The Depths of Disillusionment in Ukraine

Not quite sure yet if this is funny or sad.  From the Financial Times:

Vasyl Humeniuk, a veteran small-town Ukrainian politician, has changed his name in an attempt to capitalise on the crisis-hit country’s widespread political disillusionment.

With Ukraine holding presidential elections this month, some voters are so disgusted with political turmoil, economic recession and rampant corruption that they want nothing to do with any of the main candidates. They can register their anger by putting a cross on the ballot form beside the words “against all”. But many see this rejection of all candidates as a wasted vote. So the enterprising Mr Humeniuk is offering a new option. He is running under the name Vasyl Protyvsikh – or Vasyl Against All.

“I have now been watching for 19 years how the elite is ripping Ukraine off. It is time for a man of the people to take charge,” says the 63-year-old head of a chamber of commerce in the western town of Ivano-Frankivsk. Mr Humeniuk is no democratic idealist, having worked closely with Leonid Kuchma, the former authoritarian president of Ukraine. He is an opportunist, seizing his 15 minutes of fame, but his candidacy shows the depths to which Ukrainian politics has sunk on the eve of the first presidential election since the disputed 2004 poll that sparked the Orange Revolution.