Yulia Tymoshenko - Kiev Chameleon

[alfredo]

The New Republic does not paint a pretty picture of her.

http://www.tnr.com/article/world/kiev-chameleon

KIEV--Like many Ukrainian politicians, prime minister and presidential candidate Yulia Tymoshenko relies on fortune-tellers and TV psychics to bolster her embattled spirit. Several years ago, one such mystical specialist compared birth years, personality types, and other intimate details to confirm what Tymoshenko had suspected since the 1996 release of the movie Evita.

“She was told she is the reincarnation of Eva Perón,” says Dmitry Vydrin, who was Tymoshenko’s close adviser for nearly a decade. “And she believes it. She admits it in closed circles. She copies her consciously and subconsciously.” There's the elaborate, kaleidoscopic wardrobe; the bleached up-do; the theatrical mannerisms; the way the public rustles whenever she appears. “It's that way of flirting with the public, of addressing them as ‘my loved ones,'” Vydrin says. And there are the men whom the two women used to get out of poverty, but then brightly eclipsed. For Evita, it was her husband, Argentine President Juan Perón; for Tymoshenko, it was a string of well-connected men, starting with her father-in-law and ending with Ukraine's current president and hero of the 2004 Orange Revolution, Viktor Yushchenko.

But, while Evita never held office, Tymoshenko is within striking distance of her country's presidency. She may be polling behind front-runner Viktor Yanukovich (who lost in 2004), but observers say she is likely to gain many of the votes scattered among 16 other candidates who will fall away after the first round of voting on January 17. She'll then face the wooden, gaffe-prone Yanukovich, who twice did jail time for assault and theft, and many observers think she can take him.

An authoritarian? I hope not.

[JI7]

1. probably not too unusual for candidates in that area

[alfredo]

2. Hoping for better from the orange revolution.

[BolivarianHero]

3. She's an oligarch who owns some sham social democratic party...

That's all I know about her. Ukraine's never been a country of inspiring politicians...All I see is a sea of neo-liberals, oligarchs, and authoritarians. But I think it's reasonable to have low expectations for a country whose citizens hold a incomprehensible matrix of social values...Ukrainians are so fucked up that they consider homosexuality nearly as bad as drunk driving or shoplifting and worse than littering, traffic violations, abusive language, adultery, and host of other things that any person with an IQ over 60 should be able to figure out cannot logically be compared to homosexuality.


http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/view/29372/ukrainians_decry_shoplifting_drunk_driving

[alfredo]

4. Sounds like Kentucky.