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Four Ukraine presidential candidates have emerged as the top runners in the May 25 election being billed globally as the most important since the country broke away from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics 23 years ago.But Ukraine's estimated 20 million registered voters won't be casting their ballots for any clean-cut shining knight eager to point their country towards a new economic horizon. That's because all four have checkered backgrounds, some close to Russian President Vladimir Putin; others associated with ousted Ukraine President Viktor Yanukovich.
Even more eye-opening for Westerners could be the current political makeup of the two top billionaire presidential candidates - chocolate manufacturer Petro A. Poroshenko, 48 and former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, 53, who allegedly made her fortune in Ukraine's natural gas industry.
She was convicted of stealing $188 million from the state in 2011 and sentenced to seven years in prison. But in 2014, the Supreme Court of the Ukraine overturned the conviction. So much for go-by-the-book justice in the Ukraine.
Poroshenko and Mrs. Tymoshenko have been in and around Ukrainian politics for at least 20 years. Both are seen as hard-liners, almost in the same light as Russia's Putin.
They are in the same boat as Viktor Yanukovich, the corrupt Ukraine president who was forced out of office in February of this year. All three are on good speaking terms with Putin.
The other two front-runners are Mykhailo Dobkin, 44 and Oleh Tyahnybok, 46. Dobkin has been under house arrest since March 20 on charges of undermining the territorial integrity of Ukraine by organizing a secessionist movement.
Tyahnybok has been reported to be an active promoter of the far-right ultra-nationalist ideas of Stepan Bandera, a controversial figure accused of collaborating with Nazi Germany during World War II.
The winning candidate needs over 50 percent of the vote in the first round of voting. If he or she has less than 50 percent, a runoff election would be scheduled to determine the winner.
But the newly-elected president won't be able to change a thing in the country's governing status because the parliament stays the same until the 2017 parliamentary elections.
And the parliament, called the Verkhovna Rada, runs the country, makes the laws and currently bans almost all forms of public protest, something the Separatists are seriously challenging in the eastern and southern sectors of the country.
To muddy the Ukrainian political waters even more, after the May 25 presidential election, assuming there won't be a further runoff election, the newly-elected president could immediately dissolve the parliament and call for a fresh parliamentary election.
But that would escalate even further the deep divisions between the ruling and opposition parties. The hatred between the parties has obstructed law making and constitutional reform since the world's 46th largest country left the former U.S.S.R. in 1991 to become an independent republic.
However, the real kicker in all this dialogue is that the Tymoshenko political bloc, called the BYuT, right now actually controls both the Ukraine presidency and the government. How is that possible, you ask?
The interim president of Ukraine is Oleksandr Turchenov. He is a paid-up member in ByuT.
And if all this Ukraine-Russia political mishmash has you still confused, ponder this item, just in. R. Hunter Biden, a Washington, D.C. lawyer and board chairman of the World Food Program USA, has accepted a board position with Burisma Holdings, Ukraine's largest private gas producer. He will head Burisma's legal department.
What makes the Hunter Biden name newsworthy at this juncture? Why he is the younger son of U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden.
And who is having the last laugh at this moment? Why Mr. Putin, the supreme egotistical rainmaker, of course.
