The Endless Circle. Ukraine may have snap parliamentary poll in May 2010.

Ukraine may expect the comeback of a ghost of an early parliamentary election in 2010. This secret is widely known as after the presidential election in January-February 2010, the winner (whoever it will be) would surely want to take it all, and to form the majority in Parliament using the effect of his recent victory.

The same point of view has confirmed Volodymyr Lytvyn, Chairman of the Parliament of Ukraine and a newly registered presidential candidate. In May 2010 Ukraine will have snap parliamentary election, he told journalists today.

He emphasized that ‘under the current circumstances in Parliament, a lot of problems will appear’, that’s why the new President will surely try to nail down a success. The key position in country will be the Prime Minister’s office, Mr. Lytvyn added.

Electoral Tears. Speaker of Ukrainian Parliament pretends he’s crying during the ceremony of his presidential nomination

First-comers. The Central Election Commission of Ukraine received registration papers from first two presidential candidates.

On 20 of October the Central Election Commission of Ukraine started to accept registration documents from potential candidates to the presidential post. The first guy who submitted his papers to the Central Election Commission was some Oleh Riabokon, 36 y. o. lawyer. Mr. Riabokon is a co-founder of the “Master and Partners” law firm. Among other co-founders of this company was Sergiy Vlasenko (Member of Parliament, Yulia Tymoshenko block). Of course, Mr. Ryabokon has no chance to win any noticeable result during this election, except the PR for his name and his company.

The second fastest pretender for the first chair in the country is Anatoly Hrytsenko, MP from the “Our Ukraine – People’s Self-Defence” faction, ex-Minister of Defense, and ex-team-mate of the President of Ukraine Viktor Yushchenko. The friendship with President finished after the dismissal of Mr. Hrytsenko from the ministerial office. Anatoly Hrytsenko also has no chance to become a next President of Ukraine, but his rating may rise up to the level of 5-6 heavyweighters, which will surely help him during the next parliamentary election (still expected next year). To whom it may be interesting, I am giving a link to the Ukrainian language website of Mr. Hrytsenko.

Get ready, get set, go! Ukraine officially launched a presidential election campaign on Monday. Today the nomination of the candidates starts.

Last time Ukraine elected president in 2004, when, after the Orange revolution, Viktor Yushchenko came to power, accusing his main rival Viktor Yanukovych in the falsification of the results of the previous tour of election. Now the situation has changed dramatically: according to polls, Mr. Yanukovych is a leading contender. Viktor Yushchenko – on contrary – may try to use his presidential administrative resource during his campaign, experts say.

The second rating has another hero of Orange revolution – the Prime Minister of Ukraine Yulia Tymoshenko. Third – ex-Head of Parliament, and ex-Minister for Foreign Affairs Arseniy Yatseniuk.

Other pretenders are former Head of the National Bank of Ukraine Sergiy Tigipko, current Speaker of the Parliament Volodymyr Lytvyn, Communist party leader Petro Symonenko, and radically right politician Oleh Tyagnybok.

The nomination of the candidates starts today, on 20 October 2009, and will last until 6 November. The last day for the documents’ submission to the Central Electoral Commission is the 9 of November. The CEC has to register all the candidates until 13 November 2009.

In 2009 Ukrainian economy will fall by 15-16%, ex-Minister of Finance of Ukraine Viktor Pynzenyk predicts.

In 2009 Ukrainian economy will fall by 15-16%. Such a pessimistic prognosis of former Minister of Finance of Ukraine Viktor Pynzenyk made public today. He has also said that the budget deficit may climb above 33% of GDP in 2009, and 15% in 2010.

The Government of Ukraine determined a fiscal deficit at the level of 3.97% of GDP in the project of State Budget for 2010.