Yushchenko Will Follow Moroz’s Fate
November 20, 2007 – 2:01 pmFriends who have returned from Ukraine tell me that the person on the street is saying “Yushchenko will follow Moroz’s fate”. I had reached this conclusion myself but I always find it interesting to have my views confirmed by Ukrainians.
Two decades covering Soviet and Ukrainian affairs gives people like myself a “gut insight” into the way developments are moving in that region of the world. Ilko Kucherov, head of the well known and highly respectable Democratic Initiatives, told me on the train to Ottawa this week that often it is easier to sense what is going on in Ukraine when one is, like myself, outside the Byzantine intrigues of Ukraine. Distance sometimes helps.
There is only a 7-10 day window left before the end of the month to create an orange coalition. I do not think that an orange coalition will take place for four reasons. Yuriy Lutsenko is openly attacking Viktor Baloga, Ivan Pliushch is openly saying he will only support a grand coalition and BYuT are demanding that President Viktor Yushchenko finally outline his view on the coalition.
Yushchenko meanwhile (just like after the 2006 elections) is silent.
Perhaps he is too busy with other important matters of state? Yushchenko has unusually for a president devoted enormous time and energy to propagating the issue of the 1933 genocide-famine. I would be the first person to support such endeavours but this is not the work that a president typically deals with as he would delegate this to a senior member of the government. Yushchenko is giving talks on Channel 5 on the famine when this channel is viewed by only two percent of Ukrainians.
One would think that the formation of an orange coalition to be far more important than a historical issue, even if it was a genocide?
Yushchenko promised three important things during the election campaign and he has betrayed all of them.
The president promised that there would not be a repeat of developments after the 2006 elections and instead an orange coalition would be created very quickly after this years elections. He has not fulfilled this promise.
The president promised to support the formation of an orange coalition if it won sufficient votes. In both the 2006 and 2007 elections the orange forces won victories and on both occasions the president has not fulfilled his promise by supporting an orange coalition.
The president backed Our Ukraine-Narodna Samoborona’s (NU-NS) election slogan of “The Same Law for Everybody” (“Zakon Odyn Dlia Vsikh”). Secretary of the National Security Council Pliushch remains in this position even though Ukrainian legislation makes it illegal for people over 65 to remain in state service. The president and NU-NS have not fulfilled their election promise of one law for everybody and Pliushch refuses to support an orange coalition.
Ukraine’s elites, including President Yushchenko, remain neo-Soviet in their unwillingness to treat Ukrainians as citizens and to respect their election wishes. For the second time in two years the president and his entourage have ignored Ukrainian voters by not respecting the fact that Our Ukraine lost the 2006 and 2007 elections and have twice betrayed agreements to make Yulia Tymoshenko Prime Minister.
In this year’s elections Ukrainian voters punished the Socialists for their betrayal of the orange coalition in summer 2006. Ukrainian voters will use the next elections to punish Yushchenko for betraying the orange coalition.
It could have been all very different but instead Yushchenko will be remembered as having following Oleksandr Moroz’s footsteps.
2 Responses to “Yushchenko Will Follow Moroz’s Fate”
why is making a coalition with POR betraying the Ukrainian voter? If it has a majority in Parliament than its in line with the voters wishes – if someone specifically wanted Yulia as PM then why didn’t they just vote BYUT? Why rely on Yush’s promises again? More than a little stupid no? And in anycase as for promises, I don’t think there’s anyone in the whole of the Ukraine who believe that if Yulia wants to run against him for Pres then any previous promise will stop her. So why would he want to take her as PM and then be humilited to boot in 2009.
As for Moroz his mistake wasn’t necessarily abandoning the Orange coalition – if the ACC has co-operated a bit more with the President instead of trying to neutralise him he’d still be comfortably in the speaker’s chair today.
…and by the way where is your questioning of Yulia’s income statement – you quibble, quite rightly Yush’s unaccounted for 50,000 dollars – really – does she have no assets and only a rada members income????? what sort of corruption fighter is she going to be if corruption for her is only someone else’s? and why are her previous activities, which perhaps you know more about exempt from investigation (and possible punishement) but other oligrachs are not?
By anon on Nov 20, 2007
Roses are red, oranges are rotten.
Mr. Yuschenko should take a hint from his dear friend Mr. Saakashvili and call an early presidential election in Ukraine, thus resolving a political stalemate facing the nation. He then should curtail his foreign trips and focus on doing his job and ensuring that the government functions effectively as the country prepares for a long winter. He may or may not seek reelection. If he does, he will surely find out that the people of Ukraine will find him unfit to govern.
Ukraine’s political battles are no longer newsworthy. Orange revolution was a breaking news, the reelection of September 30th was not. The ensuing period of political jostling mislabeled “coalition-building” is as pathetically boring as it is damaging to the nation reeling from the spiked inflation, economic and social unease, corruption and infrastructure decay. Ukraine may not be weak, but it is not that strong either. On Yuschenko’s watch it has gotten considerably weaker as its neighbors rushed ahead, be it to the NATO and EU, or the newly-found riches of oil manna. Mr. Yuschenko was not equipped to steer the country in a right direction and the political battles he fought weakened him both physically and emotionally. In Ukraine, any president, let alone Mr. Yuschenko, should not serve a full 5-year term. Ukraine’s realities differ from the life (and life spans) of other civilized nations, and a 5-year term for a president is a luxury a developing nation like Ukraine cannot afford. Mr. Yuschenko had his chance, and he blew it. The presidency does not belong to him, it belongs to the Ukranian people, and the latest political crisis in Ukraine could only be resolved by giving the presidency back back to the people.
Ukraine is sick. Its population is dying off or leaves for the foreign lands in essense becoming modern-day slaves there. For most Ukrainians, the survival is the only goal in life. The country that is so rich in human capital is being methodically run to the ground by a few thousand oligarchs and their servants who seek to enrich themselves at any cost. Mr. Yuschenko failed to stop the modern day genocide this country is facing. He sole responsibility as a president of Ukraine was to help Ukrainians to make their lives better. He did not do that. While there could be many justifications of this failure, it is apparent now that at this point Yuschenko no longer cares about serving his electorate. Rather, the signs abound that he had in fact began his reelection campaign.
Mr. Saakashvili may or may not be reelected as the Georgian president. Without going too much into the details of Georgia’s domestic situation, it is hard to judge him solely on the merits of his decision to step down. The fact is that he had the guts to do it, and in doing so he had shown to his supporters and critics alike that he is the man of action. Ukraine needs a president who can act. Mr. Yuschenko does not appear to be able to do so, not if an action involves any degree of principle stance or decisive and thought-through approach. This Thursday, Ukraine may face yet another travesty of the “coalition-building” in the parliament. As a growing democracy, Ukraine has been given many chances to start over. Despite the misery of last twenty years, Ukraine’s people had shown time and again that, when pressed, they would choose democracy and path forward. Mr. Yuschenko, once chosen to lead them, had not capitalized on his chance to be an effective and inspiring leader and thus must step down and call an early presidential election. This will enable the country to choose a leader that would be capable of uniting the nation and proactively steering it on its chosen path.
By kolobok on Nov 26, 2007