I think that Ukrainians don’t have true representative democracy yet (why is Yanukovych’s little shmuck son a member of Parliament????).

So the question as to whether they favor democracy, and whether democracy is chaos, is misleading.

But even the discussion on the Savik Shuster show suggested that the “populace” was to blame.

And if they keep voting for criminal oligarchs – then they are to blame.

Taras, putting blame on one individual for Ukraines democratic failures is ludicris to say the least. Yushchenko for one does not pass legislation, the VR does. The VR has fought his proposed legislations from day one, and that includes his former partner Tymoshenko. A bit hard for one man to change a country by himself, while the others are more interested in ministerial seats and winning presidential elections while playing a game of bastardized democracy. As for the populace, they are just as much to blame, they keep voting these idiots back into office. You get what you deserve, and sadly that will be true in this election.

Read this Pew Center survey:
http://pewglobal.org/reports/display.php?ReportID=267

Ukrainian democracy is not in good shape. Read this survey. This is what I wrote for an article:

The internationally respected Pew Research Center in the USA (http://pewglobal.org) released this month a new world survey (”The Pulse of Europe 2009: 20 Years After the Fall of the Berlin Wall”) that provides concrete evidence of the negative impact of Viktor Yushchenko’s presidency on both Ukrainian statehood and democracy.
Yushchenko’s campaign for re-election stresses the twin achievements of strengthening statehood and bringing democracy to Ukraine. But, to what extent have these twin objectives been realized under President Yushchenko? As the Pew survey notes, “Ukraine is the only country included in the survey where more disapprove than approve of the changes to a multiparty system and market economy”. In Ukraine “support for democracy is tenuous by many standards”, the Pew survey concludes.
62 percent of Ukrainians agreed that they are worse off today than when they lived under communism (in Russia 45 percent) and only 36 percent of Ukrainians approve of the transition to a free market. This finding is important because “people who now rate their lives well voice the strongest support for democratic values, while those less satisfied are the least disposed to the new values”. A lower number of Ukrainians who approve of the post-Soviet political and economic transition equates to a higher number of Ukrainians who are disillusioned with democracy.

After the Orange Revolution and Yushchenko’s election Ukrainians increased their trust in state institutions and believed that free elections were possible. This trust has since evaporated and most Ukrainians, according to the Pew survey, now question if free elections take place and whether Ukraine has an honest judicial system.

The Pew survey also found that there is a strong appeal for a strong leader over popularity for democracy in Ukraine, Russia, Bulgaria, Lithuania and Hungary. Most commentators, whether Ukrainian or foreign, agree that Yushchenko has been a weak and indecisive leader and that Ukraine lacks leadership and a sense of direction.

The Pew survey found that the three most prominent national problems for Ukrainians were corruption (70 percent), pollution (64 percent) and crime (56 percent). Corruption was also first place in five other post-communist countries, three of which were higher than Ukraine, but in Russia corruption came second with 52 percent.
Political instability and crises in Ukraine have reduced support for democracy in Ukraine and led to a large number of Ukrainians equating “democracy” with “chaos”. The analogy is similar to that of Russia in the late 1990s which President Vladimir Putin capitalized upon to establish a popular autocratic system.

On the latest Savik Shuster show, the audience was asked whether they supported democracy – and they overwhelmingly responded that they did.

Then they were asked whether they would give up democracy in order to overcome the current crisis – and it was about 50-50.

There was a big discussion about who would most likely try to be a dictator if elected president – which is a very, very odd question and discussion to be having in a supposedly democratic country.

There was an overwhelming consensus on the Savik Shuster show that Ukraine has a huge problem – the current system is all about personalities trying to hang on to their privileged positions of power, and the nation be damned – there is no contest of political ideas or programs.

And I tend to agree – the current system in Ukraine is set up to keep the “political elite” in power.

And until the people in Ukraine figure out a way around it, the pig oligarchs will continue to feed at the trough.

The military is not being funded.

It takes at least 10 steps to form a business in Ukraine – and then you have to face the thugs who try to take over your business from you – something that even Tymshenko mentioned, from personal experience, in her nomination acceptance speech.

One thing that has been left out – in the US and elsewhere, candidates are tested via so-called “primary elections” – in other words, candidates from each party have to go through primary elections on a party basis to become the candidate of their party.

Then, and only then, do general elections take place.

That is a good testing and proving ground for candidates.

In Ukraine – ????