Although Yulia Timoshenko's victory was not guaranteed by a sea of hands, but by only one, they were not stinting with the applause.
Photo: Konstantin Ilyanok
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Timoshenko: Sometimes She Returns
// To pick up where she left off
The Supreme Rada of Ukraine yesterday confirmed Yulia Timoshenko as prime minister, and she is full of determination to do what she did not succeed in doing in 2005, having the agreement with Russia on natural gas reconsidered, first of all. She may have to settle that issue with her future colleague Vladimir Putin. She is also at battle with Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko.
Hands Up
After last week's bitter experience, Timoshenko made it clear ahead of time that she was prepared for any outcome of the vote in the Rada. She gave a speech to the MPs before their vote that sounded like a declaration of war.
“The filth and corruption surrounding us will not debase us, nor will any other false fears,” Timoshenko said, glaring at her audience. “I will accept any result with dignity and our tem will continue on its way the way it should go. Sooner or later, the entire band will answer before Ukraine for what it does today and in the future.”
The following vote brought her a celebration rather than war. But her return to power cannot be called triumphant. The Party of the Regions, Communist Party and Vladimir Litvin Bloc refused to participate in the vote. So the leaders of the Orange coalition (the Yulia Timoshenko Bloc and Our Ukraine – People's Self-Defense) declined to use the Rada electronic voting system to avoid problems of the type encountered last week.
The vote was conducted by a show of hands. When their names were called, Orange parliamentarians raised a hand and gave a spoken confirmation of support for Timoshenko. He received the minimal necessary number of votes – 226 out of 228. Secretary of the Security Council and People's Self-Defense member Ivan Plyushch, who had urged an alliance with the Party of the Regions, ostentatiously abstained from the vote. Ivan Spodarenko, another Rada member from Our Ukraine – People's Self-Defense was absent. He had been admitted to a hospital emergency room the evening before. Yury Ekhanurov, No. 24 on the Our Ukraine – People's Self-Defense party list, was considered the weak link until the last moment. He had been saying since that morning that he would ignore the vote. He changed is mind after a quick called from Yushchenko, however, and received a round of applause for his vote.
After Timoshenko's confirmation, the Orange coalition dismissed the government led by Party of the Regions leader Viktor Yanukovich by the same means and approved the cabinet proposed by the new prime minister. Timoshenko took pains to form a government that would be convenient for her to work with. She has been saying lately that her previous term in office was short and unsuccessful not by any fault of her own but because of disloyal minister who sabotaged her in critical issues. Deputy prime minister at the time Anatoly Kinakh can be counted among the disloyal, as can former minister of fuel and energy Ivan Plachkov, former transportation minister Evgeny Chervonenko and former Naftogaz Ukrainy head Alexey Ivchenko. (Yesterday, after the vote, Timoshenko stated her intention to fire current Naftogaz chief Evgeny Bakulin.) In addition, the Security Council was then an alternative center of power headed by Timoshenko's old enemy Petr Poroshenko.
The new government can be considered Timoshenko's team. She haggled to get her people into key financial and economic and energy positions, leaving Our Ukraine – People's Self-Defense the security and some of the social ministries. Timoshenko's close advisor Alexander Turchinov will be first deputy prime minister. The two “plain” deputy prime ministers will be deputy head of the presidential secretariat Ivan Basyunik and Timoshenko's chief foreign policy consultant Grigory Nemyrya. The team will make it easier for her to carry out her extravagant campaign promises, but there will be no one to blame for her failures now.
Pulling the Tubes
For many, Timoshenko's previous term as prime minister is memorable for its numerous scandals over plans to reprivatize several thousand enterprises in the country that had, in her view, been illegally sold off under former president Leonid Kuchma. She had a certain measure of success with those plans. For example, she took the Krivorozhstal metals plant away from Kuchma's son-in-law Renat Akhmetov and sold it to magnate Lakshmi Mittal. She was getting ready to take on Russian gas supplies to Ukraine when she was left office.
She made reconsidering gas relations between Kiev and Moscow one of the main issues of her last election campaign. In September, she told Kommersant that Russia and Ukraine would conclude a new “mutually profitable, pleasant and worthy” agreement on natural gas and “no intermediaries will be necessary any longer.”
The intermediary between Russia and Ukraine now is the Rosukrenergo company, half of which belongs to Gazprom and half of which belongs to Ukrainian businessmen Dmitry Furtash and Ivan Fursin. Gazprom has claimed for years that the company was founded on Ukrainian initiative, but it clearly does not intend to bow out of its partnership with the gas trader. The executive director of Rosukrenergo from the Russian side is a member of the management board of the Russian monopoly and classmate of presidential candidate Dmitry Medvedev from the law department at Leningrad State University Konstantin Chuichenko.
Moscow has long been apprehensive of Timoshenko's promises about gas supplies. Last week, after several militant statements by Yulia Timoshenko Bloc spokesmen, official Gazprom representative Sergey Kupriyanov expressed concern over the Ukrainians' plans. He said that the intentions of the Ukrainian leadership to alter agreements and contracts that have already been signed cannot but worry the Russian gas monopoly.
Vadim Karasev, head of the Global Strategy Institute in Kiev, is convinced that Timoshenko will go forward with her gas plans. “She most likely will take up the reconsideration of the agreement with Russia. It is a good topic for PR, not to mention the administrative possibilities. Everything's simple in Ukraine: the one who controls the pipeline controls Ukrainian politics. She will try to get Central Asian gas and, even though everything has been sewn up there by Gazprom.” Deputy director of Ukraine's Razumkov Center for Economic and Political Research Valery Chaly agreed, saying, “Timoshenko will try to change the natural gas plan and will try to attain fairer prices for gas transit across Ukraine. But I don't see possibilities yet to change the existing model quickly.”
If Kiev dares start a new direct conflict with Moscow over gas, it is possible that Timoshenko will have to settle it with current President of Russia Vladimir Putin, who plans to be prime minister after next March.
The Road to Success
In spite of yesterday's success and the inauguration of a government loyal to her, Timoshenko may soon encounter complications with domestic politics. On her way to office, she promised her fellow countrymen such gifts as the elimination of the military draft at the beginning of next year and the return of savings lost in Sberbank of the former USSR. “We understand that it is almost a sensational obligation, but we are taking it on because, in the course of the last half year, our team has analyzed and counted the country's possibilities and resources for reestablishing justice for depositors who lost their savings in Sberbank and that promise is completely realistic,” Timoshenko said.
In reality, it would require huge financial resources to keep those promises, and Ukraine still has not passed a budget for 2008. Yushchenko's advisors are not happy with the new prime minister's plans for winning the people's love. “We cannot be responsible for such populism,” influential Our Ukraine – People's Self-Defense member Vladislav Kaskiv objected. He thinks the Orange coalition will be unable to keep the promises made by Timoshenko about army reform and the return of lost savings. Ekhanurov, who became defense minister yesterday, is not happy with those promises either.
The wave of criticism of Timoshenko from the presidential camp is evidence that her opponents are not just Rosukrenergo and Yanukovich, who swore to take up indefatigable opposition yesterday. It is the Ukrainian president's team as well. And, under an old agreement between Yushchenko and Timoshenko, the Rada is to pass a new law soon on the cabinet that will reduce the prime minister's powers. Then the post will most likely lose its attractiveness for the ambitious leader.
“Timoshenko will aim for the presidency and there is no other way. There will be no pacifism. She'll fight it out with Yushchenko if she has to,” Karasev said. “A schism is already beginning on the pro-presidential bloc. Young people don't see any hope in Yushchenko and are drawn to Yulia. Yushchenko has lost his pull. But the game isn't over yet.”
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Putin Warns Yushchenko
The first sign of possibly cooling relations came from Moscow immediately after Yulia Timoshenko was elected prime minister. Russian President Vladimir Putin posted a message for Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko on the Russian president's official website. In it, Putin mentions disagreements that have arisen between the neighboring countries over humanitarian cooperation. “It is mostly a matter of the peculiar reading by the Ukrainian side of our common history, the heroization of war criminals that collaborated with the Nazis, the war' that has been launched in a number of Ukrainian regions against historical monuments and burials of Soviet military liberators, increasing discrimination against the Russian language, activities meant to divide the Ukrainian Orthodox Church,” the message states. “Those unfriendly steps already darken the atmosphere of relations between the states. Moreover, they may cause serious damage to bilateral cooperation in various areas.”
Vladimir Solovyev, Mikhail Zygar
All the Article in Russian as of Dec. 19, 2007
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