Monitoring: Parliamentary elections in Ukraine 2012

The last month’s events convinced us even more that over the last two years the pendulum of evolution of the political regime swung towards an authoritarian “rollback”. The year 2004 marked the beginning of something new (at least in form) in the political life that has replaced strong presidential power, which relied mostly on agreements between the oligarchs. Instead, the present authorities disrupted this short phase in the evolution of new, democratic formations and brought Ukraine even closer to the situation of Belarus. Now, the predominance of resources and the influence of one part of the elite on the representatives is even more significant. It seems that the question of whether the MEP, Krzysztof Lisek, “President Yanukovych, will be the next Lech Walesa or Alexander Lukashenko?” is now a topical matter against this background.