Month: February 2019

Ukrainian voters have 44 candidates to pick from in next month’s presidential elections, but they do not feel spoiled for choice.

Among what is on offer — a popular television comic, far-right war veterans, a chest-beating male chauvinist who says feminism has gone too far, a gas princess, lawmakers and spies as well as Ukraine’s chocolate king, the incumbent, Petro Poroshenko, who is seeking a second term.

But midway through a three-month campaign full of dirty tricks, the election is not enthusing jaded voters — although the upstart insurgent bid by TV comedian Volodymyr Zelenskiy is garnering surprising support and holds out the prospect of a major upset.

Recent surveys show the country’s politicians — from incumbent Poroshenko to Ukraine’s lawmakers, are held in deep disdain. A survey earlier this month suggested 82 percent of Ukrainians mistrust parliament and 71 percent feel the same way about Poroshenko.

Five years on from the Maidan uprising that drove pro-Moscow authoritarian president Viktor Yanukovych from office, Ukraine is still struggling to give birth to what people here like to term a “normal state.” The debate on whether Ukraine should look West and align with the European Union or east toward Moscow is long over.  The separation from Russia now seems permanent.

Corruption persists

But Ukrainians say they still feel far from fulfilling the high domestic hopes for change sparked by the 2014 so-called “revolution for dignity” and finally exorcising the machinations of oligarchs, who freely mix politics and business in equal measure to rig the system

The election campaign is not helping to persuade them otherwise. “This is one of the filthiest campaigns I’ve seen,” says Eugene Rysunkov, a translator.

Poroshenko, the 53-year-old billionaire dubbed the chocolate king because of his confectionary business, has been accused by opponents of running schemes to buy votes, especially in small towns where the pull of political paternalism is strong. And prosecutors and law enforcement agencies have not held back from intruding on electoral politics by opening corruption probes into candidates, seeking to embarrass them.

Some of the probes are unfinished business from the past when Yanukovych ran the country as a kleptocracy and plundered the state. But their timing is suspicious.

There have also been accusations of harassment of independent journalists. News outlet Nashi Groshi noticed the stalking of its reporters increased on the eve of publishing this week a report detailing allegations about business friends of Poroshenko growing rich on shadowy defense procurement contracts.

Ukraine’s progress has been mixed in reforming a corrupt political system in which oligarchs wield out-sized influence, manipulating politics, public opinion and bureaucrats to enrich themselves.

On Friday, the U.S. embassy warned on its Facebook page: “Five years ago today [on February 22], EuroMaidan protesters succeeded in expelling a corrupt government. Yet, corruption remains a pressing problem holding the Ukrainian people back from achieving the economic and political progress they deserve.”

Baby steps

Some analysts credit Poroshenko with some progress in introducing more transparency and starting a clean-up — improvements all the more noteworthy considering he has done so while the country has been locked in a low-intensity separatist war with Russia in the eastern region of the Donbas.

There has been a streamlining of the procedures for securing business permits, an e-declaration system has been introduced requiring officials to register their assets, and there is now an e-procurement system for government contracts, although not in the defense sector. The energy sector, too, has seen something of a clean-up, according to a major study by the Institute for Economic Research and Policy Consulting, which has an international board of experts.

The institute calculates the aggregate gain from a “radical change in the rules of the game” implemented since 2014 amounts to about six percent of GDP.

Taras Lagoida, an art dealer in Kyiv specializing in Ukrainian impressionists, welcomes the anti-corruption efforts since Maidan — despite the fact he has suffered. The art market is a gauge, he says. “Since 2014 the market has been depressed locally. Before, a lot of people in government and business would think nothing of paying high prices. Now they just don’t have the cash,” he explains.

Analysts, though, warn there are serious risks of backsliding, and they say there has been little curtailing of large-scale corruption at the highest levels of government. Several businesspeople VOA interviewed say they are still being strong-armed by tax inspectors demanding bribes. And petty everyday graft remains, infuriating ordinary people forced to shell out bribes.

Prosperity elusive

More Ukrainians live below the poverty line now than before Maidan. In 2014, 15 percent were categorized as poor; but last year the number jumped 10 percent, says the World Bank.

The war in the Donbas is not helping. Ukraine has lost control of lucrative industrial and coal-mining areas in the breakaway regions of Donetsk and Luhansk. Kyiv had to sever close economic and industrial ties with Moscow after Yanukovych’s ouster and the economy is being kept afloat thanks to multibillion-dollar international loans.

Lack of economic opportunity is driving young Ukrainians to flee, hollowing out the population. In 2017 alone 662,000 Ukrainians, more than any other nationality, were granted residency permits in EU member states.

Those remaining here complain they cannot cope. Olga, a mother of two and shop worker who lives on the outskirts of Kyiv, is one among them.  “I’m lucky I suppose. I own my apartment, but I get 4,000 Hryvnia ($148) a month, but my utility bill gobbles up 3000 hryvnia, leaving me just a thousand for everything else. You try raising two kids on that.” Like many, she says the elite just get richer.

Colorful characters

And that sentiment is fueling the anti-establishment campaign of comedian Volodymyr Zelenskiy, a TV star who is seeking to prove life can indeed imitate art.

The 41-year-old, who has a reputation of playing oligarchs off against each other with his business ventures, has become the surprise front-runner, according to opinion polls. He has pushed ahead of Poroshenko and former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko, and now seems likely to face one or the other in a run-off after the first poll on March 31 featuring all the hopefuls.

Tymoshenko is a veteran politician whom opponents fault for opportunistic makeovers that have seen her lurching from pro-Europe to pro-Moscow positions and back again.

The protagonist of a long-running popular series called the Servant of the People, Zelenskiy plays a teacher who unexpectedly finds himself president after a student posts on YouTube one of his rants denouncing the elite. In real life, his gags and mockery of Poroshenko have enlivened the election.

Angry voters say the joke for years has been on them and maybe they cannot do any better than elect a comedian who knows how to deconstruct gags.

Fresh face

Tetiana Popova, a former Ukrainian deputy minister for information policy, says Zelenskiy is attracting support equally across east and west Ukraine, unusual for Ukrainian candidates.

And his campaign, she says, is being helped by the ugly battle between Poroshenko and Tymoshenko, who have been hurling corruption allegations against each other.

Their skirmishing has fractured government security agencies, Popova says. “The ministry of internal affairs has been targeting Poroshenko’s circle with probes and arrests; while the SBU intelligence agency has been targeting Tymoshenko’s people,” she adds.

Irina Venediktova, a law professor and Zelenskiy adviser, says, “if we didn’t have Zelenskiy, we’d have to invent him. We need a new person, a champion of direct democracy. He’s genuine, he’s different and he’s exciting civil society. His network of advisers and volunteers aren’t connected by money or by the possibility of future benefits, but by the idea of real democratic reform.”

Zelinskiy’s upstart candidacy has some blinking in the Western diplomatic community. Diplomats voice frustration with Poroshenko, but say at least he is a known quantity. Zelinskiy’s lack of government experience worries them. But Venediktova says his outside status is one of his strengths. “It will help him find practical and innovative solutions,” she says.

 
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British Prime Minister Theresa May said Tuesday she would allow lawmakers to vote on whether to leave the European Union without a deal or pursue a delay in Britain’s withdrawal from the 28-nation bloc.

Parliament is scheduled to vote on May’s deal on March 14, two weeks before Britain’s scheduled March 29 departure from the EU. The government, however, has been unable to win Parliament’s support for its separation agreement with the bloc. As a result, the U.K. is confronted with the prospect of leaving the EU without a deal, a development that could disrupt business and individuals throughout Europe.

If the vote is defeated in Parliament, as it was overwhelmingly last month, the body would likely vote on whether to ask the EU to delay Britain’s departure.

If Parliament reject’s those two options, May said the government would put forward a motion on whether lawmakers want a short extension of Article 50, the legal separation process. May added that any delay could only be until the end of June.

“I do not want to see Article 50 extended,” May told Parliament. “Our absolute focus should be on working to get a deal and leaving on March 29.

May said she presented the new options in response to lawmakers who were “genuinely worried about time running out.”

Six government ministers threatened recently to resign unless May rules out the possibility of Britain departing the EU without an agreement.
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Russian state television has listed U.S. military facilities that Moscow would target in the event of a nuclear strike, and said that a hypersonic missile Russia is developing would be able to hit them in less than five minutes.

The targets included the Pentagon and the presidential retreat in Camp David, Maryland.

The report, unusual even by the sometimes bellicose standards of Russian state TV, was broadcast on Sunday evening, days after President Vladimir Putin said Moscow was militarily ready for a “Cuban Missile”-style crisis if the United States wanted one.

With tensions rising over Russian fears that the United States might deploy intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Europe as a Cold War-era arms-control treaty unravels, Putin has said Russia would be forced to respond by placing hypersonic nuclear missiles on submarines near U.S. waters.

The United States says it has no immediate plans to deploy such missiles in Europe and has dismissed Putin’s warnings as disingenuous propaganda. It does not currently have ground-based intermediate-range nuclear missiles that it could place in Europe.

However, its decision to quit the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty over an alleged Russian violation, something Moscow denies, has freed it to start developing and deploying such missiles.

Putin has said Russia does not want a new arms race, but has also dialed up his military rhetoric.

The Pentagon said that Putin’s threats only helped unite NATO.

“Every time Putin issues these bombastic threats and touts his new doomsday devices, he should know he only deepens NATO’s resolve to work together to ensure our collective security,” Eric Pahon, a Pentagon spokesman, said.

Some analysts have seen his approach as a tactic to try to re-engage the United States in talks about the strategic balance between the two powers, something Moscow has long pushed for, with mixed results.

In the Sunday evening broadcast, Dmitry Kiselyov, presenter of Russia’s main weekly TV news show ‘Vesti Nedeli,’ showed a map of the United States and identified several targets he said Moscow would want to hit in the event of a nuclear war.

The targets, which Kiselyov described as U.S. presidential or military command centers, also included Fort Ritchie, a military training center in Maryland closed in 1998, McClellan, a U.S. Air Force base in California closed in 2001, and Jim Creek, a naval communications base in Washington state.

Kiselyov, who is close to the Kremlin, said the “Tsirkon” (‘Zircon’) hypersonic missile that Russia is developing could hit the targets in less than five minutes if launched from Russian submarines.

Hypersonic flight is generally taken to mean traveling through the atmosphere at more than five times the speed of sound.

“For now, we’re not threatening anyone, but if such a deployment takes place, our response will be instant,” he said.

Kiselyov is one of the main conduits of state television’s strongly anti-American tone, once saying Moscow could turn the United States into radioactive ash.

Asked to comment on Kiselyov’s report, the Kremlin said on Monday it did not interfere in state TV’s editorial policy.
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The $8 billion Green Climate Fund, set up to help developing nations tackle global warming, named Yannick Glemarec of France as its new executive director Monday after his predecessor quit.

Former leader Howard Bamsey of Australia stepped down in July after what the fund described as a “difficult” board meeting marred by disputes between rich and poor nations about how to select projects in developing nations.

“Yannick Glemarec brings 30 years of experience in climate change, development, finance and their inter-relationships,” the fund said in a statement. He has previously had senior jobs at U.N. Women and the U.N. Development Program.

The fund, set up in South Korea in 2014, is trying to help developing nations to cut their greenhouse gas emissions and adapt their economies to extremes such as floods, droughts, downpours and rising sea levels.

It has been plagued by internal disputes and U.S. President Donald Trump denounced it as a waste of taxpayer dollars. He halted U.S. contributions as part of his decision to leave the 2015 Paris climate agreement.

Trump’s decision cut the fund to $8 billion from $10 billion originally pledged. The United States under President Barack Obama promised a total of $3 billion but had provided just $1 billion by the time Trump took office.

The fund has a portfolio of 93 projects in developing nations worth about $4.6 billion. It had been led by interim chief Javier Manzanares of Spain since Bamsey quit.
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French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday welcomed the United States’ decision to leave American troops in Syria, a reversal by U.S. President Donald Trump that came after an outcry from coalition allies such as France.

“On the U.S. decision, I can only but welcome this choice,” Macron told a news conference with his Iraqi counterpart Barham Salih. “The U.S. decision is a good thing. We will continue to operate in the region within the coalition.”

In December, Trump ordered the withdrawal of all 2,000 troops in Syria after he said they had defeated Islamic State militants, an abrupt decision that sparked consternation among allies and was a factor in his defense secretary’s resignation.

Macron had personally sought to convince Trump to maintain troops in Syria, French diplomats said at the time, warning him about the risks of pulling out too early.

The United States will leave about 400 U.S. troops split between two different regions of Syria, a senior administration official said last Friday.

 
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Thousands gathered in central Moscow on Sunday to mark the fourth anniversary of opposition politician Boris Nemtsov’s murder.

Although the events were approved by Moscow authorities, police limited access to the northern edge of the Bolshoi Moskvoretsky bridge just outside the Kremlin, where for years a makeshift memorial comprising of plaques, photos, flowers and candles has marked the spot of the 55-year-old’s assassination by gunshot.

It was on the evening of February 27, 2015, when Nemtsov was walking across the bridge when a car stopped alongside him. A gunman emerged from the vehicle and fired multiple shots from a range of several feet, striking Nemtsov in the head, heart, liver and stomach, killing him instantly.

The attack come just hours after the activist had publicly called for a rally to protest Russia’s war in Ukraine. In the days leading up to his assassination, he had said he was preparing to release a damning report entitled “Putin. War” that would undercut Russian President Vladimir Putin’s denial that the Kremlin had troops on the ground in eastern Ukraine.

In the center of Moscow, as in other cities across Russia, thousands took to the streets with placards in Russian and English with statements such as “Killed for freedom,” “Are you going to kill us too?” and “Putin is a liar.” Although five men were convicted of Nemtsov’s killing, supporters say those who commissioned the hit have evaded justice.

According to Evan Gershkovich of The Moscow Times, many placards visible at the rally touched on a litany of grievances frequently invoked by the Russia’s anti-Kremlin community — from a 2018 movie theater blaze that killed scores of Siberian children to arrests over political commentary on social media threads. 

“For many demonstrators, the rally … was ultimately less about [Nemtsov’s] death as much as it was about keeping his spirit of opposition alive,” he wrote.

“This is a march in opposition to Vladimir Putin,” one of the event’s organizers, politician Ilya Yashin, said in a video prior to the march. “This is a march for a free and democratic Russia.”

According to the “White counter,” an independent activists group that specializes in assessing rally turnout, the Moscow event drew and estimated 10,600 people

Moscow police reported about 6,000 participants.

The march route, which was coordinated with city officials, didn’t include a stop at Nemtsov’s memorial, but participants planned on walking there to deposit flowers after the rally concluded. They were met by steel slat barriers and police officers, some donning riot gear, who said access to the bridge was restricted.

Attempting to approach the bridge from Red Square, one VOA reporter was told access to the bridge was closed. When asked why the bridge was blocked, the officer gestured to step back. “Be on your way,” he said, point away from the bridge.

Riot control vehicles were visible in an area alongside the bridge.

“For some reason, they decided to make access to the bridge as difficult as possible,” said one protester named Vladimir, who has attended a number of annual Nemtsov memorial rallies. “Maybe they did it hoping that people won’t reach the place. But who wants to come will come. The state, apparently, has decided people will suffer before coming and pay their respect to Boris Nemtsov.”

“At first, we tried to reach the bridge from one entrance. It was closed. Then we tried to go through another one,” added Vladimir, who withheld his last name. “It’s not the first year they are doing this. It’s been expected, there’s nothing new.”

Andrew, who hadn’t planned on attempting to reach the site of the memorial in order to lay flowers there,  made a last-minute effort — and with success.

“[Police] a little bit fenced the place around, and I asked, ‘can I pass?’, and they said ‘yes, you can.’ And then the next behind me tried to pass through, too, but they said, “the passageway is closed.’

“It’s somehow a bit incomprehensible,” Andrew added. “A week ago, I was here, and I could pass. They don’t want people to come here. They’re ruining the memorial here every time flowers are laid. They are afraid.”

Later in the afternoon, police opened one point of access to the memorial — this time from Red Square, where marchers could walk through a gangway cordoned by crowd-control fencing with officers regulating pedestrian access in a seemingly arbitrary way.

Several prominent opposition politicians, including Alexei Navalny, attended the march.

Reports on Ekho Moskvy radio said similar rallies were being held in at least 20 Russian cities. In St. Petersburg, radio reports said, municipal officials denied permits for several memorial events.

Pete Cobus contributed reporting from Moscow. Some information from Reuters.
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A poster at the National Rally’s headquarters outside Paris shows a smiling Marine Le Pen standing alongside Italy’s interior minister and League leader Matteo Salvini. “Everywhere in Europe,” reads the tagline, “our ideas are coming to power.”

The message is more than aspirational. As campaigning heats up for May European Parliament elections, experts predict the two far-right leaders and those of other nationalist movements may score strongly, with potentially sweeping consequences for the European Union.

“Complacency will be very dangerous with these elections,” said analyst Susi Dennison, of the European Council on Foreign Relations, who estimates that “anti-European” parties could grab up to one-third or more of the vote. “The idea of change, that the political system is broken, is a very powerful one among European voters.”

Le Pen also sees a potential sea change, calling the upcoming vote a “historic turning point.”

“The European Union is dead,” the National Rally leader said during a recent interview with Anglophone journalists. “Long live Europe.”

If she proves right, the elections will consolidate a trend that has put Euro-skeptics into governments in Hungary, Italy, Austria and Poland, further weakening a union already shaken by internal divisions and Britain’s upcoming departure.

In France, the National Rally has rebounded from a stinging defeat in presidential and parliamentary elections two years ago, to become the country’s leading opposition force. Since taking control of the party her father founded in the 1970s, 50-year-old Le Pen has fundamentally revamped its pugnacious image and rhetoric — including a name tweak last year from its original moniker, the National Front.

From outsider to almost-mainstream

From once-shunned political outsider, the National Rally is now almost mainstream, surfing on the implosion of France’s center-right and center-left in 2017, and a shift in voter support to the political margins.

In a nod to its success, the conservative Les Republicains party has controversially borrowed some of its hardline rhetoric, notably on immigration.

Le Pen has also capitalized on the plummeting support for President Emmanuel Macron and his reformist agenda, seen with the weeks of “yellow vest” protests.

“Instead of offering an alternative to chaos,” she said of the president, “the French got both chaos and Macron.”

For the EU elections, she has tapped 23-year-old loyalist Jordan Bardella to head the party’s list and bolster its appeal to younger voters. Recent polls have shown the National Rally neck-and-neck with Macron’s Republic on the Move, although a survey released Friday found slipping support for the Le Pen’s party.

Still, it has traditionally fared well in EU Parliament elections, coming in first in the last 2014 vote, with nearly a quarter of the vote. Today, Le Pen is banking on a broader win.

“I think Europe is moving toward the return of nation-states, and we’re part of this great political movement supporting this,” she said. “Our goal is to turn the EU into a cooperation among nations, and not this kind of European super state.”

Eroding support for pro-EU parties

An EU Parliament forecast released last week appears to bolster her prediction. While parliament’s top two blocs, the Christian Democrats and Socialists will retain their primacy, it finds their overall share of membership and support is expected to erode.

Meanwhile, nationalist parties including Italy’s League and Le Pen’s National Rally are expected to grow sizably, with the latter predicted to gain six parliamentary seats to reach 21 in total.

Launching their European parliament campaign in Rome last October, Le Pen and Italy’s Salvini predicted a win by nationalist parties would bring “common sense” to Europe, and blasted key EU officials, including European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, as “enemies of the people.”  

Like other European populist leaders, both have sought counsel from Steve Bannon, an EU skeptic and former political advisor to U.S. President Donald Trump, who founded a Brussels-based initiative called The Movement.

Europe’s populists are riding on citizen ambivalence and outright antipathy to a bloc many consider too soft on immigration and overly focused on bureaucracy. Recent Eurobarometer surveys show that while two-thirds of Europeans believe their country has benefited from being part of the EU — a 35-year high — only four in 10 have a positive image or trust in it.

A strong showing by euro-skeptic parties could have significant repercussions for the EU, she said, giving them greater influence and access to key posts, including in the European Commission, the bloc’s executive body.

“The challenge for EU institutions and pro-EU politicians going into this elections, is to find issues on which Europe can deliver that will mobilize voters” such as climate change, she added.

Exploiting weaknesses

Nationalist parties also have weaknesses that pro-European ones can exploit, Dennison said, including differences on how to handle immigration. And while some populist parties are calling for nothing less than the EU’s demise, others want to reform, not break it.

In France, the National Rally’s prospects may be complicated by the yellow vest protest movement. Some yellow vests are eyeing an EU Parliament run, but the movement is leaderless and disorganized, and the idea of turning grassroots action into a political force is controversial.

“The yellow vests present both a threat and an opportunity for Marine Le Pen,” said political scientist Jean Petaux, of Sciences-Po Bordeaux University, “They could offer her party a chance to enlarge its audience as the party that listens to their grievances.”

But a yellow vest list could steal votes from the National Rally, he added.  

In Le Pen’s favor is the traditionally poor turnout for EU elections in France, Petaux said, leading to a potentially significant protest vote.  

“When you have a low turnout,” he said, “it is usually those who are against who mobilize — not those who are for.”
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Pope Francis has compared the sexual abuse of children to human sacrifice.

“I am reminded of the cruel religious practice, once widespread in certain cultures, of sacrificing human beings – frequently children – in pagan rites,” Francis said Sunday.  

He was speaking at the close of the summit of the church’s top bishops and leaders, called to design a plan on how to deal with the predatory priests who have sexually abused children and adults for decades.

AFP, the French news agency, reports that the bishops were given a “roadmap” on how to stop the predatory priests that included “drawing up mandatory codes of conduct for priests, training people to spot abuse, and informing police.”

Mark Coleridge, president of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference warned the gathered Catholic clergy and leaders that “We do not have forever, and we dare not fail” as they go back to  their dioceses and navigate dealing with reports of abuse.

“We have shown too little mercy,” Coleridge warned, “and therefore we will receive the same.”

Worldwide sexual abuse by priests

The reports of worldwide sexual abuse by priests have rocked the Roman Catholic Church.  

“We will do all in our power to make sure that the horrors of the past are not repeated,” Coleridge said.

On Saturday, German Cardinal Reinhard Marx, in an extraordinary admission, said that “files that could have documented the terrible deeds and named those responsible were destroyed, or not even created.”

Sister Veronica Openibo, a Nigerian nun, addressed the group Saturday:  “We must acknowledge that our mediocrity, hypocrisy and complacency have brought us to this disgraceful and scandalous place we find ourselves as a Church. We pause to pray, Lord have mercy on us.”

She told the summit; “Too often we want to keep silent until the storm has passed.  This storm will not pass by.  Our credibility is at stake.”
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