I've spent a good part of the day today holding Marta; she was restless and cranky, and boy, did she scream when I was giving her a bath... When she finally fell asleep, my head felt empty, exhausted from hours of blocking out baby screams.

To entertain myself, I went to the site of the Central Election Commission to browse through the lists of parties, blocs and candidates running in the upcoming election (credit should be given to those who maintain the site: it is very orderly).

I knew I'd find something that would crack me up there, but I was surprised it took me less than ten minutes.

In a totally empty-headed manner, I decided to check for any namesakes among our potential MPs. Khokhlov/Khokhlova is a depressingly common Russian last name, so there were four: Khokhlov Anatoliy Mykhailovych from Selyanska partiya (Villagers' Party), Khokhlov Yuriy Mykolayovych from the Communist Party, Khokhlova Alla Vasylivna from Pora/PRP - and ... Khokhlov Andriy Viktorovych from ... Partiya polityky PUTINA - the Party of Putin's Politics!!!

Can there be anything more absurd?

According to the justice ministry (in Ukrainian), this party used to be called the Slavic People's Patriotic Union until November 2005. In the 2006 election, they'll have 192 candidates (Khokhlov is #112) - which is quite a lot.

I won't bother translating their program, mainly because I can't force myself to read it to the end, but here's the gist:

[...]

Comparing internal and foreign political situation in Ukraine today with that in the Russian Federation in 1999-2000, we can find a great number of common features typical of the condition of the aforementioned states.

Taking into account the achievements made in the Russian Federation during the presidency of Volodymyr Putin, we consider it logical and correct to use the experience of our northern neighbor to rescue and develop our country, paying attention to the peculiarities unique to us.

[...]

One of the weirder products of democracy. Also, a masterpiece of idiocy.