Tymoshenko Unfazed As Ukraine Fissures Deepen

KIEV, Ukraine -- Her country is once more deep in political crisis, but Yulia Tymoshenko seems completely, uncharacteristically, calm. It's almost as if, for the first time in nearly two years, things are going according to plan.

Yulia Tymoshenko
Ukraine's president and prime minister are openly at odds, each accusing the other of breaking the law. Parliament has been officially dismissed but is ignoring an order to hold new elections. There are thousands of protesters in the streets, some sleeping in tents and blocking parts of the center of Kiev.

But the veteran revolutionary says she's unworried about Ukraine's future. Between occasional giggles, the 46-year-old Tymoshenko, who is again leader of the opposition, acknowledged that she prefers the unpredictable to the stable.

In fact, many see Tymoshenko as the only sure winner from the current political chaos in the country. Fresh elections are likely to either put her back in the prime minister's chair, from which she was ousted after a falling out with the president, or at least in position to choose who gets the post.

"She now has role No. 1 and (President Victor Yushchenko) is No. 2," said Mikhail Pogrebinsky, a political analyst linked to Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich. "She wins from destabilizing the country. She needs this war."

Amid allegations of widespread corruption and bribery, Ukraine's pro-Western President Yushchenko took the drastic step this week of dissolving the country's parliament and calling for fresh elections.

Parliament, dominated by pro-Russian groups, has ignored the order, and Yushchenko's long-time rival, Yanukovich, has called his supporters into the streets for the past three days to protest against the move.

The impasse deepened Thursday as Yushchenko warned that Yanukovich and his allies could face prosecution if they continue to refuse his order to hold early parliamentary elections.

The split is considered so dangerous that some analysts worry that Ukraine itself could fracture in two. Some have compared it to the constitutional standoff that struck neighboring Russia in 1993, which ended only when Boris Yeltsin ordered tanks to fire on the seat of Russia's government, the White House.

While such alarmist talk is rampant on the streets of Kiev these days, Tymoshenko says the country is enduring only another of its periodic bumpy patches on the road from Soviet communism to true Western-style democracy.

"I strongly believe that every step we are taking, however difficult, is a step toward real democracy in Ukraine," she said in an interview at the newly built headquarters of her parliamentary faction. "I'm proud of the president because he didn't close his eyes to the violations of the constitution, he didn't allow a U-turn to the Soviet past."

Since the fall of 2004, when Tymoshenko became a global celebrity as the comely face of Ukraine's pro-Western Orange Revolution, she has seen higher peaks and more valleys than many politicians do in their entire careers.

She was made prime minister in the euphoric weeks that followed the uprising on the streets of Kiev, and shortly afterward was named the third most-powerful woman of the world by Forbes magazine, trailing only U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Chinese Vice-Premier Wu Yi.

But just eight months into the job, she was fired after a stunning falling out with her co-revolutionary, Yushchenko. Even more startling, Yanukovich, the man implicated in the electoral fraud that motivated the Orange Revolution, was chosen by Yushchenko to replace her.

But while she's currently exiled to the opposition benches, she's once more very much at the center of things. She and Yushchenko have patched up their differences and are planning to work together to defeat Yanukovich in the May 27 vote. It's a campaign that could very well end up with. Tymoshenko back in the prime minister's chair.

Source: Knoxville News Sentinel