Elections in Ukraine - first round tomorrow 17 January

A total of 18 candidates are contesting Sunday's election including President Viktor Yushchenko though he is regarded as having little chance of success.
 
Opinion polls and analysts say there will be no outright winner on Sunday. The candidate with the most chances seems to be Viktor Yanukovich, a former Prime Minister, and the candidate that lost the elections 5 years ago after the Orange Revolution. The second candidate seems to be Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.

There are voices that say that Ukrainians need to choose between EU/NATO and Russia. But some other annalists say that no matter who wins Ukraine will continue to be somewhere in the middle because the citizens of this large country are very divided. In the Western and central regions of Ukraine there is strong support for stronger ties with EU and for no relations at all with Russia. People in the Eastern regions are more oriented towards Russia and they reject any possibility that Ukraine joins NATO or EU.


It is also my opinion that no matter who will win, this will not change the situation. Ukraine will not be able to make a clear decision towards any of the sides. This is a situation similar to the one in Moldova. With one exception: Ukraine already tried to get closer to the EU but this proved to be a failure. So I don't think that Ukraine will be ready any time soon to reject the ties with Russia and to try to get closer to Europe. Too many people are still suffering after the previous experiment. Let's just hope that Moldova's European experiment will prove to be more succesful.