Ukraine's Iron Lady Provokes Rift

KIEV, Ukraine -- Hers was the other face of Ukraine's 'Orange Revolution', and her impassioned public eloquence was crucial in helping Viktor Yushchenko - his features ravaged by assassins' poison - become the country's first freely elected President.

Six months on from the euphoric scenes in Kiev's Independence Square, Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko's status as a national heroine still rivals that of Yushchenko in the former Soviet state.

Ukraine's Iron Lady - Yulia Tymoshenko
Street vendors in the square sell individual pictures of both President and Prime Minister - the former's once handsome features preserved. Among the novelties on sale is a matrioshka nesting doll where the head of Yushchenko detaches to reveal Tymoshenko.

The investigation into how Yushchenko, 51, was tricked into taking a near-lethal dose of dioxin has now uncovered a chemical laboratory in a state-owned building near central Kiev containing the same poison, and autopsies on a number of bodies suggest an entire series of related murders.

Suspicious deaths, or 'Ukrainian suicides' as they are known with black humour, have not come to an end since the Orange Revolution, a fact underlined on 22 June with the mysterious demise of 47-year-old Igor Pluzhnikov, a politician and media mogul. Tymoshenko has now revealed in an interview how her life was also been threatened and even today she fears for her safety.

'The work I've been doing for the last eight years is dangerous,' said the 44-year-old, who endured six weeks in prison after being fired from her post as Deputy Prime Minister in the previous, autocratic and pro-Moscow government of Leonid Kuchma.

'Under Kuchma's regime it was "normal" for a journalist to be killed, and significant politicians or administrative workers used to die, as a rule, in car accidents. I also "enjoyed" a car crash which wasn't in natural circumstances.

'Like any normal person, of course I'm afraid. But the aim of our struggle was so significant that I found a way to deal with the fear. Our team has found ways to get the fear under control.'

However, cracks have begun to appear in the coalition which brought Yushchenko and Tymoshenko together last year to defeat Kuchma's anointed successor, Viktor Yanukovych, in an election which had to be re-run after a fraudulent first poll sparked mass public protests.

Constitutional changes set for next year will devolve significant powers from the President to Prime Minister. While Yushchenko has come under fire for spending time abroad to push Ukraine's case for joining the EU, the increasingly popular Tymoshenko has been likened to Margaret Thatcher for her unbending political will, not least in her robust attitude towards Russia.

But some feel that Tymoshenko is overreaching herself, and that a growing rift could take the shine off the new government's boost to welfare benefits, granting of press freedoms and drive to root out corruption.

A British official in Ukraine said: 'There was a meeting last month between Yushchenko, Tymoshenko and the oil barons. Tymoshenko, who leans more to a socialist than free-market philosophy, forgot she's not the boss and was brought down to earth.

'Yushchenko told them how it was going to be and Tymoshenko said: "I don't agree". Yushchenko said to her: "Don't you ever contradict me again in public. If you don't agree with my policy, you can join the opposition".'

The official added: 'We are going through a phase when the expectation created by the Orange Revolution is turning into disappointment. People feel that the government has made mistakes.'

Yushchenko said his coalition partners know that open warfare would be 'political suicide' prior to parliamentary elections next March. Asked if she harboured presidential ambitions, Tymoshenko said: 'We have a President who I hope will stay in power for not less than 10 years.'

Source: The Observer