Given that there are around 270,000 Crimean Tatars living in Crimea, it is an important voting block, and one that Yanukovich seems to be not to successful with.
In an attempt to capture some of these votes from Timoshenko, the Yanukovich campaign has apparently printed 70,000 leaflets in Crimean Tatar for distribution in Crimea. While mud-slinging is certainly nothing new or unique to this presidential election, I was a bit surprised when I read this leaflet online (yes, unfortunately online! I've yet to get my hands on one).
DEAR VOTERS!
We will decide who to vote for, Victor Yanukovich or Yulia Timoshenko. Victor Yanukovich is a very experienced politician and leader.
...
Yulia Timoshenko is a politician who does not fulfill her promises, and is connected with the crisis and lies.
To vote for her is to bring harm upon yourself.
With her politics, and under her care, Ukraine will be destroyed.
With her, Ukraine sunk into debt. Each newborn is $1,000 in debt to foreign creditors.
Yanukovich and Timoshenko
This is good and evil.
This is brightness and darkness
Yanukovich is the only candidate who will save us!
YANUKOVICH - OUR PRESIDENT!
The Yanukovich campaign also published some materials in Crimean Tatar for the first round. The Yanukovich symbol, which has his name and the words "Our President - 2010" superimposed over a map of Ukraine, here reads "Bizim prezident" in Crimean Tatar instead of the "Nash prezident" usually seen in Russian. Ukrainia dlya lyudei (Ukraine for the people) has become Ukraina halk ichiun.
This is an interesting move. There are very few Crimean Tatars who cannot read Russian, so printing pamphlets in Crimean Tatar is not an attempt to reach out to voters who haven't been exposed to advertisements. In fact the NR2 article indicates that many Crimean Tatars are annoyed with the publications since many cannot read the language.
1 comment:
That's hilarious! You've got to track one of those down. I think it's funny that the Party of the Regions is even trying to court the Crimean Tatar vote, given the fact that Yanukovich obviously can and will win Crimea handedly without their support. Notice that the leaflet didn't even touch upon any issues that would be important to the Crimean Tatars, or any issues at all for that matter (at least the part that you translated). By the way, did you happen to see the oblast-by-oblast election results from round one? I noticed that the percentage voting for Yanukovich was significantly higher in the Donetsk and Lugansk oblasts than in Crimea, which might have to do with the fact that he's a son of the Donbass himself, but more to do with the Crimean Tatars voting against him in Crimea. So, they can effect the numbers, but not enough to make much of a difference, unfortunately. I wish I could be there to see all of this election madness first hand!
By the way, thanks for those observation notes and pictures! They were very interesting and informative.
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