Sluggish election campaign

Originally I wanted to take many more images (and post them in this blog) of the election campaigning and preparations for the elections in the Ukraine that will take place in two days. (Just to recap, President Yushchenko had ordered new elections after Prime Minister Yanukovich had poached too many deputies from Yushchenko’s party (for money, of course) and the President was in danger of losing his weight in parliament. After a bit of posturing from both sides, they agreed on new elections to be held on September 30th).

But I found that election campaigning at least here in Kiev is a rather low-key affair…. Nobody seems to be really interested in the elections… There are a few basket ball games being staged by the Party of the Regions, there is a (rather embarrassingly bad) karaoke show by another party, and the usual (boring) speeches that the audience hardly listens to and rather eagerly awaits the band that will play after the speeches… There are a few paid ‘protesters’ on Maidan who camp out in tents… There are a few new gadgets being put to test (such as the TV screen with election speeches strapped on the back of an election campaigner) …and the Green Party turns out in very small numbers in front of the parliament and protests against the poor water quality in Kiev…

Moreover, anecdotal evidence (and I admit to it being very anecdotal, because I only talked to a select few people in the underpasses and elsewhere who speak English or German) suggests to me that there will be a low turn out at the polls on Sunday… Most people either plan not to go to the polls or will vote for the (unstable) status quo… It seems that a lot of the spirit of the Orange Revolution has gone missing over the last three years or has been squandered by politicians… Luckily so far this has had little effect on the daily lives of most people…