Ukraine elections: Exit polls???

Yulia Tymoshenko must have the best election campaign team. The exit polls announced the night of the Jan. 17 vote showed her only 4%-points behind Viktor Yanukovych, allowing her to have a flashy press conference looking for victory in the second-round.. It was confirmed only a day later that Yanukovych was in fact 11pp ahead of her and it seems very difficult that she will be able to close that gap on Feb. 7. The Yanukovych gap seem certain of victory not only because of the post-election statements but also from doing a-180 on IMF relations, turning from complete suspension to "more transparency, more cooperation for social standards, etc."

Whomever wins, and we may wait for a while since the second-round seems likely to trigger a string of court challenges, there will probably be a realignment in the parliament in the winner's favor, allowing a snap election to be avoided. The big business, having bankrolled both candidates (and in big amounts too - the Ukrainian election campaign is said to be the second most expensive in the world, after our very own US) for the past 5 years, have had enough and want stability more than anything. Perhaps some political stability after all, putting IMF program back on track, ensuring monthly gas payments though sadly not much in the course of anti-corruption or democratic reform.

Hypo Group Alpe Adria nationalized by Austrian government...

Hope the Austrian government knows what it is getting itself into... Hypo was basically treated as a cash machine by the late lamented Joerg Haider, premier of the southern Austrian state of Carinthia, to finance his populist policies. A buddy of his was a previous CEO and got involved in some dodgy lending to Balkan countries, in particular Croatia (e.g. lease deals on yachts that subsequently 'disappeared'). So it looks like fairly large-scale fraud. Austrian government nationalized Hypo without due diligence to avoid systemic risks, and when they look at the books going into 2010 some quite nasty stuff is likely to come to light...