Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko in 2005 with Anatoly Kinakh, the secretary of the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council.
Photo: Anastasia Ivanova
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Orange Revolutionaries Not Red in the Face Over Flight
// Deputies Desert "Our Ukraine," Join Viktor Yanukovych
Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych announced yesterday that he will create a new coalition in the country's parliament. Besides the current members of the "anti-crisis coalition," the new coalition will include a flood of defectors from the ranks of the pro-president Our Ukraine faction and the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc (BYuT). Yesterday the Ukrainian parliament confirmed the nomination of Anatoly Kinakh, a businessman and the leader of the Party of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, which is part of the Our Ukraine coalition, as economics minister, and many others are expected to follow him over to the side of Viktor Yanukovych. By scooping up Anatoly Kinakh, Mr. Yanukovych has saved his cabinet from being disbanded, a threat that has been particularly real of late.
A Second Betrayal
The Ukrainian opposition was in a state of shock and disbelief after it was announced yesterday morning that Viktor Yanukovych had offered Anatoly Kinakh, one of the leaders of the pro-president faction Our Ukraine, a position in his cabinet as economics minister. "We hope that Kinakh will go up to the podium, thank everyone, and turn down the post," said Roman Bezsmertny, a former senior figure in Our Ukraine. When Mr. Kinakh, a former prime minister and one of the participants in the Orange Revolution that brought Viktor Yushchenko to power in 2004, actually stepped up to the podium and began to speak about his readiness to work in Mr. Yanukovych's government, Our Ukraine faction leader Vyacheslav Kirilenko stormed out of the room in a rage. He watched the end of his former colleague's speech on a television screen in the foyer.
"Kinakh's betrayal is a knife in the back of the united opposition and of the president of Ukraine," said a statement from Our Ukraine officially stripping Anatoly Kinakh of his membership in the faction. "They (Anatoly Kunich and his supporters) should pick up a Bible and read how Judas ended up!" snapped Alexander Turchinov, one of the leaders of BYuT. "It is a disgrace, an ethical disgrace, a disgrace that this is taking place within the circle of democratic parties," echoed President Yushchenko, who yesterday fired Anatoly Kinakh from his position on the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council.
These were the harshest words from the leaders of the Orange Revolution since another hero of the demonstrations in central Kiev, socialist leader Alexander Moroz, quit their ranks six months ago.
Mass Exodus
During the confirmation vote in parliament, the nomination of Anatoly Kinakh as economics minister was supported by all of the deputies from the "anti-crisis coalition" (the Party of the Regions, the Socialist Party, and the Communist Party), plus five members of the BYuT and eight members of Our Ukraine. The eight members of Our Ukraine who supported Mr. Kinakh's nomination were, of course, members of his Party of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, which will be holding a meeting today to officially decide whether the party will leave Our Ukraine for the ruling coalition headed by Prime Minister Yanukovych. "We are prepared to review the question of forming a national unity coalition," said the newly-minted economics minister yesterday.
The Orange democrats fear that the flight of Anatoly Kinakh and his fellow industrialists and entrepreneurs could be only the beginning of a mass exodus from the ranks of the opposition. On Tuesday the leader of the socialists, Ivan Boky, announced that 20-25 BYuT deputies and 8 Our Ukraine deputies were prepared to join Mr. Yanukovych's camp. Since then, part of Mr. Boky's prediction has already come true.
On Sunday Yulia Tymoshenko said in a television appearance that the Party of the Regions is offering members of BYuT and Our Ukraine millions of dollars to join the "anti-crisis coalition." Yesterday, she expressed hope that "there are more upright people and real men on the democratic team than there are "Kinakh-ites." She also made references to Our Ukraine leaders Pyotr Poroshenko and Anatoly Matvienko, whom she hopes will not follow Anatoly Kinakh's lead: "My relationship with Poroshenko or with Matvienko has not always been smooth sailing, but today we are together on the same side of the barricade. I have faith in my colleagues. I know that the majority of the politicians in the Our Ukraine faction will remain patriots, despite all temptations to the contrary, and that political honor and dignity are not just empty words for them," said Ms. Tymoshenko.
It was no accident that Ms. Tymoshenko brought up the name of Anatoly Matvienko, the leader of the "Assembly" Party within Our Ukraine. Yesterday he and independent Our Ukraine deputy Sergei Golovaty filed a motion with the constitutional court to repeal the so-called "imperial mandate" law, which forbids deputies on local councils from leaving their parties on pain of being stripped of their seats. The law's passage was originally secured by BYuT and Our Ukraine, who were eager to prevent desertion from the regional arms of their parties. Anatoly Matvienko's campaign against one of the opposition's key pieces of legislation could signify that he is not above following the example of Anatoly Kinakh.
Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych said yesterday that he intends to expand the number of his supporters in the parliament by founding "a qualitatively new national unity coalition." The new coalition is to be officially named tomorrow.
The new faces in Mr. Yanukovych's camp come not a minute too soon for the prime minister, who has recently been battered by a surge of opposition activity aimed at eroding the "anti-crisis coalition." Not long ago, Our Ukraine almost succeeded in chipping the Communist Party off of Mr. Yanukovych's bloc: the leadership of the communists had regularly expressed dissatisfaction with the actions of the government and had threatened to quit the coalition in anticipation of early elections. The departure of the communists would have left the "anti-crisis faction" with 217 out of 450 seats, thus depriving the prime minister of his majority in parliament.
Now that Viktor Yanukovych has snapped up the industrialists, however, he has undercut the Communist Party, which now finds itself irrelevant: with the support of the Party of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, the government will command a majority in parliament regardless of what the communists decide to do. Moreover, having landed a powerful and unexpected blow to Our Ukraine, the prime minister will presumably have nothing to fear from his disordered and disheartened opponents for some time to come.
Smokescreens
Anatoly Kinakh's desertion from Our Ukraine was so unexpected partly because the president and his allies have recently been preoccupied with other problems: defending former Interior Minister Yury Lutsenko from a criminal investigation and pushing the nomination of Vladimir Ogryzko as foreign minister through parliament, which has so far refused to confirm his appointment. It is possible that both of these problems have been little more than smokescreens designed to distract the attention of the democrats from the approaching flight of the industrialists and entrepreneurs. In any case, both problems were resolved yesterday.
After testifying before the prosecutor general, Yury Lutsenko, who is currently the leader of the People's Self-Defense movement, said that the criminal charges against him have now been dropped. Yesterday parliament also confirmed a new foreign minister: after a telephone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Viktor Yushchenko decided against appointing Vladimir Ogryzko to the post, and he was quickly replaced with Arseny Yatsenyuk, the president's deputy chief of staff. Mr. Yatsenyuk's appointment was confirmed by the entire parliament, with the exception of the communists.
Mr. Yatsenyuk, who was trained as a lawyer and an economist, was economics minister in the government of Yury Yekhanurov. He is considered one of Viktor Yushchenko's closest allies, and it is even said that the president looks upon Mr. Yatsenyuk as his successor.
The confirmation of Mr. Yatsenyuk's appointment has thus been greeted as a victory by the president's camp. Yesterday the new foreign minister, who is well-known for his pro-Western stance, gave a speech before parliament in which he named Europe as Ukraine's top priority. He has also spoken in favor of Ukraine joining NATO and has promised that he will practice "economic diplomacy," presumably leaving the "political diplomacy" side of things in the hands of his top deputy, Vladimir Ogryzko.
Nevertheless, Viktor Yanukovych's camp is not entirely resigned to believing that the appointment of Mr. Yatsenko will deprive the prime minister of his influence over Ukraine's foreign policy. Yesterday Socialist Party deputies brought up the fact that Mr. Yatsenko once held the post of deputy governor of the Odessa region, where he reported to Vasily Tsushko, the current interior minister and a member of the Socialist Party. In addition, when Our Ukraine was considering forming a coalition with the Party of the Regions last August, Arseny Yatsenko was put forward as one of the candidates for ministerial posts who would be most acceptable to Viktor Yanukovych.
In any case, according to Kommersant's sources in Viktor Yanukovych's inner circle, the prime minister has recently been attempting to circumvent the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry by lining up his own connections with potential foreign partners. For example, without waiting for a new foreign minister to be appointed, Mr. Yanukovych proposed to Moscow to open an exclusive line of communication that would give the prime minister and his team direct access to the Russian Foreign Ministry. If Mr. Yanukovych receives a positive response to his initiative, that will be another serious blow to Viktor Yushchenko. The president will then be in serious danger of losing his hold on foreign policy, the last level of control still remaining in his hands.
Mikhail Zygar
All the Article in Russian as of Mar. 22, 2007
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