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2.3 times, or in ppp terms the Russian poverty line is about €310 – so not that far from the Estonian poverty line.
Factoring in all these adjustments and the despite index in the Baltics is still uncomfortably high but still acceptable at about 30.
Southeastern Europe and Central Asla
The bottom half of the list is made up largely of the countries from the Balkans, Caucuses and Central Asia – with a few outstanding exceptions. Amongst the topfivecountrieswiththelowestdespairindicesareKazakhstan(ranked2n d after Belarus), Azerbaijan (3) and Moldova (5).
Perhaps it is no surprise that raw materials producing countries do well in the despair stakes as their leaders are careful to spread enough of their oil wealth about to placate the populous. Poverty in both Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan (and Russia) is extremely low.
At the same time these southern countries are also exhibiting the “Belarus effect” where the government has failed to implement market reforms and kept many of the old Soviet institutions going that shores up support from their older base and keeps them in power. Given that poverty in Uzbekistan Tajikistan is 12.3 and 32 respectively, a countries oil wealth looks like it can shave some 10-20 points off the poverty rate. And also on this basis Uzbekistan looks like it was a well run dictatorship under the previous president Islam Karimov, who died last year, while Tajikistan looks to be extremely badly run the Tajik president Emomali Rahmon.
All the countries at the bottom of the list have despair scores on the order of 45-55 and poverty and unemployment are the blights they have to bare.
Iran ranks third to bottom, but this is largely due to extremely high inflation that soared following the re-imposition of sanctions, so it should be able to recover. Turkey is second to bottom and all three indicators are high following its currency crisis this year and will take a lot longer to recover. Kosovo is the only country to have a score over 60, which is a full blown crisis score and somewhere it has been for several years now.
2.8 Politics - misc
Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the popular comedian and media manager, officially declared his presidential candidacy during the New Year’s Eve broadcast of his sketch comedy television show. The next day, he unveiled his campaign website, urging his supporters to join his campaign regardless of their background. “What’s important is that you were never in politics, and that’s the main thing,” he said in the advertisement. Zelenskiy didn’t indicate any more of his political positions than the few revealed in his late December interview.
The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) Bureau has changed its rules that have resulted in a downgrading of Ukraine’s influence in the European body on January 21, ahead of a vote to withdraw sanctions on Russia. The changes are a victory for Russia as Ukraine’s ability to influence PACE and prevent it from removing sanctions on Russia have been diminished.
Ukrainian presidential candidate Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the comedian-actor turned presidential competitor, has active business in
18 UKRAINE Country Report February 2019 www.intellinews.com