Only the Stronger Side Has a Right to Issue Demands
September 22, 2008 – 10:27 pmWhy presidential secretariat head Viktor Baloga and Peoples Union-Our Ukraine leader Vyacheslav Kyrylenko believe they have any right to issue ultimatums is beyond the bounds of logic.
The presidents ratings are a fifth that of Tymoshenko’s, Our Ukraine-Self Defence (NU-NS) have only a sixth of the support of BYuT and NU-NS have less than half of BYuT’s current number of deputies. United Centre has only 0.1%.
Yushchenko has refused to heed BYuT’s demand to remove Baloga because Yushchenko is convinced that only Baloga can ensure he wins a second term. This ignores the 72% of Ukrainians who do not want him to stand in the 2010 presidential elections (71% also do not trust Yushchenko as commander-in-chief) while heeding the call of 16% of Ukrainians who say he should.
NU-NS could possibly not even enter parliament if pre-term elections were held. Any polling organisation will advise you that NU-NS’s current 4% support (down from 14% in the 2007 elections) does not guarantee crossing a 3% threshold.
One would think that Our Ukraine’s 2% support in the May elections in Kyiv, the cradle of the orange revolution, and their consequent failure to enter the city council would have focused the attention of Bankova. Obviously it has not.
The withdrawal of NU-NS from the democratic coalition was, after all, supported by only a slim majority of 39 (with 37 the minimum required) deputies. Five of the NU-NS bloc’s parties did not support the decision, including the two largest – Borys Tarasiuk’s Rukh and Interior Minister Yuriy Lutsenko’s People’s Self Defence. Both Rukh and Self Defence are likely to join BYuT.
When will Ukrainian politicians begin to live in the real world rather than their own made up George Orwellian fantasy world?
3 Responses to “Only the Stronger Side Has a Right to Issue Demands”
Dear Dr.Kuzio,
Unfortunately a lot of things in our political life is still “beyound of any logic”.
But I’d like to ask you another question. What opinion(s) are dominating among the Ukrainian diaspora both in the USA and Canada on latest events in Ukraine? Are they mostly still see Yushchenko as “a hero”, the only “symbol of nation?”
What are the main sources of information? (because in our country most of journalists are far not “the watchdogs of democracy”, I’d rather say of other kind of dogs who are waiting for a tasty bone and master’s words “Good boy!”. Baloga’s team and NU are trying to lower the rating of Tymoshenko in Western Ukraine speculating on such lies as “collusion with Kremlin” and even “non-pure” ethnic origin. Is such propaganda widespread in the West?
By Yuri_D on Sep 23, 2008
The allegation of collusion with Russia has been raised in the West. No serious policymakers believe it.
As to the racism and anti-semitism directed against Tymoshenko by Our Ukraine deputies such as Yaroslav Kendzior they have had no Western publicity. But, maybe they should so as to discredit them.
By Taras Kuzio on Sep 23, 2008
“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.”
By Orest on Sep 24, 2008