Republican Election Gains May Stall Business’s Immigration Push

Bloomberg

 

Intel Corp., Hilton Worldwide Inc. and other companies seeking a larger number of legal foreign workers through changes to immigration law likely will find their push thwarted by the Republicans’ sweeping election gains.

Lawmakers who will lead the debate in the new Republican- controlled U.S. House say they want to focus on securing the border and cracking down on illegal immigration, rather than other matters. Only after it is shown that fewer illegal immigrants are coming across the U.S.-Mexico border will they consider the revisions to immigration law sought by businesses, they say.

Representative Steve King, an Iowa Republican slated to head the House Judiciary Committee’s immigration policy subcommittee, said in an interview that he opposes lifting visa caps for lower-skilled foreign workers because doing so would depress U.S. workers’ wages. He said he would support increasing the number of visas for higher-skilled workers only if the potential employees meet criteria to boost the U.S. economy.

That means they should be young, well-educated and be able to speak English, King said. “That’s the indicator of whether they can assimilate into the broader society,” he said.

The business agenda calls for increases in worker visas for skilled and unskilled labor, along with more employment-based “green cards” -- proof of permanent residency in the U.S.

Political Change

Corporate officials and lobbyists must deal with midterm election results, in which the Republicans have won a majority of seats in the House, according to network projections.

“We’re as anxious as anyone else to see how it shakes out and whether this will be on the agenda next year,” said Peter Muller, director of government relations at Intel Corp.

Technology companies such as EBay Inc. and Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp. want Congress to lift the cap on H-1B visas for skilled workers. Since the start of the 2004 fiscal year, when a three-year temporary increase in the cap to 195,000 expired, the annual limit has been at 65,000. In fiscal 2010, the cap was reached in nine months.

Companies also want to lift the limit on employment-based green cards, now set at 140,000.

At Intel, about 6.5 percent of the company’s 40,000 U.S.- based employees hold temporary visas granted foreign workers, and the company helps those workers apply immediately to get green cards. “We want to keep them ideally for their entire career,” Muller said.

Still, the wait often is eight to 10 years, causing uncertainty both for the workers and for their employers.

Lower-Skilled Workers

The agenda for restaurant and hotel industries is focused on seasonal, lower-skilled workers. Jonas Neihardt, a lobbyist for McLean, Virginia-based Hilton, is pushing for a simpler system to verify the legal status of workers and a boost in the number of H-2B visas for non-farm seasonal employees, now capped at 66,000. Neihardt is urging that changes be made before the economy improves.

“We’re anticipating when things get better we’ll need more of those types of workers,” he said.

Senate Democrats in April outlined a rewrite of immigration law that, along with proposing a crackdown on drug trafficking and illegal immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border, sought changes that included a pathway to permanent legal residency for some of the estimated 11 million undocumented people in the U.S. It also called for a new three-year visa for temporary, low- skilled workers with an annual limit that adjusts with the economy, as well as immediate green cards for foreign students who get advanced degrees in engineering or math from a U.S. university.

The effort was hamstrung when Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, stopped working with Democrats on a compromise, urging them to wait until 2011.

Latino Vote

Corporations are holding out hope that the importance of the Latino vote in the 2012 presidential elections will cause congressional Republican leaders to support a broad bill next year.

“It will be an uphill battle, but it could be that the Republicans would see that it’s to their advantage to get this issue behind them,” said Randy Johnson, vice president for labor policy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

That hope belies the views of some of the Republicans ascending to power.

In the House, King is in line to replace Representative Zoe Lofgren as immigration subcommittee chairman. Lofgren, a California Democrat and one-time immigration lawyer, supports the comprehensive approach to rewriting policy.

King, 61, said he favors a piecemeal approach, with the initial spotlight on border security. He also wants to help draft legislation that would revoke birthright U.S. citizenship for so-called anchor babies of illegal immigrants.

Business Deductions

His priorities for business include a measure that would boost taxes on employers found by the Internal Revenue Service to have hired illegal immigrants. Those companies wouldn’t be able to treat the illegal workers’ wages and benefits as a deductible business expense, and they would also pay a penalty.

“It takes a $10-an-hour illegal and turns them into a $16- an-hour illegal,” King said.

Representative Lamar Smith, a Texas Republican expected to become chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said in an interview that while he would favor holding hearings about foreign worker visas and other immigration issues, next year he wants to draft legislation dealing only with border security.

“I’m still of the mind we have to secure the border first,” he said in an interview.

In 2007 Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona, the chamber’s No. 2 Republican, worked with Democrats on a comprehensive immigration bill that failed. He said in an interview that he won’t support anything beyond border security until the fight against illegal immigration improves in parts of his state.

“There has to be more of an effort to actually secure the border -- not just to spend money, not just to say we have more resources than ever before,” he said.

Kyl also said companies must realize that the recession -- which became the nation’s worst since the Great Depression -- changed the immigration debate.

He said labor unions are more opposed to expanding the pool of foreign labor now than before. “The temporary-worker program has gone backwards in terms of a consensus,” Kyl said.

UK's Brown Resigns, Cameron Takes Over

BBC News

Labour's Gordon Brown has resigned as UK prime minister after three years.



Mr Brown officially tendered his resignation to the Queen at Buckingham Palace, with Conservative leader David Cameron set to succeed him.

Speaking alongside his wife Sarah outside No 10 Downing Street, he said the job had been "a privilege" and wished his successor well.

He has stepped down as Labour leader and will be replaced by deputy Harriet Harman until a successor is elected.

However, Mr Brown will remain as a backbench MP in Parliament.

His decision comes as the Tories and Liberal Democrats are poised to agree a deal to form a government.

'Privilege to serve'

Mr Brown said he had taken the decision to resign after concluding he would not be able to form a government after days of talks between the parties.

In an emotional farewell speech outside No 10, Mr Brown said he had "loved the job" and it had been "a privilege to serve".

"Only those who have held the office of prime minister can understand the full weight of its responsibilities and its great capacity for good," he said.

"I have been privileged to learn much about the very best in human nature, and a fair amount, too, about its frailties, including my own.

"Above all, it was a privilege to serve and, yes, I love the job, not for its prestige, its titles and ceremony, which I do not love at all.

"No, I loved the job for its potential to make this country I love fairer, more tolerant, more green, more democratic, more prosperous and more just - truly a greater Britain.

"In the face of many... challenges up to and including the global financial meltdown, I have always tried to serve, to do my best in the interests of Britain, its values and its people."

Anticipating Mr Cameron's appointment, Mr Brown said: "I wish the next prime minister well as he makes the important choices for the future."

His two young sons joined him and wife Sarah for his brief statement which ended with the words: "Thank you and goodbye."

After leaving the Palace, Mr Brown returned to Labour headquarters to thank party staff. He told them that the election defeat was "his fault and his fault alone".

Failed talks

His resignation follows Thursday's general election in which no party won an overall majority but the Conservatives won the most seats and votes.

Both Labour and the Tories have since been trying to persuade the Lib Dems to join them in a coalition government to run the country.

Mr Brown had previously said he would resign as Labour leader, but stay on as prime minister until September, if Labour could agree a deal with the Lib Dems.

But after this possibility ended, the BBC's Political Editor Nick Robinson said Mr Brown decided he could not form a government and should stand down.

Before making his announcement, Mr Brown consulted with his wife Sarah and close colleagues including Lord Mandelson, Douglas Alexander, Ed Balls and Ed Miliband and also spoke to former prime minister Tony Blair by phone.

Deputy Labour leader Harriet Harman is to become Labour leader until a replacement is elected.

Mr Brown said he would stand by the new leader "loyally and without equivocation".

Labour's ruling National Executive Committee has indicated it wants Mr Brown's successor as leader to be chosen as soon as possible, possibly by the end of July.

Mr Brown succeeded Tony Blair as prime minister in June 2007 after spending ten years as chancellor of the exchequer.

With Inconclusive Elections, Britain Heads Down Treacherous Political Path

The Washington Post

Politicians prefer elections that produce real majorities and clear mandates. One lesson from the messy outcome of Britain's just-concluded general election is that politicians should never underestimate the power of voters to disappoint them.

The outcome here has produced something rare. Forced by the failure of any party to win a majority of seats in the next Parliament, negotiations underway here are exploring whether it will be possible for some combination of the parties to govern cooperatively in difficult times.

That's currently unthinkable in the America's winner-take-all political culture. But there is enough evidence that the voters in the United States lack full confidence in either major political party to warrant watching closely what will play out here in the coming days and months.

All three major parties in Britain -- Labor, Conservatives and Liberal Democrats -- emerged from Thursday's election feeling let-down. As a result, the country has been plunged into a period of extraordinary uncertainty. No hanging chads, but a hung Parliament, as it's called.

The visual images across London on Saturday displayed the uncertainty. Politicians have been shuttling between meetings. A group of demonstrators took to the streets, calling for electoral reform. Round-the-clock coverage keeps everyone abreast of any developments.

Most extraordinary was the side-by-side appearance of the three major-party leaders at a ceremony commemorating the 65th anniversary of the end of the war in Europe -- which symbolized more than anything else the fact that no one knows who will lead Britain.

How did it get to this point?

Voters on Thursday dealt a huge blow to Prime Minister Gordon Brown and the Labor Party, which has been in power since 1997. Labor lost 97 seats, its worst setback in 80 years. Labor's share of the vote fell to 29 percent, the lowest since the humiliation of 1983, when the party won just 27 percent.

But voters were not prepared to fully embrace the Conservatives. Although they gained 91 seats, the Tories fell short of the 326 seats needed to claim a majority in the new Parliament.

Six months ago, polls suggested that the Conservatives would easily win enough seats to install David Cameron as the next prime minister. Now Cameron is trying to broker a deal to make it possible for him to enter No. 10 Downing St. as prime minister, while members of his party blame one another for the failure to win a majority against an opponent as unpopular as Brown.

Most disappointed, however, may be the Liberal Democrats and their leader, Nick Clegg. Thanks to the charismatic Clegg's performance in the first nationally televised candidate debates in Britain's history, the Liberal Democrats saw a surge in their support in the weeks before the election.

Clegg called on voters to usher in an era of new politics. For a time, it looked like Liberal Democrats could push Labor into third place in the popular vote. The party also appeared likely to expand its share of seats in Parliament significantly. Instead, the roof caved in on Election Day. Clegg's party actually lost five seats.

Still, the results have put Clegg in the powerful but awkward position of playing kingmaker. More than anyone else right now, Clegg is positioned to name the next prime minister.

Clegg had said the party with the most votes and the most seats deserved an opportunity to form a government. For now, the serious negotiations are between Cameron's Conservatives and Clegg's Liberal Democrats.

The path is treacherous for both sides. Cameron and Clegg are being tugged and pulled between the electorate's apparent desire for governing in the national interest and party activists' fears that the leaders will compromise too much. That tension is something that is familiar on both sides of the Atlantic.

Philip Stevens, a columnist for the Financial Times, noted Saturday that the voters' desire for change and "palpable disenchantment" with the old politics produced the inconclusive outcome of Thursday's balloting. "This demands something of the nation's politicians with which they are largely unfamiliar: a grasp of the national interest that reaches beyond the reflex to grab the spoils of office," he wrote.

For Cameron, still the most likely next prime minister, this is a terribly difficult moment. One option is for the Conservatives to attempt to govern as a minority party, though with some assurances from the Liberal Democrats that they will not try to bring down the government on key votes in return for some nods to their priorities.

On Friday, Cameron appeared interested in seeking something broader, an agreement that would put the two parties in a more formal arrangement. That could give the new government greater stability as it attempts to deal with a major budgetary problem.

But Cameron faces resistance within his ranks from those who fear he already has abandoned principle in trying to modernize his party -- the same sentiment expressed by some conservative activists in the United States about some Republican politicians.

Clegg, whose party won almost a quarter of the vote but not quite 10 percent of the seats in Parliament, faces similar pressures from his activists and some fellow members of Parliament, for whom a major overhaul of the electoral system is of paramount importance.

Brown made an expansive public offer to Clegg on Friday, promising a referendum on electoral reform. His hope is that a breakdown in the current negotiations will drive the Liberal Democrats into the arms of Labor, although the price of Labor's staying in power might be Brown's resignation.

No matter the outcome, it is possible that the new government will be so shaky that Britain will face another election in less than a year. Such is the fluidity of politics here this weekend.

In Washington, the weight remains with the politicians and activists who prefer confrontation to cooperation, as the polarized debate over health care underscored. Politicians willing to work with the other side do so at their own risk.

The new bipartisan debt commission operates in an environment in which neither Republicans nor Democrats on the panel can be confident of support from either elected officials or their parties' rank and file. The current harmonious Senate floor debate over financial regulatory reform is more a function of the politics of the issue -- nobody wants to appear against taking on the banks -- than of a change in the partisan atmosphere.

The United States has not reached Britain's current moment and, because the systems are so different, may never. But the November elections could produce an American equivalent: a Republican House and a Democratic White House.

That would put the same pressure on President Obama and Republican leaders in Congress that Britain's political leaders are feeling this weekend -- caught between the national interest and partisan demands from their wings for a no-compromise stance. British politicians will have to resolve their problems first, but Democrats and Republicans may find their day is coming soon.

Polls: Conservatives Fall Short of Majority in UK

Associated Press

 

LONDON – The Conservatives captured the largest number of seats and the ruling Labour Party suffered substantial losses Thursday in Britain's national election, according to television projections based on exit polls.

The projected result did not bode well for Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Britain's prime minister since 2007, and triggered widespread uncertainty over who will form the next government. The country's top three parties — the Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats — immediately began jockeying for position in possible coalition.

Frustrated voters, meanwhile, said they were turned away from polling stations and some stations appeared overwhelmed by late voter turnout — a sign of the intense interest in this election.

An analysis by Britain's main television networks suggested David Cameron's Conservative party will win 305 House of Commons seats, short of the 326 seats needed for a majority.

The projections also showed a substantial drop for Brown's ruling Labor Party, giving it 255 seats — its smallest number since 1987. Nick Clegg's Liberal Democrats were seen as winning 61 seats — far less than had been expected. Smaller parties got 29 other seats.

The projection suggests that the Conservatives will gain 95 seats, Labour will lose 94 and the Liberal Democrats will lose one.

If the vote does not give any party a majority, that could produce a destabilizing period of political wrangling and uncertainty. Brown could resign if he feels the results have signaled he has lost his mandate to rule, or he could try to stay on as leader and seek a deal in which smaller parties would support him.

"Let's see how it pans out. Gordon will know whether he should stay on or not," Labour Home Secretary Alan Johnson said. "I think Gordon deserves the dignity to look at these things and make up his own mind."

Hard results began to trickle in about an hour after polls closed. The first seat to declare, Houghton and Sunderland South in northern England, was retained by Labour.

Hundreds of British voters across the country claimed they were unable to vote because they were left still standing in long lines when polls closed at 10 p.m. (2100 GMT, 5 p.m. EDT).

Police in London said they were called to a polling station in east London when about 50 angry voters denied the chance to cast their ballot staged a sit-in protest. Voters in Sheffield, Newcastle and elsewhere in London also complained that they had been denied a vote because of lines as polls closed.

Theresa May, a senior Conservative Party lawmaker, said the exit poll result showed Labour's heaviest losses since 1931, and that the incumbent party had lost "the legitimacy to govern."

But Labour's Business Secretary, Peter Mandelson, pointed out that the sitting prime minister is traditionally given the first chance to form a government.

"The rules are that if it's a hung Parliament, it's not the party with the largest number of seats that has first go, it's the government," he said. "I have no problem in principle in trying to supply this country with a stable government."

He extended an olive branch to the Liberal Democrats, who have called to end the first-past-the-post system, where the number of districts won — not the popular vote — determines who leads the country.

"There has to be electoral reform as a result of this election," Mandelson said. "First-past the-post is on its last legs."

The results may yet change. Projecting elections based on exit polls is inherently risky — particularly in an exceptionally close election like this one. Polls are based on samples — in this case 18,000 respondents — and always have some margin of error.

Britain's census is nine years out of date and the polling districts haven't caught up to population shifts. Many voters also refuse to respond to exit polls.

Thousands have also already cast postal ballots but those results don't factor into the exit polls. About 12 percent cast postal ballots in 2005.

The election result would be disastrous news for the Liberal Democrats, Britain's longtime third party, who enjoyed a big poll surge after the charismatic Clegg appeared in televised TV debates.

Liberal Democrat deputy leader Vince Cable described the outcome of the exit poll as "very strange" and insisted they had been "horribly wrong" in the past.

The Tories are hoping to regain power for the first time since 1997, when they were ousted by Labour under Tony Blair. After three leaders and three successive election defeats, the party selected Cameron, a fresh-faced, bicycle-riding graduate of Eton and Oxford who promised to modernize the party's fusty, right-wing image.

Whoever wins faces the daunting challenge of introducing big budget cuts to slash Britain's huge deficit.

In late trading in New York, the British pound sank to its lowest point in a year to trade at $1.4715.

Update: Elections in Ukraine

Uninspiring candidates and an economy on the edge are casting a gloomy atmosphere over the polls

The Economist

 

Will Moscow-Kyiv Ties Improve After Ukraine Elections?

Voice of America

Ukrainians go to the polls Sunday to elect a new president. Analysts say who wins will determine the course of relations between Ukraine and Russia.

Billboards for presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko are seen as people 

wait at a bus stop in Kiev, 13 Jan 2010

Public opinion surveys indicate current President Viktor Yushchenko is trailing several other candidates as the country prepares to vote in presidential elections Sunday, January 17. The two front runners are former Yushchenko ally and prime minister, Yulia Tymoshenko, and Viktor Yanukovich, leader of the "Party of Regions" in the Ukrainian parliament.

During his five-year presidency, Mr. Yushchenko has steered a distinctly pro-Western course, seeking membership in the European Union and in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization - or NATO.

Russia has consistently criticized Mr. Yushchenko's pro-European policies and strongly opposed Ukraine's NATO membership bid.

James Sherr, with the London-based research organization, Chatham House, says there are two reasons for Moscow's position.

"Ukraine, for Russia, is not just a neighbor. Ukraine, for Russia, is part of Russia's own identity. Kiyv and Rus is the origin of the Russian, as well as the Ukrainian state - that's the way Russians see it. So any movement by NATO into Ukraine is seen, at least emotionally, as a direct encroachment on Russia itself," he said.  "And the second issue is that behind NATO they [the Russians] see the United States and U.S. power - and they remain as convinced as in the past that it is in the U.S. national interest to weaken Russia as an authentically independent countervailing pole in the international system," he said.

Many analysts say if pre-election public opinion surveys are correct and current president Yushchenko is defeated, that would mean potentially better relations with Russia.

 [Photo: Victor Yanukovich]

"With the exception of Yushchenko, most of the politicians, including all of those vying for the presidency, and certainly the two major candidates, are arguing for, in one way or another, a balanced policy that would attempt to create a constructive, productive relationship with Russia," said Robert Legvold of Columbia University. "Some tilt more in favor of focusing on Russia, like the leader of the Communist Party [Petro] Symonenko and Yanukovich, as the head of the 'Party of Regions.'  And others, like Tymoshenko and a few other candidates focus on the European option as well. But there is nobody who is saying that we ought to choose one side - East - over the other side - West - or vice-versa," he said.

In the last presidential election in 2004, Russia openly supported Viktor Yanukovich, who was declared the winner in a run-off with Viktor Yuschenko. But hundreds of thousands of Yushchenko supporters took to the streets, protesting the results, which were subsequently declared fraudulent by the Ukrainian Supreme Court and international monitors. In a second election, Mr. Yushchenko defeated Mr. Yanukovich.

Robert Legvold says this time around, the Russian leadership is far more guarded.

"They obviously are very interested in who is going to win this election, but they don't appear to feel that they have a horse in this race that they need to go to lengths to support," he said. "I think they would be perfectly content if Tymoshenko wins, they know that Yanukovich, who in the past has been their preferred candidate, would not do their bidding, that in the end he will defend Ukraine's interests as he sees it. And if that means cutting deals with the European Union or with the West, he will do it. So I think the Russians are more or less comfortable with what's going to come out of this election," he added.

Experts say sources of friction between Kiyv and Moscow will remain whoever is elected president of Ukraine, such as the long-term, unresolved question of the Russian Black Sea fleet in Sevastopol. But analysts say the strong anti-Russian views as espoused by President Yushchenko will no longer be part of the Ukrainian political landscape.

Ukraine: The Road From Democracy

Business Week

As Ukraine votes Jan. 17, disappointment with the Orange Revolution and Viktor Yushchenko is deep—and likely to result in a new government 

In the autumn of 2004, on the threshold of the presidential election in Ukraine, an aide to then-President Leonid Kuchma, Viktor Medvedchuk, declared in an interview that he had no doubt of a victory for Viktor Yanukovych, the candidate supported by the country’s power base. Reminded that polls predicted victory for the oppositionist democrat Viktor Yushchenko, the functionary answered curtly, “Yushchenko will not be the president.”

Such certainty gave rise to criticism from representatives of the democratic camp, who accused Medvedchuk of preparing a program of electoral fraud on behalf of Yanukovych.

What happened next is well-known. The November 2004 elections were marred by unprecedented fraud, and Yanukovych was declared the winner, sparking huge protests that came to be known as the Orange Revolution. A repeat of the election resulted in a victory for Yushchenko. For many people in Ukraine and around the world Yushchenko was a model democratic leader, capable of leading to power the country’s democratic forces.

Today, though, it is obvious that those hopes were premature. The romance of the Orange Revolution cooled with each month; the Ukrainian democrats could not work together; promised structural reforms remained nothing more than a nice idea. But probably the greatest disappointment for the people who stood in those vigils on Kyiv’s Maidan Nezalezhnosti, Independence Square, is Yushchenko himself. The model democrat has become an unpopular autocrat. Increasingly, observers say that Yushchenko grew to be like his predecessor, the anti-democratic Kuchma.

HIS UGLY SIDE

Five years ago the Ukrainian opposition proved what sociologists had been seeing in polls: that people wanted change. In 2004 Kuchma had record low trustworthiness ratings: 7 percent of those polled trusted him, while 59 percent did not. Today Yushchenko has set a new record. Nine percent say they trust him, compared with 84 percent who do not. Still, Yushchenko insists on being on the ballot this weekend. He vows that he will win, saying the polls are not to be trusted.

Suggestions that his time in power has come to an end are met with furious attacks, even during public events. On a live, pre-election talk show, respected journalist Valery Kalnysh asked the president if he had considered getting out of the race and devoting his energies to ensuring that elections are fair. Instead of answering, Yushchenko insulted his interlocutor, declaring him an “unprofessional journalist” who “has no right to work in the media if he asks the president such questions.”

Kalnysh later said, “I was shocked by such a nervous reaction. The president should be ready to answer any questions. If he was confident, he could explain why he intends to continue campaigning.”

In 2004 the “orange opposition” criticized the imperious Yanukovych for lying and manipulating data during the campaign. Today the opposition levels the same charges at the current president. For example, Yushchenko has said that four candidates have promised to step aside in his favor. The politicians in question deny it. “The president has told a lie, once again. We have not had and will not have negotiations with him and his staff,” said candidate Anatoly Gritsenko, minister of defense from 2005 to 2008. Another candidate, Oleg Tyagnybok, leader of the ultra-right Svoboda (Freedom) Party, said, “Yushchenko’s statements are inaccurate. He knows perfectly well that I haven’t met with him since 2005. And neither I nor my colleagues are conducting any negotiations with Yushchenko’s campaign.”

Perhaps the biggest shock for Yushchenko’s supporters is that the president, whom the cultural intelligentsia had claimed as its own, has taken to using coarse and abusive language as the elections approach. Referring to the country’s recent practice of taking out international loans, he said Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko gets loans “like a bitch gets fleas.” He has called parliament “a hall of murderers and pedophiles” and supporters of other candidates “yokels.” He has even used such language in front of shocked foreign dignitaries.

Yushchenko has not refused to use the power of his office – administrative resources – for his own political ends, despite having been at the receiving end of such tactics in 2004. Since the campaign started, he has made more than 40 flights at taxpayers’ expense for regional rallies. His political events are beamed over the UT-1 state television channel. In early January the Central Electoral Commission ordered the president to stop using administrative resources for his campaign.

“Yushchenko became a victim of the syndrome that has ruined many politicians throughout world history: the power and enormous trust people placed in him have spoiled him,” said Anatoly Lutsenko, a political expert who advised Yushchenko in 2004. “The Latin saying ‘Honores mutant mores, sed raro in meliores’ [Achievements change morals, rarely for the better] is true in Ukraine.”

Experts say there was no turning point in Yushchenko’s career that killed his democratic aspirations. Instead, the transformation occurred gradually. “A lot of people are shocked with the use of abusive language by the president. But I remember occasional instances of it even in 2005. Nobody paid much attention to it at the time,” said Igor Zhdanov, president of the Open Policy think tank in Kyiv.

Even with a long list of transgressions pinned to his name, observers acknowledge that Yushchenko’s tenure helped to push Ukraine toward democracy. “Everything is relative. If you compare less-than-ideal President Viktor Yushchenko with former President Leonid Kuchma, who committed awful infringements of basic freedoms, we see that Ukraine has changed a lot. And the ‘spark of the Maidan,’ [the revolutionary spirit of the protesters on Independence Square] that was with Yushchenko initially has not allowed him to roll things back to the authoritarian level that Ukrainians remember from the time of Kuchma,” Zhdanov said.

With the powers of the presidency trimmed in a deal that eased his path to the office, Yushchenko does not have the authority to commit the kinds of violations that led to the Orange Revolution in 2004. Still, he has a propensity to authoritarianism. He regularly signs decrees reversing government decisions, and the Constitutional Court repeatedly overturns those decrees.

IT’S PERSONAL

Some Ukrainian politicians say Yushchenko persists in such behavior for one reason – to harm Tymoshenko, the prime minister, presidential candidate, and Yushchenko’s one-time ally.

“Yushchenko’s over-arching problem is envy of Tymoshenko,” said Oleg Rybachuk, director of the presidential secretariat in 2005 and 2006.

“Yushchenko can’t admit to himself that he made mistakes. He really believes that everything good in Ukraine over the last five years is his achievement, and everything bad is connected with Tymoshenko. Therefore Yushchenko sincerely considers battling Tymoshenko to be a mission,” Zhdanov said.

The president’s conflict with Tymoshenko began in 2005 and has become more intractable each year. Over the last five years Yushchenko has also scrapped with almost every other member of his former team, especially those he saw as potential rivals.

But even the many cronies who had no ambitions to replace him, and few qualifications, have forsaken the president. “Yushchenko’s childhood friends and home-folk were the most influential lobbyists on personnel matters,” Rybachuk said.

Viktor Baloga, director of the presidential secretariat from 2006 to 2008, said, “Viktor Yushchenko is unable to choose team members. I repeatedly argued with him that some nominations were impossible, even citing instances of corruption on the part of his closest friends. But he didn’t want to hear it.”

It is worth noting that Yushchenko’s transformation from the model democrat to a politician willing to abuse his power is not unique for Ukraine. Most Orange politicians, including Tymoshenko, have strayed far from democratic standards. A dozen times during the campaign Tymoshenko has said she favors an authoritarian model of governance and wants to concentrate all the power in the country in one place. Her approach to democracy may be even more questionable than Yushchenko’s, as she has long surrounded herself with people suspected of corruption, including some who worked for Kuchma.

Nevertheless, Tymoshenko has maintained the trust of the electorate, trailing only Yanukovych throughout most of the campaign. A 13 January poll suggested she was locked in a tie for second place with a third candidate, businessman Sergey Tigipko.

Today the politicians who were considered the hope of Ukrainian democracy in 2004 are criticized throughout the country. Even Yanukovych, who back then was considered the embodiment of falsification and dishonest elections, has earned the moral right to reproach them. “We shouldn’t confuse democracy and dictatorship,” he said recently. “Democracy means the rule of law, means that human rights are protected. What we saw during the past five years was not democracy. It was the chaos and disorder into which the ‘Oranges’ have cast the country.”

If the polls are right, many Ukrainians will believe him instead of the discredited leaders of the Orange Revolution in Sunday’s elections.