Ukraine's Phantom Flu

How Yulia Tymoshenko created a swine flu panic to get herself elected president.

'As GDP contracted by over 15 percent in the third quarter of 2009 and Tymoshenko continued to bicker with Yushchenko, her approval ratings plummeted from a high of 47 percent in the spring of 2005 to just 14 percent in October. (And that was an improvement from her summer numbers.) Yanukovich, on the other hand, a man few Ukrainians trust because he twice did jail time for unclear reasons and who was suspected of poisoning Yushchenko, has seen his numbers climb to double that.

Thanks to her vigorous response to a swine-flu panic she herself manufactured, however, Tymoshenko has been steadily catching up, nearly halving the gap in the polls. Outfoxed, Yanukovich tried to return the parry by ordering more surgical masks, but the damage was already done.'

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Rival: Ukrainian PM using flu scare for politics

Ukrainian Journal

Tuesday, Nov 3rd, 2009

'The government overreacted to an outbreak of the swine flu in Ukraine to give competitive advantage to Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko at the next presidential election, a Tymoshenko rival charged Monday.

The panic triggered by the government’s decision to declare the outbreak a major threat, has served to overshadow recent scandals involving Tymoshenko loyalists, Arseniy Yatseniuk, the No. 3 most popular presidential candidate, said.

“This is in fact part of the political campaign,” Yatseniuk said in an interview with ICTV. “The main thing is to get the presidential office. All efforts and resources have been thrown for this.”'

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