Talk:2006 Ukrainian parliamentary election

Links

In case you are interested in Ukrainian or Russian language links, some of them are available in a Finnish version of the article. Very few electoral blocs or parties offer also English versions of their materials, so one way of developing the articles further would be translations. http://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainan_parlamenttivaalit_2006 81.175.152.26 06:21, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

http://sprotif.info/

Priorities

In case if you are interested in developing the topic, here is the advice from the local intellectual: concentrate on the very few electoral blocs or parties (really about 5) :). All the rest are just marginal puppets created due to the lacks of electoral legislation. Please don't add info on all of the parties -the Category:Politics of Ukraine is already littered with mere crap. Ukrained 14:24, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Hear! hear! The Dutch version mentions the ones likely to top the 3%. Including outsiders like Lytvyn and Vitrenko that adds up to seven "blocks". Muumi 00:02, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Polls

Anyone who feels like:

• Dutch version of this page has the polls by Razumov centre (not difficult to figure out who-is-who) Muumi 00:02, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Done! 11:18, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

НЕ ТАК

Is there ambiguity in the possible translation of "НЕ ТАК" in "Опозиційний блок НЕ ТАК!"? I would say it means "not like that", but Halyna Bondaruk uses "not yes" in her translation here. Anyone? (Apart from the 'feeling' that the name of that party starts in Ukrainian, but ends in Russian !?) Muumi 07:01, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

You both are quite right, with all three of the aspects listed by you :) You know, political brands and slogans in modern European tradition are intentionally formulated as multi-meaning. So all three meanings deserve to be included to a respective article. Thanks for asking. Ukrained 21:40, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Image of regions

Sorry but what is this map meant to represent? The expected % votes? Between whom, PR and NSNU? I think a legend will be nice for a start. Otherwise I assume this is just the breakdown of Ukraine into different regions, in that case I would like to see the colour gamma to be changed into more neutral tints.--Kuban Cossack 17:41, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Hi. It is meant to show where the "non-administrative" regions as used by KIIS are situated. These are quite arbitrary. Based on the 2004 results, one might contest this division. If the legend were to show West (orange), Center (yellow), South (light blue) and East (dark blue) would that help? Alternative is to explicitly name which oblasts/cities/Crimea belong to which region (cf. the image description on Commons). What is nice, is that each of these represent 20-28% of the population. The colours are taken from similar images used in Commons in 2004 Muumi 10:35, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

KC: Could you please explain why you removed the map without finishing the discussion first? Muumi 20:41, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

I did not remove the map, someone else did... I still think it is wrong to use such colour gamma particulary since organge and blue are not Yuschenko vs Yanukovich, here it is different. Perhaps red for the west (historic name Red Ruthenia); white for centre; green for east and maybe yellow for the south will be better, at least this avoids putting biased pre-election opinions on those selected regions. --Kuban Cossack 20:51, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Hi. In my opinion, the map is useless as it represents the standard geographic division of Ukraine by East/West/Centre/South. The same division is used in meteorology, for example. I't absurd to put the map on each page where Centre, South, East, or West Ukraine is mentioned. Uapatriot 21:32, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree that using orange and blue colours associated with the parties/blocs is not a good idea. This map's purpose is only to show the boundaries of the electoral regions, not indicate past, present, or presumed future political support. Neutral grey tones may be better, or patterns. Perhaps the most neutral solution is to use heavy lines for the borders and leave all the regions the same colour, and only use tone to show the boundaries of countries and water. —Michael Z. 2006-02-23 22:13 Z

Link from the Current events

FYI, I've changed a piped link to here from the Current events to read "Verkhovna Rada" rather than "Parliament". I thought it would be appropriate since English uses words such as Duma, Soviet, Knesset, Jamahiriyya, etc. ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 21:48, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Polls

What is the point of blanking by a law of a country that WP is not in? I am restoring it--Kuban Cossack 01:32, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

The point is to respect the law. Internet and WP are presented in Ukraine. And it would be civil to obey that particular Ukrainian law. Anyway, in 10 days the polls results will be gone from this page as the election results will be available. And the poll results that we have on this page are quite old. Taking all of this together... I would go by the law.

And during those 10 days readers would still like to see the tendencies. Ukrainian law acts within Ukraine. Wikipedia is an international encyclopedia, and not a political mass-media item btw.--Kuban Cossack 02:15, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Nothing prevents the readers (including from Ukraine) to go to non-Ukrainian sites to look for this info or to watch foreign TV, listen to foreign radio or read the foreign press. Let's do our part that the info they access to is at least correct.

No one should attempt to suppress the legally obtained information from being published legally. Wikipedia is under the US jurisdiction as it the US corporation and its servers are US based. We use US copyright law. Similarly, the US laws on the information dissimination apply, of which the First Amendment is the main basis. Nothing can prevent the editor from not contributing to the issues which he would rather not see published. OTOH, it doesn't give anyone a right to supress the info published by others just becuase s/he claim the Ukrainian law which in this case doesn't apply. --Irpen 02:40, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm think that law applies only to new polls, ie: sociological services or anyone else cannot conduct and publish polls in the last two weeks before the election; as you can see the polls are still visible here: http://uv.ukranews.com/r6/rating/list.html. In either case Wikipedia is not Ukraine. --Berkut 02:44, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

I think that there should be a section about the sad events of the murder of a communist in western ukraine from people of "orange revolution". Also, in donetstk ,at the election day ,the communist party secretary in the regional branch was attacked and is in hospital. It is not sure if he will survive. His name is Ilya Morozov. The communist leader Symonenko described these elections as the most expensive and dirty elections. This describes an enviroment of terror and fear. This article should incorporate these data, unless here is written anything that keep up with western propaganda as in the case of Belarus.

Write about it, register and expand wikipedia giving it a thorough multi-POV balance.--Kuban Cossack 08:48, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

I lived in Western-Europe all my life and never met anybody who is anti-Russian! There is no Western anti-Russia-pact. So get over it. And according to the OSCE Mr. Sumonenko is wrong. I have more faith in them then i some communist I never heard of. BTW he lost, that's why he might have said that. I like Russians but that "the West is anti-Russia bla-bla-bla" is really annoying. If I would become anti-Russia it would be YOUR FAULT! And people like you! We in the west have no problem with Russia, Russians let alone we want to control countries so Russia would not controle them. So get frecking over it! Mariah-Yulia 16:52, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

first of all, i am not from russia. I was born and live in Hellas (Greece). Of course, the most important are the facts and not what everyone, even Symonenko, said. However,it is difficult to consider OSCE as an independent and reliable organization. you see OSCE does not find any ploblem when in Latvia almost 20% of population does not have the right to vote, or even to have the property of citizenship, because their fathers came in the country after the 30s.Also, OSCE and western media consider fair the Georgian elections where Saakashvili gain 97% of votes!!!! they do not have problem if political parties are illegal, like the communist parties in Lithuania,Latvia, Esthonia and other countries.they do not find any problem in Czech republic, even if there is an attempt to make illegal the KSM just a few months before the elections. Even in my country the media coverage of parties'activities is unfair . and i am talking about parliamentary parties.Again no problem. there are not really independent international organizations. it is a matter of power. People like me are not against western world, but against western policies and interference in other countries politics. I do not hate anyone, but i do not like pretenders of justice and fairness. you see OSCE and european union favorite subject is Belarus'elections. Really did you hear about the fake exit poll in belarus , which was ready days before the elctions, showing the opposition candidate winning the elections.it is lithuania behind this. as far as my interest in ex-ussr countries, i do not have problem to admit that i consider Russian people as our brothers. You see i am eastern orthodox and a long historical tradition connects russia and my country.i do not intend to write anything more in the future about this specific subject.

I do not know this Morozov but if he got beaten up in Donetsk, that may have been done by thugs supporting Yanukovich (not that I think Yanukovich is behind it, of course). Yanukovich rose to power in the East of the Ukraine by (sometimes violently) crushing communist influence in the trade unions. This time, anti-Yushchenko or anti-Timoshenko agitation was almost absent in the East. I do agree however, that some voter intimidation (directed aginst the left and Yanukovich) in the West again was obvious and I do not understand why the OSCE did not mention that. The picture is not clear however: in Zakarpatia and areas around Lwow/Lviv and in Volhyn, the atmosphere was much better than in 2004. In Ivano-Frankovsk, however, left-wing or Yanukovich voters either stayed away altogether or gave their vote to Yushchenko as the lesser of a few evils. Again, that the OSCE did not notice this - is strange, particularly as the results of Zakarpatia (Yanukovich did relatively well there) prove that even a slight diminution of intimidation can have an influence on the vote. The communist vote has been declining in the Ukraine because the party is too old-fashioned in viewpoints and personnel. The party's refusal to take clear sides between pro- or anti-Russia viewpoints is leaving the left spectre of opinion more and more to Yanukovich, as people are afraid to throw away their vote to the communists or to Vitrenko.

By the way, opinion polls in Belarus are difficult because the foreign pollsters do not know (or pretend not to know) how to interpret the very high number of people refusing to tell how they will vote. It is very difficult to look into people's hearts: do they refuse because they are afraid the government will know, or do they refuse because they think foreigners have no right to know they will vote for Lukashenko? In the end, there were far too many people in the second category for the poll to be correct. I believe Lukashenko would also have won the election without falsifying the results.--pgp 22:51, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

New parties, old parties (or are they the same thing?)

• There are three parties, scoring more than 1%, of which I don't know anything: the Ukrainian National Bloc of Kostenko and Pliushch, Party "Viche" and Party "Renaissance".
• I can't understand where the Constitutional Democratic Party (2.1% in 2002) and the Ukranian Republican Party (allied with Tymoshenko Bloc in 2002) are gone.

Are there some links between the new parties and those late parties? If anybody can help me, I will be very glad. Checco 12:58, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Truly nobody knows something about these parties... Checco 14:53, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Source of data

What is the source for the number of seats won by each party? The CEC website does not give this information anywhere I can find. And what is the meaning of "Viche"? Adam 06:58, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Spatial distribution of votes

Could someone explain to me how it is that allegedly ksenofobic and fascist galician voted for the more moderate Yushchenko while the heartland voted for the Timoshenko which is said to be radical and russofobic?

The pattern seems to be that the more rural and exclusively Ukrainian-speaking areas remained loyal to Yushchenko, whereas Kiev and the more cosmopolitan, but still Ukrainian-identifying, central areas voted for Timoshenko because they want faster progress towards economic reform. The Russian areas voted for Yanukhovich. Incidentally, is Timoshenko related to Marshall Semyon Timoshenko? Adam 11:39, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Doubtful, the name is not that discommon. As for results then one has to remember that Yushchenko is American raised theif, Timoshenko is central-raised theif, Yanukovich is eastern-raised theif. I mean after being subjected to all exreames people in central Ukraine voted for their own person (better have your own theif rather than a foreign one). As for nationalist then Yushchenko certainly loses out having elements like KUN, RUKh and Sobor in his block. Most of the central Ukrainians refused to identify with such elements. Even the western Volhynia where my wife comes from voted for Timoshenko (although her family voted for Vitrenko oddly enough).--Kuban Cossack 11:49, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

I think it should be a general rule at Wikipedia that nothing anyone says about the politics of their own country should be believed. I don't think any of the three major candidates are thieves, although Timoshenko certainly has some dubious associations. Adam 12:01, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Dear Adam, from where you live (Melbourne, Australia), you can't judge Yulia Timoshenko. People can change for the better! I do agree with the rest of your post. Some "political opinions" look more like propaganda for the country of the writer of it. Mariah-Yulia 16:07, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Guys, if you really need to discuss this in Wikispace, pls move it to a subpage Talk:Ukrainian parliamentary election/forum or similar. This page is primarily to discuss the article. --Irpen 19:13, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Hence why I initially blanked the comment. --Kuban Cossack 22:25, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

It's hard to tell if the question is a troll, just like the immediately proceeding answer. Just in case anyone really wants to know the answer is obvious. Because the voters of Halychyna aren't fascists nor is Yulia Tymoshenko a radical. Of course there are some nationalists in Lviv and other Ukrainian cities, ranging from pseudointellectuals to simple thugs, just as there are in any European (or American) city, but they don't play any significant role. In fact the problem is far less significant then it is in the Old Europe as there are hardly any third world immigrants

This seems to be a question of semantics. Ukrainians want their country to be free, want to speak Ukrainian, send their sons to Ukrainian schools and worship God in Ukrainian churches. In Europe this is called patriotism but in Russia it's called "bourgeoisie nationalism". Hence Russians consistently write about nationalism in places were one would in English write patriotism.

As for the vote, when one looks at actual percentage of the votes cast in diffent oblast, instead of a colored map, there's no apparent geographical clusterization with the two parties going neck and neck in some regions and pretty far apart in others. Simply the people had a choice between two patriotic center-right parties, with slightly diffrent programs (BYuT seemed to put a stronger emphesize of bringing criminals to justice while NU on economic development) and chose based on diffrent factors. BYuT, having the luxery of being an opposition party did better overall, in the western regions also did pretty good but slightly more people voted for NU there. No hidden mechanisms need to be introduced to explain the situation.

BTW you map is wrong BYuT was 2nd in Tiachiv.

Results

Can someone show me where at the CEC website the data on the number of seats won by each party can be found? Adam 00:49, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Here is my understanding. The results published by CEC are still officially "preliminary" results. Once the final results are certified, they will become official and the official gov agency will anounce the seat distribution. The results about number of seats given by the media are their own calculation based on the preliminary results. Since it is highly unlikely, that there will be any meaningful difference between today's result and the certified ones and the conversion of percentage of the vote to a seat number is straightforward, we can use the number of seats given by media. I don't see a problem with this. Here is the calculation by Ukrayinska Pravda but there is nothing non-trivial in it. --Irpen 06:23, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Spasibi. Adam 06:39, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Нема за що! --Irpen 06:48, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

No-one has told me yet what the "Viche party" is. Adam 07:05, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

See Veche. --Irpen 07:24, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Inna Bogoslovska's party. See [1], [2] 06:10, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Ukraine parliament crisis

Considering that this ongoing and quite heated crisis can result in dissolving the current Rada, do we need an article on Ukraine parliament crisis, 2006? (Igny 02:18, 30 July 2006 (UTC))

That would be useful, though it seems that the current information in this article is incorrect as the socialists backed out of the "orange" coalition. --Musaabdulrashid 20:31, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

I have now tagged the page for updating as the Oleksander Moroz article says that he, the chairman of the socialist party, will become the new speaker of parliament in a coalition of the SPU, Communists and Party of Regions. This information is in other articles too, but the hype over the election has gone down considerably and I can understand why no one has updated this yet. Musaabdulrashid 05:58, 30 September 2006 (UTC)