Power Fight Goes Public

KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukraine’s pro-Western political forces accused their Russian-friendly rivals of stalling coalition-forming at the new parliament’s first session on Nov. 23, but the real enemy emerged from among their own ranks.

Yushchenko skiing in the Carpathian mountains.
A Nov. 27 part congress revealed the Our Ukraine-People’s Self-Defense (OUPSD) is split between a faction led by Presidential Secretariat Chair Viktor Baloha opposed to uniting with Yulia Tymoshenko and her eponymous bloc, and those who support the Democratic Forces Coalition, led by Vyacheslav Kyrylenko and Yuriy Lutsenko.

The conflict not only threatens the pro-Western coalition, but also the future of the pro-presidential OUPSD, Kyrylenko warned the council, which fell short of its quorum.

“It’s acceptable to lose the elections and go into opposition,” he said. “But our voters won’t forgive us for winning the elections and giving Ukraine away to the clans.”

The Baloha faction boycotted the council, widely viewed as its revenge for the Nov. 22 vote rejecting their proposal nominating Ivan Pliushch, a lawmaking veteran, as parliamentary chair. Pliushch’s candidacy was backed by the president at the time.

The agreement to form the Democratic Forces Coalition called for Kyrylenko’s nomination as parliamentary chair.

After the bloc voted to support Kyrylenko’s candidacy, President Viktor Yushchenko abandoned his support for Pliushch, stating he would support the vote.

Yushchenko’s indecisiveness and passivity in governing, particularly in dealing with his own political bloc, is largely to blame for the current crisis, political observers said.

“The president doesn’t seem to have any clear concept of where he’s headed with the parliament’s leadership, the government, and the country’s direction as a whole,” said Ivan Lozowy, a Kyiv political insider and lawyer.

The Ukrainian media criticized Yushchenko for skiing in the Carpathian Mountains on Nov. 26, instead of preparing his bloc for the next day’s political council that could have extinguished the conflict.

As a result of the vacuum in the bloc’s leadership, battling factions within Our Ukraine resurfaced throughout the past year between the centrist, business-oriented faction and its ideological wing, with the former repeatedly ignoring the president’s directives.

Ironically, Yushchenko appointed Baloha as the bloc’s leader last year to consolidate and establish order, but since then Baloha formed his own faction to vie for power.

“It’s widely practiced that Yushchenko’s directives are ignored, detoured, sabotaged and undermined, even extending to economic and cultural projects,” Lozowy said.

As the Kyiv Post went to print, Baloha announced the night of Nov. 28 the seven politicians who abstained from signing the agreement to form the Democratic Forces Coalition in fact did so that day, following a meeting with Yushchenko.

The president exhausted all arguments and efforts to remove the key doubts of the holdouts that prevented them from signing the agreement.

“The president is sure that as of now, no obstacles exist on the path to forming a democratic coalition and forming an active government,” Baloha said.

Presidential ally Yuriy Yekhanurov offered a hint at what they discussed.

“We are engaged in our beloved Ukrainian matter: distributing posts,” he said during a Nov. 28 telephone conference.

The coalition agreement, however, doesn’t provide for Kyrylenko becoming parliamentary chair, said Mykola Onyshchuk, another holdout deputy.

He named Minister of Foreign Affairs Arseniy Yatsenyuk as a possible candidate.

Addressing the Nov. 27 council, Kyrylenko warned the bloc could become politically irrelevant and undermine efforts to form a national-democrat mega-party, paving the way for two parties to dominate Ukrainian politics: the Russian-oriented Party of Regions and the pro-Western Tymoshenko Bloc (Byut).

“We are supposed to create a coalition,” Kyrylenko said. “And it’s not so important how many votes it will gain. It’s important what laws it will pass and how the government will operate. It will give us the possibility to form a pro-presidential party, which will support Viktor Yushchenko at the next elections.”

After the first session of the sixth parliamentary convocation on Nov. 23, OUPSD confirmed seven of its members refused to sign an agreement to form the Democratic Forces Coalition.

Of them, Yekhanurov, Ivan Pliushch and Viktor Topolov have close ties to Yushchenko. Ihor Kril and Vasyl Petiovka are linked to Baloha.

Stanislav Dovhiy is the father of Oles Dovhiy, the right-hand man of controversial Kyiv Mayor Leonid Chernovetskiy, who may face pre-term elections if the Tymoshenko bloc gains control of the government. The senior Dovhiy was overseas this week.

Another holdout, Onyshchuk, maintains close ties to Party of Regions member Anatoliy Kinakh, who abandoned Our Ukraine this spring, triggering the crisis that led Yushchenko to dismiss parliament and call for new elections.

As his reasons for not signing, Yekhanurov said the original coalition-forming pact signed in February is significantly different from the current agreement, which includes Tymoshenko bloc campaign promises, which he described as “dangerous.”

Among them is her proposal to return the estimated $120 billion in bank deposits destroyed by hyperinflation in 1991-1995 within two years, as well as eliminating the value-added tax.

“Theories on returning the Oshchadbank debt are proposed by Byut’s political technologists, not professional economists,” Yekhanurov said.

Following the Nov. 23 session, OUPSD deputy David Zhvanya suggested the holdouts surrender their mandates.

Yekhanurov already said he would consider doing so, and so did Kril.

In his defense, Kril said he acted against OUPSD submitting itself to Tymoshenko’s will. Tymoshenko, the leading candidate for prime minister in a coalition comprised by her bloc and OUPSD, is expected to challenge Yushchenko for the presidency in a campaign that kicks off in 2009.

Yushchenko vowed to meet with the seven holdouts, listen to their concerns and resolve the conflict by Nov. 29, a date several political observers viewed as unrealistic, despite promises made by presidential ally Oleksandr Tretyakov.

If the president takes a decisive stance, he could demand the holdouts surrender their mandates, said Pavlo Bulgak, a political scientist at the Kyiv-based Stratehema Center for Practical Politics, which is financed by Western and Ukrainian sources.

“If these people undermine the president, then it doesn’t make sense to keep them close to him,” Bulgak said. “They need to be put in their place or dismissed.”

Among the more dramatic moments at the first session occurred when the outgoing parliamentary chair, Oleksandr Moroz, was offered the chance to speak.

It was Moroz who led the effort in parliament to form the constitutional majority to override all presidential vetoes, causing the president to decide to dismiss parliament on April 2 to protect his authority.

Moroz’s Socialist Party of Ukraine failed to gain re-election in September.

In his curtain call, Moroz said Ukraine will return to lawful, democratic development only if Yushchenko is removed from the Ukrainian presidency.

“The organizers of this escapade, primarily Viktor Yushchenko, convinced voters that pre-term elections are the key to resolving all of Ukraine’s problems,” Moroz said. “They promised the coalition would be formed in two hours. Almost two months have passed since elections.”

To demonstrate their disdain with his remarks, Orange politicians walked out of the session hall in the middle of Moroz’s remarks to get a head start on a lunch buffet.

Earlier in the session, Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych announced the Cabinet of Ministers would resign its posts, becoming the acting government until a new coalition is formed.

That drew applause from the Orange politicians, which was quickly rebuffed by Yanukovych ally Raisa Bohatyryova, who led the first session as the temporary presidium’s chair.

“Understood emotions!,” she said sarcastically, prompting her Party of Regions to their own round of applause. “Good work, government, for supporting our country being perceived as democratic and economically developed in the world!”

At the session’s conclusion, Bohatyryova announced the next session would be Nov. 29, instead of Nov. 27 as anticipated by the Orange politicians.

Tymoshenko bloc deputies said she announced the date without consulting them and accused her of stalling coalition-formation efforts.

“The decision was made without discussion by the temporary presidium, without an announcement during the working group and without a vote,” said Oleksandr Turchynov, Tymoshenko’s right-hand man. “It’s a simple, clear provocation.”

The events of the next several days proved Tymoshenko has enemies other than the Party of Region, observers said.

“It’s Yushchenko and Baloha that are delaying,” Lozowy said. “The Party of Regions is merely responding to their efforts to undermine Tymoshenko.

Source: Kyiv Post