Inside News on Odessa and Ukraine
Ukraine officially takes over the chairmanship of OSCE on 6/7th December 2012 at the OSCE ministerial council meeting in Dublin, when Ireland hands over, and will thus chair OSCE through 2013. That on the back of some robust criticism by OSCE of the recent Ukrainian parliamentary elections - their final and authoritative report on said […]
According to MEP Pawel Kowal, head of the European Parliament’s Observer Mission for the Ukrainian elections when speaking at the European Parliament Committee for Foreign Affairs a few days ago, the Ukrainian elections were the best of those held by post-Soviet nations. For a man who should be used to being very careful with his […]
Of all the election reports and statements made by the numerous monitoring groups, as I have written before, the statements and reports of ODIHR/OSCE are those that count, historically at least, in the forming of the EU mindset towards recognition - or not. Here is the “morning after” statement. Nothing surprising in there to be […]
Well today is election day in Ukraine (and also my mother-in law’s birthday) - thus a short post as I am expected elsewhere. However I will leave you to ponder just how much these people advertising their votes for sale on VK (a social forum similar to facebook) will have actually been paid for their votes. $20, […]
On 19th October, Prime Minister Azarov made a statement that OSCE had not recorded any violations of the election process. Really? That very same day, OSCE released its interim election report, which would beg to differ!
Unraveling before it’s begun? The United Opposition has been trying desperately to get UDAR, as of 18th October polling ahead of them, to sign a coalition agreement of opposition forces prior to the elections. It has now officially failed to do so. To be fair to UDAR, there really is no rush to sign coalition […]
No, no, no. UDAR are not about to join the United Opposition. They are very much enjoying the 3rd choice position and have now overtaken the United Opposition in the opinion polls just as I suggested they would. Simply they have much more to lose rather than to gain by joining the United Opposition, as […]
I have had several messages recently asking me why, in my opinion, the United Opposition electioneering strategy is as dire as I have stated it is. Fair point - Despite stating numerous times that it is sadly dismal/dire/ineffective (take your pick I have used all those words and more) I have not really explained in […]
Well the Georgian people have spoken and President Saakashvili’s party are now in the minority. I am neither surprised given the grievous and disgusting material to emerge from a Georgian prison, nor sorry status quo in Georgia has been broken. Whilst that may - or may not - prove disastrous for Georgia in the short […]
Over the weekend I have been sent a few questions to contemplate, as is often the case these days. Not unusual, other than these two following questions stand out amongst the much of a muchness from the others. The first which caught my eye was not whether Ukraine would or would not be any more […]