Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko gives a press conference. The president declared he will not cancel his decree on dissolving the Supreme Rada. However, he admits of a possibility to postpone the early parliamentary elections, scheduled for May 27.
Photo: Dmitry Azarov
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Party Triangle
// Yulia Tymoshenko split the newly-emerging alliance
Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko addressed the nation on Monday. However, the address contained no reassuring news for the nation. Meanwhile, Kommersant’s special correspondent Andrei Kolesnikov believes it was on Monday when Viktor Yushchenko and Viktor Yanukovych were just a step away from suspending the president’s decree on dissolving the Supreme Rada of Ukraine. Andrei Kolesnikov reports from Kiev on what, or rather who, prevented President Yushchenko from taking this last step.
Several cultural and political events were to take place in Kiev on Monday morning. Our Ukraine party and the Bloc of Yulia Tymoshenko (BYuT) promised to hold their congresses. Both events were scheduled for 11 a.m.. However, Our Ukraine put it off to 3 p.m., and the BYuT – to 7 p.m.. Both events were postponed without reasons at least seemingly justifiable.
By 12 p.m., however, news suddenly came that Viktor Yushchenko intends to address the nation. Nothing like that had been expected in the morning. Apparently, the president was to announce something important. Next morning, Yushchenko intended to fly to London on a working visit. So, the president’s address had all chances to become his political last will, at least for the period of his absence from the country.
Yushchenko was to give a press conference at 2 p.m.. Approximately at 1:30 p.m., head of the main service for law-enforcement bodies Valery Geletei came out to journalists in the lobby of the president’s secretariat. He told about what really happened, according to his representation, on Saturday with Ukraine’s Minister of Justice Lavrynovych.
That day, news agencies suddenly reported that the municipal prosecutor’s office had initiated a criminal case upon the non-fulfillment of the president’s decree on dissolving the Supreme Rada and on early elections. Lavrynovych was supposed to go as witness for the case. Yet, news came later in the day that there actually had not been any case.
And now Geletei was saying the case does exist, and is moving further, and was initiated against Lavrynovych personally, that is the latter will be the defendant. Geletei also said that some deputies of the Rada are also mixed up in the case. He did not name them, though. Allegedly, the deputies were putting pressure on the case’s investigator, who is in hospital with a heart attack. Geletei assured the journalists that the case against Lavrynovych will go on.
Geletei refused pointblank to answer questions, saying the president was about to come out to the press. However, he said before leaving that law-enforcers arrested two members of Dmitry Korchinsky’s political organization Bratstvo (‘Brotherhood’), who allegedly knifed noisy visitors of Korchinsky’s lecture last Friday. Korchinsky told me two days ago that his people don’t carry knifes, “especially in their own office”.
Meanwhile, the journalists were asked to vacate the lobby for several minutes, so that the secretariat’s staff could make technical rearrangements before the president comes out. When we returned, the Ukrainian president’s personal standard was standing next to the flag of Ukraine behind the box with microphones.
I wanted to know if there would be a chance to ask any questions to the president. His security service gave an irrefragable answer, by screwing off the three microphones meant for journalists’ questions.
I counted TV cameras in the lobby: there were 20. The address, which the president was to deliver at 2 p.m. was obviously being postponed. Yushchenko did not come out to the lobby neither at 2:15, not at 2:25 p.m.. At last, I realized what was going on. It turned out that Yushchenko decided to listen to Yulia Tymoshenko before delivering his own address. According to my information, she was waiting to be received by him since morning. Apparently, she could not leave without having talked to the president.
That may be the reason why the BYuT’s congress was put off to the evening. Evidently, it really was a matter of national importance, and Tymoshenko got her own way. Yushchenko was now talking to her in his office for about an hour already. About what, the question was. It would become clear from the president’s address to the nation.
At a certain moment, it seemed to me there will be no address at all that day. The president’s personal operator and photographer hurried to him, which meant that Yushchenko is about to have regular working meetings.
Yet, head of the secretariat’s information policy service Larisa Mudrak later came out and said that Yushchenko will nevertheless come out to the press in five minutes.
Indeed, he appeared. The president spoke for a long time about his meeting, not with Tymoshenko however, but with law-enforcement authorities. He said the situation in Ukraine is stable. He added that he wants the Prosecutor General’s Office (and not the city court of Kiev) to give its opinion of Lavrynovych’s behavior. Yet, it might be necessary, apparently, that Yushchenko should give his opinion of the Prosecutor’s Office first.
The president also expressed indignation that students of some Ukrainian universities “take part in protest rallies on Maidan for 60-100 hryvnias”, as it was reported to him.
However, Yushchenko said nothing of the students who participate in protest rallies on European square (where his own supporters gather), and how much they are paid. Perhaps, he would be surprised upon learning they are paid about the same amount.
Then the president said something which really could become news for the journalists. He said he met with Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych on Friday.
“I offered a compromise to him, which could lead to solving the crisis,” said Yushchenko pensively.
He uttered the word ‘compromise’ for the first time since the beginning of the current political crisis.
Yet, the president said earlier that he had given a package of documents to Yanukovych which might help Ukraine to overcome the crisis, but he did not disclose what suggestions there are in those documents. It would be logical to tell about them at last, especially considering that next morning Yushchenko was to leave his nation alone with Yanukovych.
However, Yushchenko once again refrained from disclosing his suggestions. On the contrary, he went into details while speaking about corruption underlying the political crisis, and his objection to Rada deputies’ moving from one faction to another.
“I do not want to be a silent participant of the process which will change the constitutional situation in Ukraine and falsify the parliamentary elections. Unconstitutional majority cannot make legal decisions!” said Yushchenko, minimum for the 30th time since the crisis’ beginning.
Then the president suggested that the participants of all congresses of political parties going on in Ukraine at that time (certainly, he first of all meant Our Ukraine’s congress, which had already begun, and the BYuT’s congress) should unilaterally adopt the decision to renounce parliamentary privileges.
“It will be a wonderful gesture to show that you are against political corruption,” said Yushchenko, looking intently into the TV cameras.
While he was saying all this, one of the microphones for journalists was screwed back on, and right near my mouth. So, when Yushchenko finished speaking, I asked him two questions. Is it possible for his decree on dissolving the Rada to be suspended, and for early parliamentary elections to be put off, for instance to autumn, and if yes, on what conditions? The second question was rather rhetoric: several days ago, Yushchenko cancelled his visit to Moscow, giving the complicated political situation in Ukraine as the excuse. I asked whether the fact that the president is flying abroad the next day means the situation in his country has already become stable.
Yushchenko gave surprisingly detailed answers to both questions, speaking for 20 minutes at least. First, he disclosed what were the suggestions in the package of documents passed to Yanukovych. Apparently, the president does not regard Supreme Rada Speaker Oleksandr Moroz as a partner in negotiations.
“Before working out a joint plan,” said Yushchenko, “we should agree that the early elections will take place... We believe the situation in the country remains stable.”
Before he said it, I thought there was only one person in the country who thinks so. But Yushchenko insisted on the pronoun ‘we’. Apparently, at least the president’s secretariat should be added to the supporters of his point of view.
“Although I understand,” he added, “that for a certain part of the society the very question of early elections is disagreeable.”
Thus, the first suggestion to Yanukovych is to acknowledge that early elections are inevitable. True, it is the hardest condition for Yushchenko’s opponents.
The following is easier. Second suggestion: it is necessary to determine the early election procedure. Yushchenko said that so far “the law has not spelt out the pre-election rules”. So, he believes a new law “About the status of a people’s deputy” and a revised law “About elections” are needed. Besides, it is necessary to agree on imposing a moratorium on the unconstitutional political activity.
“If these conditions are met,” said Yushchenko, “I answer ‘yes’ to your question. I, as Ukraine’s president, see no tragedy in it.”
He then returned to speaking about political corruption which gnaws his country, and spoke of his faith in his nation which came out onto streets in the group of nine million people on Saturday and Sunday and behaved well.
While the president was answering the first question, he forgot the second one (about the cancelled visit to Moscow) and asked to repeat it. Then he suddenly remembered it, and spoke for 7-8 minutes more, telling by the way about the hard fate of Ukraine’s democracy in recent years in general, and in last days in particular.
“I have important foreign negotiations scheduled for tomorrow,” he said, “and fortunately or not, it is too late to cancel them.”
He must have been hinting these negotiations were planned long before Yushchenko’s plan to meet with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Moscow. Meanwhile, a source in the Supreme Rada said that first of all, it concerns Yushchenko’s sudden visit to Brussels, and not only to London. It is in Brussels where he will probably meet with Eurocommission President Barroso. Just like other EU leaders, Barroso does not like it that Ukraine’s president, parliament, and the cabinet of ministers cannot reach agreement, especially on the background of the unprecedented political stability in the country.
“Unfortunately, the upcoming meetings cannot be postponed,” once again Yushchenko said sincerely [unlike the meeting with the Russian president. – A. K.].
Yushchenko ended that press conference by suddenly addressing Ukrainian politicians and law-enforcers.
“Ukraine is going through a wonderful period,” he said, “when the situation allows professionals to approve themselves!”
Undoubtedly, he includes himself among those professionals.
I arrived to the building where the congress of Our Ukraine was going on about an hour and a half after it began. The party was about to vote for the alphabetical list of Our Ukraine candidates for membership in the new Supreme Rada. Judging by the list, even Our Ukraine itself does not believe the early elections will be held on May 27.
Meanwhile, it was here, in the congress’ back rooms, where reliable sources told me about the intriguing details of Yushchenko’s meeting with Yanukovych on Friday. The sources said it was the prime minister, and not the president, who brought the suggestions which were really discussed by all interested parties on Friday, throughout the weekend’s days and nights. Yanukovych suggested that Yushchenko should suspend as soon as possible his decree on dissolving the Rada. It return, the prime minister promised that the deputies loyal to him will vote for the amendments to the law “About the cabinet of ministers”. The amendments will considerably abridge deputies’ powers related to influencing the appointment of Ukraine’s prime minister, defense minister, and foreign minister.
Besides, Yanukovych planned to guarantee to Yushchenko that the Universal of National Unity would be adopted as a law. At last, Yanukovych agreed to pass the law prohibiting deputies to move from one faction to another after the elections.
In return for all this, Yushchenko only had to suspend his decree. He sincerely promised to consider it. Yanukovych said the Party of Regions would also gather decision-making people in Donetsk during the weekend.
Apparently, on Monday morning, the opponents were as close as never before to reaching agreement. Moreover, during the Rada’s morning session, deputies of the Party of Regions began initiating bills discussed with Yushchenko. It was an indirect proof that such agreements were really beginning to work.
Yushchenko must have wanted to speak about these agreements in his morning address to the nation. Then, he would be able to fly to Brussels, London, anywhere, with a light heart.
So, it now became absolutely clear why both European square and Maidan were empty throughout Saturday, Sunday, and Monday.
Yet, Tymoshenko has again interfered in those wonderful plans. Apparently, she waited not in vain to be received by the president. She got an hour to speak to him.
And this hour was enough for her to bring Yushchenko to senses.
Andrei Kolesnikov
All the Article in Russian as of Apr. 17, 2007
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