Opponents of Ukrainian Prime Minister Yuliya Tymoshenko hope a new political force that is being created to back up President Victor Yushchenko will have enough time to strengthen while Tymoshenko is looking for the means to sort out the tense situation with budget.
Photo: Alexander Techinsky
| Other Photos |
 |
|
 |
Yuliya Tymoshenko May Be Pushed Aside
// The pro-presidential “United Center” is growing stronger
A new political force for Victor Yushchenko
Today a BYuT (Yuliya Tymoshenko Bloc) session will be held in Kiev. Here, new attempts to reconcile the orange coalition will be made (it need be reminded that Friday it lost the majority in the parliament – the Verkhovna Rada). At the same time Victor Yanukovich’s Party of Regions urges that a breakup of the orange camp be acknowledged, and a new parliamentary alliance be formed in the Rada. It’s likely, however, that nothing will be changed at least till autumn when a new pro-presidential party “United Center” gains ground.
Salvation of the coalition
The “orange” have been striving to save the democratic coalition, which lost the majority in the Verkhovna Rada after last week BYuT member Igor Rybakov and his opposite number from the Our Ukraine – People’s Self Defense bloc Yury Bout left it with a scandal. Today starts a session of the BYuT in Kiev, and its delegates are determined to deprive their fellow party member Yury Rybakov of his MP mandate. After the Friday demarche Mr Rybakov was referred to as “betrayer.” “The BYuT fraction will suggest a set of measures aimed at preventing MPs from taking steps in the manner of Mr Rybakov, who submitted his statement about quitting the coalition,” Andrey Portnov, deputy head of the BYuT fraction promised yesterday.
The adherents of Ms Tymoshenko hope that they’ll manage to make Igor Rybakov abdicate so that they could replace him with a more reliable person and thus restore the constitutional majority – 226 mandates (after the resignation of Igor Rybakov and Yury Bout the coalition can reckon with 225 MPs only).
For all that, this seemingly simple plan is not that easy to carry out. Igor Rybakov has already stated he is not going to reject his office, and he won’t be present at today’s session. At the same time there are no constitutional means of exerting pressure on him. Regardless of the long discussions, the Rada hasn’t passed the imperative mandate bill, which could toughen fraction discipline and substitute delinquents with their more loyal party fellows. By the way, it was BYuT and Our Ukraine that used to oppose this norm. Curiously, vulnerabilities have emerged within them. As things stand now, not all the BYuT members believe that the session will help save the coalition. “I know only one pre-emptive measure that’ll guarantee the coalition against situations like this – you mustn’t include shit on your party ballot,” another deputy head of the fraction Oleg Bilorus said.
Unlike Igor Rybakov, Yury Bout isn’t doing so well. Having lost any hope of making him resign, his party fellows chose another way. MP from the Our Ukraine bloc Roman Zvarych has applied to the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office and Security service for checking information about Mr Bout’s work with the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation, and for finding out whether he legally got Ukrainian citizenship in 2002.
The suspicion of Mr Bout’s cooperation with Russia’s security services is based on his biography, so uncharacteristic of a Ukrainian MP. He served with the Russian armed forces up to 1994, and then he worked as senior lecturer of Russia’s Military Academy of Strategic Rocket Forces and was in charge of the center for international projects and cooperation at the Russian Civil Service Academy under the President of the Russian Federation. Besides, Yury Bout is believed to be a relative of the notorious arms trader Victor Bout, who was arrested in Thailand in March. Though, there is no evidence to prove it, except for the same surname and patronymic name (they both are Anatolyevich). The MP proper calls the speculation “pure rumor and gossip, which have nothing to do with the reality” and argues that he legally became the citizen of Ukraine.
Resurrection of the coalition
As the orange try to revive the coalition, their eternal opponent – the Party of Regions urges that the democratic alliance be rendered redundant. The members of the party insist that it be done June 17 – during the next plenary session of the Rada. “According to the Constitution, the Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada must declare a breakup of the coalition,” Sergey Lavochkin, member of the Party of Regions, said. “Arseny Petrovich (Speaker of the parliament Arseny Yatsenyuk – Kommersant) is an economist and a lawyer, and he perfectly well knows which way 225 differs from 226. We’ll press for the law to be observed.” Their ad hoc statement, published by the press-service of the Party of Regions yesterday, informs all parliamentary forces about the party’s eagerness to set to “forming a new parliamentary majority”. “Either a new coalition is formed in the parliament within 30 days or early elections must be announced,” the statement reads.
Interestingly, Victor Yushchenko and the presidential Secretariat headed by Victor Baloga turned out the key opponents of the Regionals in their bid to render the coalition redundant. Last Friday the head of state and his circle claimed that the ruling alliance is still alive and the resignation of two MPs won’t change anything. So, the presidential administration pretends it doesn’t press for altering the format of the coalition in power. As to early elections, the law prohibits holding them before the Rada has worked for a year, which will happen in September.
This said, the presidential Secretariat shows its support of Yuliya Tymoshenko’s government. But it doesn’t mean that there is a sort of truce between the President and the Prime Minister. On the contrary, yesterday Victor Yushchenko launched an attack against his ally. After Sunday’s incident at the Karl Marx coal mine Victor Yushchenko virtually attached the blame to the government. “All major problems of coal mining have been displayed here. They haven’t been addressed for years. The President is concerned with the Prime Minister’s thoughtless position regarding this matter. The coal mining industry has been deteriorating, and there is no state strategy of its development,” the presidential press-service reported.
In this background it’s considered in Kiev that the stepping down of the two MPs of the orange coalition is the doing of Mr Baloga, who has struck a staggering blow at Prime Minister Tymoshenko. Without the majority in the Rada, she’ll have much difficulty replacing the head of the Ukrainian Fund of State Property, which is out of the Premier’s control. The Fund is one of the key departments responsible for filling the budget with money.
The BYuT has been seeking to fire the current chief of the Fund Valentina Semenyuk and substitute her with its candidacy making the Rada vote for him, but Victor Baloga and his adherents from the Our Ukraine resisted. Now Yuliya Tymoshenko’s plans concerning the privatization of a few large enterprises in Ukraine, which would fill the state’s coffers, are under question. You can be sure of one thing only: With the quasi-legal coalition, the Prime Minister will find herself at a disadvantage, because the Secretariat of the President and Victor Yushchenko proper wouldn’t lose the opportunity of pouring scorn on the Chairperson of the government.
Simultaneously this week the “United Center” party has liven up in Ukraine. Its founding father Victor Baloga hopes to turn it into a new powerful pro-presidential force. Leader of the “United Center” Igor Kril promised that in the near future his party will offer a new ideology to society – “unocentrism,” which will be based on the combination of “patriotism, truth and pragmatism.”
This news doesn’t bode well for Ms Tymoshenko. In March she would make fun of the new party. But these days Mr Kril confessed that the “United Center”will draw the staff from the existing political forces. “We are not forcing anyone to join us. Members of the Our Ukraine, BYuT, the Party of Regions and others are willing to stay with us. Our aim is the elections of 2010. We must get prepared for them becoming strong and mobilized,” “United Center” leader stated.
The new party can’t challenge the BYuT or the Party of Regions yet, but according to its leaders, the “United Center” is going to have the same influence in society. In these terms it’s beneficial for Mr Baloga that Yuliya Tymoshenko keeps on fulfilling her duties and bear the responsibility for the problems in the Ukrainian economy. Economic recession will inevitably tell on the rating of the PM and her bloc. By that time the “United Center” will have gained political ground and defy the BYuT, which can happen in early parliamentary elections this autumn.
Vladimir Solovyov
All the Article in Russian as of June 10, 2008
|
|
|
