The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same

KIEV, Ukraine -- Just into his fourth year as president of Ukraine, Viktor Yushchenko is beginning to act a lot like the man he replaced during the country's Orange Revolution.

Leonid Kuchma (L) and Viktor Yushchenko
Former Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma is often remembered for waffling on Western integration, crushing freedom of speech and overseeing a state apparatus steeped in corruption.

Orange Revolution hero Yushchenko can genuinely take credit for his unwavering support of Ukraine's bids to join the EU and NATO, and for allowing a diversity of views to flourish in the media and society as a whole. As for corruption, Yushchenko has made an effort to tackle it, but expectations are high and the problem deeply rooted.

Nevertheless, what both men have shared, like most politicians, is a desire to stay in power. That's why it may not come as a great surprise to see Yushchenko engaging in many of the same tactics of his predecessor as presidential elections approach.

For example, one of the great political achievements of Leonid Kuchma was to bridge the country's east-west divide by creating a sort of amorphous center-right status quo in parliament. To deflect mounting criticism of this self-feeding mass of lawmakers, Kuchma built the Communists up as the nation's boogieman from the Soviet past.

When a real opposition started to take shape behind fiery femme fatale Yulia Tymoshenko and the self-effacing technocrat Yushchenko, Kuchma became increasingly defensive, authoritative and oppressive.

A string of murdered journalists led to sometimes violent street protests and ultimately the Orange Revolution that swept Yushchenko and Tymoshenko into power.

Now Tymoshenko continues to play the champion of the people, the fighter against corruption, the western wind of change.

Naturally, this puts her at odds with Mr. Yushchenko, despite the fact that Tymoshenko is currently in charge of Yushchenko's government.

Yushchenko also served as premier - under Kuchma. Then after Kuchma fired him, the mild-mannered banker began a slow but sure rise to the presidency.

Kuchma always tried to depict the Western reformers of his time as whiners and opportunists, while using the reactionary Communists as a foil for his own dubious democratic image.

Yushchenko appears to be creating his own foil, or boogieman, to marginalize the ambitious and increasingly popular Tymoshenko.

Viktor Yanukovych, the villain of the Orange Revolution who has fumbled his brief hold on the presidency, the government and, more recently, the parliament’s largest faction, doesn’t need to be created – he already exists.

All Yushchenko needs to do is lure the powerful business wing of Yanukovych’s Regions faction into a new amorphous center-right faction that will also include Orange lawmakers still loyal to the president in the majority.

The more radical elements of the Donetsk-based party and their Communist allies will lose all semblance of a viable alternative to Yushchenko, who will then be free to concentrate his enriched resource on marginalizing Tymoshenko.

A first, tentative step toward achieving this goal, has already been taken. Last week, five lawmakers from the Orange majority (which includes Tymoshenko’s bloc and the smaller, nominally pro-presidential faction) quit the party behind the faction, but not the faction itself.

Unlike many lawmakers in the Our Ukraine party, which once served as Yushchenko’s flagship, all five are considered loyal to the president.

At the same time, Yushchenko appears to be improving relations with the moneybags behind Yanukovych’s Regions Party, billionaire Rinat Akhmetov.

For example, Regions lawmaker Raisa Bogatyreva, who is considered an Akhmetov loyalist, was appointed by Yushchenko to head the National Security and Defense Council (NSDC).

Yushchenko has long tried to develop the NSDC as an alternative to the Cabinet of Ministers.

And since taking office, Bogatyreva has played her role well, criticizing Tymoshenko’s government at every turn.

In this, the former head of the Regions faction has been assisted by Yushchenko’s Presidential Secretariat: Having been in the job only a couple of months, the braided premier has been rebuked for inflation, for not taking into account the president's proposals on the 2008 budget; and for the latest gas standoff with Moscow.

Interesting, Tymoshenko also fell afoul of Leonid Kuchma over her campaign to clean up the shady gas import business while serving as first deputy prime minister in the Yushchenko government.

Also like Kuchma, Yushchenko has done most of his shooting from his Secretariat, which both presidents entrusted to modern-day grand viziers.

Kuchma was served by Viktor Medvedchuk, the all-time bad boy of Ukrainian politics, while Yushchenko’s behind-the-scenes man is Viktor Baloha.

Just as Medvedchuk served as Kuchma’s lightning rod to opposition criticism, so is Baloha increasingly on the front line.

While Yushchenko spent a year and a half of his presidency keeping Yanukovych from assuming his executive power, Tymoshenko enjoyed the safety of the sidelines.

But if the president manages to create a new faction full of business heavyweights (drawing them from the current opposition as well as the Regions) he can neutralize both of his opponents to gain control over the parliament and, more importantly, hold on to the presidency.

Having failed in his fraud-marred bid for the presidency in 2004 and relinquished his hold on the government last September, Yanukovych has lost the confidence of Moscow and the powerful Donetsk industrialists.

Like his parliamentary ally top Communist Petro Symonenko, Yanukovych’s political support might soon be limited to the country’s shrinking population of angry Soviet vintage pensioners.

As its stands now, in a desperate attempt to keep from being ignored, the Regions faction has been reduced to blocking sessions of parliament on the pretext of Yushchenko’s NATO bid, which faction leaders themselves endorsed at one time.

Filling part of the gap left by Yanukovych will be his arch foe Yushchenko, who can offer Regions businessmen all kinds of support in the next expected wave of privatizations and land sales.

When Tymoshenko tried to fire privatization chief Valentina Semenyuk, Yushchenko blocked the order to show her who’s boss.

Unlike Tymoshenko, the president has also proven to be a friend of Moscow, allowing Russian gas giant Gazprom to get a nice foothold on Ukraine’s domestic gas market.

Like Kuchma, Yushchenko has figured out that to stay in power it’s not enough to be popular with the people and friendly with the West – especially when people like Tymoshenko are challenging him for this support.

Like Kuchma, Yushchenko realizes that support from Moscow and powerful Ukrainian industrialists is also important – especially considering that he has a better chance courting these interests than his populist and unpredictable lady premier.

To improve his chances of reclaiming the near absolute power enjoyed by Kuchma, Yushchenko has even set about changing the country’s constitution. Many of the president’s proposed changes, such as creating a bilateral parliament, in fact were first tabled by Kuchma.

Yushchenko isn’t Kuchma, and Ukraine isn’t the country it was four years ago. But, then again, the more things change the more they stay the same.

Source: Eurasian Home