Victor Yanukovych was inaugurated yesterday as President of Ukraine. As I understand it, this means that, technically, Ukraine has entered a period of cohabitation. To the best of my knowledge, there are no representatives of his Party of the Regions in the government. The government is still headed by Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.

This period of cohabitation should, in theory, be short. However, the battle for the premiership is ongoing. Ukraine has a premier-presidential form of semi-presidentialism since the 2006 constitutional reforms. Therefore, the president cannot dismiss the PM. The last legislative elections were held in September 2007, so there is some way to go before the next scheduled election. The Party of the Regions is currently negotiating with other groups and deputies in parliament with a view to forming a majority. To date, though, no agreement has been reached.

In this context, on Wednesday Prime Minister Tymoshenko had planned to hear a vote of no-confidence in the government that had been tabled by the Party of the Regions. According to Ukrainian Journal, she calculated that the motion would fail and that, therefore, she would be unable to be dismissed by the parliament for another year (Art. 87). However, the Party of the Regions withdrew the motion on Tuesday, giving them more time to try to construct a stable anti-Tymoshenko majority.

If it proves impossible to dismiss Tymoshenko, then there is still the option of dissolving parliament. However, President Yanukovych, and others, would prefer to avoid this option if possible, because the composition of the new legislature may be no less favourable to him.

In the end, a new majority is likely to be reached fairly soon, not least because party loyalties in the legislature are weak. However, this does not mean that any such majority would be enduring. In the meantime, the battle for the premiership continues and cohabitation continues.

There are various ways of following the unfolding events in Ukraine. One really useful academic-oriented blog is run by the Petro Jacyk Program for Study of Ukraine at the University of Toronto. There are some very thoughtful reflections on the election and its aftermath. Another blog that tries to cover events dispassionately is Ukraine Today, which has a couple of reports on post-coalition dealing. A very good English-language newspaper source is the Kyiv Post, which has the text in English of Prime Minister Tymoshenko’s address to the nation on 22 February. All of the articles written by Taras Kuzio, a well known commentator on Ukrainian politics, for the Jamestown Foundation are available online. Finally, Electoral Geography has the regional results for the second round of the election.

The second round of the presidential election has resulted in a narrow victory for the Party of the Regions candidate, Victor Yanukovych. The Ukrainian Independent Information Agency (UNIAN) is reporting that 99.3% of bulletins have been processed with the following result:

Victor Yanukovych, 48.77%
Yulia Tymoshenko, 45.56%
Against all 4.37%

Earlier in the day there were reports that Tymoshenko would contest the result. However, now the report is that Yanukovych’s supporters are gathering near the site of the Central Electoral Commission (CEC). Here is the link to the CEC’s website where the final result will be posted.

There was a surreal element to the ‘debate’ between the two remaining candidates in Ukraine’s presidential election. The event, which was held on 1 February, was due to bring together Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and Regions Party leader Victor Yanukovych. However, Yanukovych did not attend.

RIA Novosti quotes Yanukovych as saying: “She sees that she has already lost the election and is suggesting I should enter a competition on dirt and lies with her”. The result was that Tymoshenko had the floor to herself. RFE/RL has a nice picture of the broadcast and certainly seems to be suggesting that Tymoshenko is the favourite for the second round.

The second round of the presidential election in Ukraine will take place on 7 February. Viktor Yanukovich, the leader of the pro-Russian Party of the Regions who scored 35.32% at the first ballot, will compete against Yulia Timoshenko, the incumbent prime minister, who scored 25.05%. While this seems like a large gap to make up, there is still the possibility that Timoshenko may win. Everything will depend on where the votes of the unsuccessful candidates now go. In particular, Sergiy Tigipko won 13.05% and Arseniy Yatsenyuk won 6.96%.

Neither Tigipko nor Yatsenyuk has called on their voters to support either of the remaining candidates. Needless to say, though, Yanukovich and Timoshenko have courted both of them and RFE/RL is reporting the very explicit promise that Timoshenko has made to Tigipko, whereby she has offered him the premiership if she is successful. The chances are that the second round will be very close.

Meanwhile, there is a nice resume of the first round and its implications by Lucan A. Way at a University of Toronto blog on Ukraine. In addition, there are the usual array of maps and regional voting figures, which are always interesting in the Ukrainian case, at Electoral Geography.

The first round of the presidential election in Ukraine took place on Sunday. The Ukraine Information Agency reports the following figures with 98.99% of votes counted:

First round
Viktor Yanukovich 35.39%
Yulia Timoshenko 25.01%
Sergiy Tigipko 13.01%
Arseniy Yatsenyuk 6.96%
Viktor Yushchenko 5.48%
Petro Symonenko 3.55%
Volodymyr Litvin 2.34%
Oleg Tyangnybok 1.43%

Ten candidates received less than 1.4%.

The second round will take place on 7 February. Sunday’s result is not too far removed from the opinion polls that were presented before the holiday break. If so, then they also showed that Yanukovich would beat Timoshenko at the second ballot. Given the anti-Yanukovich camp is very divided, this would would still seem to be the most likely scenario.

The first round of the presidential election in Ukraine will take place on 17 January. Ukraine Today has reported the findings of the December opinion poll. The figures are very similar to the November poll. Anyway, the outcome seems to be certain. Viktor Yanukovych looks likely to be elected at the second ballot. Here are the most important figures:

First round
V. Yanukovich 33.3%
Y. Timoshenko 26.6%
S. Tigipko 7.4%
A, Yatsenyuk 6.7%
V. Litvin 4.1%
V. Yushchenko 3.8%

Second round
V. Yanukovich 46.7%
Y. Timoshenko 30.0%

The headline is just a thinly disguised way of directing attention to a really interesting blog on Ukrainian politics. It is called Ukraine Today. It is a very topical site, which deals with issues that are often relevant to this blog. Also, the tone of the bog is academic and the sources are usually impeccable.

The most recent article reports on President Yushchenko’s proposal for constitutional reform. His proposed text is available from the site and it indicates that he wants a presidential system. However, the main point of the article is to note that the proposition will have absolutely no influence whatsoever on the political debate. The president is so unpopular that he has become virtually irrelevant to the political process, which is gearing up for the presidential election in January.

The previous post reports the results of opinion poll surveys and shows that Viktor Yanukovych stands best placed to win the election. This is the poll that gives Yushchenko just 2% of the vote. With a sampling error of +/- 2.2%, he could end up owing the other candidates votes!

Anyway, I will use this blog to post about Ukraine from time to time, but I thought I would draw attention to it in case people were unaware of it and would like to consult it more frequently.

The prospect of an an end to semi-presidentialism in Ukraine has drawn nearer, even though this form of government remains extremely popular in the country.

On Sunday Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and former PM and leader of the Party of the Regions, Viktor Yanukovych, appear to have brokered a deal that is based on constitutional reforms that are designed to keep the two parties in power for the foreseeable future.

According to Ukrainian Journal, the reforms would include a change in the electoral system to allow only the top two parties to receive representation in the Verkhovna Rada. In addition, the long-mooted idea of electing the president via parliament was also proposed.

Following the debate over the date of the next presidential election (see previous post), Unian reports that a new decree had been presented to parliament last week that set the presidential date for 17 January 2010. However, the speaker of the Verkhovna Rada is now reported as saying that the decree will not be debated.

Even though an end to semi-presidentialism seems to be coming closer and closer, an opinion poll in Unian shows that the direct election of the president is very popular, being supported by 80.6% and opposed by only 6.1%. The overwhelming support for direct election explains why President Yushchenko is reported to have promised to call a referendum on the issue if an amendment is passed by parliament.

Meanwhile another opinion poll reported in Unian shows that Yanukovych is best placed to win an election if one were to be held tomorrow (and which perhaps also helps to explain why the Tymoshenko bloc is willing to consider a long-standing alliance with the party’s main rivals). For her part, Tymoshenko is polling 16.2%. Arseniy Yatseniuk comes third with 12.8%. The Communist Party leader, Petro Symonenko, registers 3.4%, Verkhovna Rada Speaker, Volodymyr Lytvyn, has 2.9%, while President Yushchenko’s rating has slipped further (almost unimaginably) to 1.9%.

RFE/RL reports that the Ukrainian Constitutional Court has struck down parliament’s chosen date for the presidential election.

The re-run of the second round of the last presidential election was held on 26 December 2004. President Yushchenko took office in January 2005. RFE/RL reports that the assumption was that the next presidential election would be held at the end of the presidential term in early 2010.

However, at the beginning of April parliament voted to hold the presidential election earlier than planned on 25 October 2009. Indeed, the change was approved by 401 of the 450 deputies in the Verkhovna Rada.

President Yushchenko challenged the decision and last Wednesday the Constitutional Court struck it down. Ukrainian Journal reports that the election is now planned either for 6 December, 27 December or 17 January. The president’s advisers are suggesting either the earlier or the later date.

A further complication is that, according to Art. 85 of the Constitution, parliament fixes the date of the election. However, the Verkhovna Rada has not been sitting recently. The Party of the Regions has been blocking proceedings demanding the resignation of the Interior Minister, Yuriy Lutsenko, since he was detained by police in Frankfurt when he tried to board a plane in an alleged state of inebriation. If the parliament is out of session for 30 days then it can be dissolved by the president. The last session was on 17 April. Last week, the Party of the Regions ended the blockade for one minute in order to avoid any chance of dissolution. The blockade then resumed.

Meanwhile, an opinion polls reveals that President Yushchenko’s popularity rating is running at 2.6%! Viktor Yanukovych of the Party of the Regions is polling 24.8%, Yulia Tymoshenko 15.6% and Arseniy Yatseniuk 13.9%.