The presidential campaign has started in Ukraine. President Victor Yanukovych has been stripped of the presidency by the parliament. Ukrainian political analyst Sergey Slobodchuk said that the Constitution did not give the parliament any authority to dismiss the president, although it provides for such a procedure as impeachment.
Slobodchuk pointed out that ratings of politicians were not stable and predicting the winner was hard. He noted that Vitaly Klitschko (UDAR Party), Arseny Yatsenyuk (Fatherland) and Oleg Tyagnibok (Freedom) had similar ratings. Yatsenyuk has been replacing Yulia Timoshenko. Slobodchuk said that the rating of Klitschko was going up, while Yatsenyuk’s rating was falling. The rating of Petr Poroshenko, an active protestor, had improved greatly. Slobodchuk predicts that the latter will be a moderate opposition candidate searching for a compromise between both parts of Ukraine.
The expert believes that Timoshenko has the best chances of becoming president. However, expectations that she will be taken from jail directly to the president’s palace proved false. Some say that she should not become the president or the prime minister for her past actions. Slobodchuk is confident that Timoshenko does not know what to do at the moment.
Analyst Igor Gridasov said that the Party of Regions was collapsing and losing members. The party blames Yanukovych for all the problems. Concerning candidates, Gridasov mentioned Alexander Yefremov, head of the party’s faction in the parliament and ex-Governor of the Luhansk Oblast, Mikhail Dobkin, Governor of the Kharkov Oblast. The expert assumes that their presidential bids were more of an attempt to transform persecution from the criminal line to the political, to become political opponents and take the lead from Yulia Timoshenko.
The presidential campaign has started in Ukraine. President Victor Yanukovych was stripped of the presidency by the parliament. Ukrainian political analyst Sergey Slobodchuk said that the Constitution did not give the parliament any authority to dismissed the president, although it provides such procedure as impeachment.Slobodchuk pointed out that ratings of politicians were not stable and predicting the winner was hard. He noted that Vitaly Klitschko (UDAR Party), Arseny Yatsenyuk (Fatherland) and Oleg Tyagnibok (Freedom) had similar ratings. Yatsenyuk has been replacing Yulia Timoshenko. Slobodchuk said that the rating of Klitschko was going up, while Yatsenyuk’s rating was falling. The rating of Petr Poroshenko, an active protestor, improved his rating greatly. Slobodchuk predicts that the latter will be a moderate opposition candidate searching for a compromise between both parts of Ukraine.The expert believes that Timoshenko has the best chances to become the president. However, expectations that she will be taken from jail directly to the president’s palace proved false. Some say that she should not become the president or the prime minister for her past actions. Slobodchuk is confident that Timoshenko does not know what to do at the moment.Analyst Igor Gridasov said that the Party of Regions was collapsing and losing members. The party blames Yanukovych for all the problems. Concerning candidates, Gridasov mentioned Alexander Yefremov, head of the party’s fraction in the parliament and ex-Governor of the Luhansk Oblast, Mikhail Dobkin, Governor of the Kharkov Oblast. The expert assumes that their presidential bids were more of an attempt to transform persecution from the criminal line to the political, to become political opponents and take the lead from Yulia Timoshenko
