych will win with 55+ because he's now seen as a "stable" candidate, more "conservative" in the everyday meaning of the word.

I think Ukraine is far too divided these days to allow anybody to win a mandate of 55% or more.

Except if the West abstains even more than the East...
We'll see... You know that I like to make bold predictions sometimes, that prove, very often,... wrong !

Reports of low turnout in the west were greatly exaggerated. Turnout was highest in the two extreme points: Donetsk and surroundings and Galicia.

Yanukovych did poll 9% or so in Galicia, which is higher than his result in the 2004 runoffs there. Indicates that some westerners has voted for him, probably an indicator of the stability he represents.

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Where be results by oblast again?

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To summarize, they are mostly Uniates, with a somewhat different language and were also under Hungarian and not Polish influence like most of the Ukraine. They feel somewhat distinctive themselves and have sought autonomy in the past. Probably the rather strong Ukrainian nationalism of the current government have alienated them.

Uniates are not only in Carpathia, they're also all over Galicia which is the most pro-west region in Ukraine. Galicia has always been a hotspot of Ukrainian nationalism or anti-Russian dissidence. Vienna encouraged Ukrainian nationalism to ward off Russian nationalism in the region, Poland's control before that led to the growth of intellectualism in urban and wealthy circles.

Galicia (and Uniates) have always voted in huge numbers for Tymoshenko, Yuschenko and so forth.

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Symonenko got, what he normally gets there, I believe. This is the Commie electorate: it's stable.

Sure, we are no longer in 1999 (22%), but it was still 5% in 2004.
3.5% is even less.

I suppose Tigipko (and Yanukovych) siphoned off a number of his votes. Tigipko placed second in the Donetsk area, where Symonenko and the CPU usually placed second.

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Not surprising. Like in Chile, the large margin of the first shouldn't blind anybody into thinking that the runoff is a slam-dunk. The statistical similarities to the Chilean election are quite interesting here... though I hope Yanukovych doesn't win.

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Ukrainian electoral maps are so boring.

Well, yeah, it's like the most polarized country electorally in Europe and one of the most polarized countries in the world (some African countries have elections which are run on ethnic lines and end up being very polarized. Sierra Leone comes to mind).

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Actually, it's not that simple. Crimea (bar the Tatars) is outright pro-Russian, but the rest of the country has a clear Ukrainian self-identification. The mining areas - Donets'k and Luhansk, of  course, are very regionalist, but already the big cities, such as Khar'kiv and Dnipropetrovs'k are much less so. Yes, the religious and linguistic divide is strong (and, largely, runs on the border of colonization: you can read the last 350-400 years of Ukrainian history off this map), but it is far from clear that anywhere, other than in Crimea, a secession referendum would be successful. 

Yeah, it's an important point that. Only Crimea cannot be considered Ukrainian at any rate, other areas are Russian-speaking Ukrainian areas, while Crimea is not Ukrainian and it was one of the weakest regions in the independence referendum(s) in the early 90s (which easily got over 80% in all other regions but only 55% or so in Crimea)...

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Now that Yanukovych has won, you might get new parliamentary elections or Yanukovych manages to get a PR majority in Parliament (probably through the support of the Communists and Lytvyn's party - the latter of which is now in the Tymoshenko government).