Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: l'ucraina arancione affonda la russia prospera

Ukraine Struggles While Russia Prospers
Created: 17.08.2005 12:14 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 12:14 MSK, 14 hours 32
minutes ago
Reuters
Eight months after an ?Orange Revolution? installed a new reform-minded
government in Ukraine, some investors believe the country is floundering
while neighbouring Russia is making hay.
The bloodless revolution which helped sweep the pro-western Viktor
Yushchenko to victory in presidential elections last December was a
stunning reversal for the Kremlin, which pulled out all the stops to back
his opponent Viktor Yanukovich. Yushchenko?s government, with its promise
to modernise Ukraine and lead it into the European Union, fired the
imagination of foreign investors, upset by the Kremlin-inspired destruction
of Russia?s private oil company Yukos.
But perceptions have changed fast. And reforms may have been put on hold
pending a parliamentary election next March on which virtually all the
country?s political forces are focused. ?Six months ago, everyone thought
the Orange Revolution would be a disaster for Russia,? said Tim Ash,
Managing Director for Emerging Markets at Bear Stearns in London. ?Russia
has moved on and the Ukrainians seem to have messed things up,? he added.
Portfolio investors, who bought up Ukraine securities in the aftermath of
the revolution, have taken fright after months of government infighting and
what they see as policy paralysis, made worse by a corrupt and unresponsive
civil service. ?The Cinderella has not turned into a princess,? said Katia
Malofeeva, an analyst at Renaissance capital, a Moscow investment bank. ?It
was a case of excessive expectations.?
A muddled review of controversial privatisations made under Yushchenko?s
predecessor, Leonid Kuchma, and divisions in the government over how to
conduct exchange rate policy have added to the sense of disarray. ?The new
government is divided and does not have a coherent plan,? said Vlad Sobell,
senior economist at the Daiwa Institute of Research in London.
Meanwhile in Russia, where memories of the Yukos affair have started to
fade, equity markets are enjoying a resurgence and a string of big Russian
companies have floated shares on the London stock exchange.
But appearances may prove deceptive.
Ukraine is simply learning to engage in the scrappy politics of a proper
democracy where cabinet rivalries are highlighted by a boisterous press and
politicians are not scared to speak their mind, say some analysts. ?The
political situation is very competitive in Ukraine. There is no single
centre of power which dominates the whole of political life and this is
much healthier,? Malofeeva said.
That is a stark contrast with Russia where President Vladimir Putin has
presided over a centralisation of power in the hands of the Kremlin and
growing state control over broadcast media, a development which some find
alarming. ?Ukraine?s situation is more volatile and harder to predict than
Russia,? said Malofeeva.
Ukraine?s policy drift may be more apparent than real as key politicians,
led by Yushchenko and his ambitious Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko,
position themselves ahead of the March 2006 election. ?The government which
emerges next March will determine Ukraine?s future,? said a fund manager
based in Kiev who asked not to be identified. ?The entire public
administration needs to be reformed and the real reforms will not start
until April.? ?This government is not stupid. They know that to go ahead
with a root-and-branch reform of the civil service now would have a very
high political cost and could lead to defeat in the election,? he added.
And a slump in gross domestic product growth, which fell to 3.7 percent
between January and July from 13.5 percent in the first seven months of
2004, has more to do with falling prices of steel, Ukraine?s main
industrial export, than any mishandling of government policy, say economis
-- 
You_fuck_with_the_bull-You_gonna_get_the_horns

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