Taras Kuzio’s Blog

Yushchenko has Betrayed Ukraine’s National Interests

President Viktor Yushchenko’s strategy lacks rationale, logic and is incomprehensible to those abroad who follow the enfolding political crisis in Ukraine over the last two months. This is the conclusion I have reached after a week in London talking to nearly twenty investment houses interested in potentially investing in Ukraine at the invitation of an investment banker. This conclusion was also reached after my talk on Ukraine’s political crisis given to the Royal Institute of International Affairs. None of those who attended doubted my criticism of the presidents strategy to call an election with the sole purpose of removing Tymoshenko to create a grand coalition and then install a technocratic prime minister and obtain the coalitions support for Yushchenko’s presidential campaign.

Why would anybody opt for an election when their personal ratings have been less than ten percent in the last two years? Why would you choose an election when popular support for your political force Our Ukraine-Peoples Self Defence (OU-PSD) has collapsed from 14 percent in the September pre-term elections to only 5 percent. These are very bad odds to risk a strategy of opting for elections rather than compromise, especially at a time of global economic and financial crisis.

Yushchenko should be judged harshly for the step that he has undertaken. He has placed his personal, petty interests above those of national interests. When the entire world is calling for national unity in the face of a global economic and financial crisis that could lead a depression not seen since the 1930s President Yushchenko supports instability, disunity, and elections that together hamper the Tymoshenko government from dealing with the growing tsunami. Yushchenko’s response to the Georgian crisis was to declare war on Tymoshenko.

There are five reasons the presidents strategy is most likely to be a failure.

Firstly, in aligning with Regions and receiving financial backing from Akhmetov and other eastern Ukrainian oligarchs Yushchenko’s re-election bid would destroy his support in orange western-central Ukraine. How can Yushchenko look orange voters in the eye when he aligns with the Party of Regions that supported the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia? Was it not the president who attacked Tymoshenko for not supporting his position on Georgia when Tymoshenko and BYuT supported Georgian territorial integrity while Regions did not?!

Secondly, this risky strategy assumes that Regions can cajole its voters to back somebody they have always been told to detest, the “American satrap, pro-NATO, anti-Russian CIA agent” Yushchenko. While the Regions political machine could mobilise voters in the Donbas and perhaps in the Crimea to do what it wanted (i.e. support Yushchenko’s re-election) this is not true in the remainder of eastern and southern Ukraine, meaning at most Regions could get out 15-20 of its 34 percent support to back Yushchenko. And that is being optimistic.

Thirdly, it assumes the presidents political forces (Our Ukraine, United Centre, Arseniy Yatseniuk and Leonid Chernovetsky blocs) will do well in the 7 December pre-term election. This ignores OU-PSD’s low popularity of 4-5 percent and its abject failure to enter the Kyiv city council in pre-term elections held on 26 May. Even with 5 percent, half of this figure is support for political parties in the bloc who support Tymoshenko, such as Lutsenko.

If pro-presidential forces have only a small number of deputies the presidents leverage with Regions is low. Thus making it impossible to fulfill his two demands to Regions of being given the right to choose the prime minister and Regions supporting his presidential candidacy. Why should a Regions faction with 2-3 times more deputies agree to Yushchenko’s demands?

Fourthly, the presidents ill thought out strategy assumes that all of the pro-presidential forces would support joining a grand coalition. Peoples Union-Our Ukraine leader Vyacheslav Kyrylenko has, for one, said he will not. The Peoples Union-Our Ukraine is one of the four (out of nine) parties that supported the presidents call for OU-PSD to withdraw from the orange coalition.

This also assumes that Ukrainian voters can be taken for idiots which they are not. After the president harshly condemned BYuT’s alleged willingness to entertain a coalition with Regions (including bizarrely in his statement that dissolved parliament) the president’s strategy aims to itself establish a grand coalition. This is nothing more than George Orwellian double standards. Kyrylenko – you have been taken for a ride!

Fifthly, the presidents strategy fails to take into account that the only two political forces that are likely to improve their support in the December pre-term elections are BYuT and Regions. Both could increase their support to similar levels of 35 percent, meaning they would control over 80 percent of parliamentary deputies. BYuT or Regions could then seek to establish their own separate coalitions (rather than joining with pro-presidential forces) and in the process marginalise the president.

BYuT could align with the Volodymyr Lytvyn and Yuriy Lutsenko blocs, the two together could possess 30-40 deputies, giving the three party coalition a slim majority of 226-230.

Alternatively, Regions could join with the Lytvyn bloc and the Communist Party’s 30-40 deputies and create an Anti-Crisis-2 coalition. In the outgoing parliament Regions, the Lytvyn bloc and Communists are only four deputies short of a coalition (222). This suggests that if Regions increases its number of deputies Anti-Crisis-2 could possess a slim majority of 226-230.

The president is gambling with his country’s fate and future because of his political immaturity and dislike of Tymoshenko. In doing so he is undertaking a risky strategy at a time when there is no popular support for an election. The ill conceived strategy will undermine Ukraine’s ability to deal with the global economic and financial crisis that is already affecting the country and will hit it like a tsunami. Meanwhile, continued political instability and will de-rail Ukraine’s path to NATO.

The presidents preference for elections will lead to the end of Yushchenko.