Extremist Byzantine Politics
November 17, 2008 – 1:07 amThe removal of Arseniy Yatseniuk as parliamentary speaker on 12 November is not the most surprising and intriguing aspect of the event. What is the most surprising is why the presidents chief of staff Viktor Baloga remains in his position after Yedyna Tsentr’s 10 votes assured the vote’s passage.
In any “normal” country Baloga would have been immediately removed by the president. The fact that he remains in his position tells us that the president is totally under Baloga’s control and is too afraid of being in power without him. Baloga’s threats to resign a few weeks ago obviously scared the president that he could be an emperor without any clothes.
I do not believe that the president authorised Yedyny Tsentr to vote in support of the motion. If he did then the president has zero moral scruples in ditching a loyal person whose popularity doubled the ratings of Our Ukraine.
Baloga’s control of the president is a product of two factors. Firstly, Baloga is the presidents “pitbull” dog that can be used by an insecure and weak president to deal with the everyday tribulations of Ukraine’s tougher politicians. Why a president with so many institutional powers needs a “pittbull’ to deal with a woman (as well as men) says a lot about his insecurity. Secondly, Baloga has convinced the president that only he can “guarantee” the president a second term in office.
Why then did Baloga turn against Yatseniuk when it was he who put him into the position last December as an alternative to Vyacheslav Kyrylenko?
This is where Ukraine’s Byzantine politics have become so extreme that they have moved into the realm of incomprehension. Every long standing Ukraine expert I talked to in Washington before and after my talk last Friday at George Washington University believes the presidents policies have become bizarre and irrational.
So, let me try and get to the bottom of Baloga’s extremist Byzantine politics.
Removing Yatseniuk accomplishes a number of things. It for one forces him to speed up establishing his own political force. This means Yatseniuk will no longer be number 3 on the proposed “Bloc Viktor Yushchenko” for pre-term elections. This could reduce opposition within the bloc’s organisers (and from the president) to the inclusion of Yedyny Tsentr within it. Kyrylenko had opposed including Yedyny Tsentr within the “Bloc Viktor Yushchenko”.
Baloga created Yedyny Tsentr never as a pro-presidential party but as a vehicle to ensure his entry into parliament where he can receive immunity. Baloga is desperate and cannot wait until scheduled elections in 2012 as he needs to be inside parliament before the next president is elected.
Baloga knows that Yushchenko will not be re-elected (although he has convinced him that he is doing everything to ensure he will be) but he is concerned that the next president could be Yulia Tymoshenko. If she is elected Baloga fears that criminal charges might be pressed against him by the new president. Waiting until 2012 to receive immunity is too late and is therefore not an option.
Removing Yatseniuk also serves another purpose; namely, that of making Volodymyr Lytvyn his likely replacement. If Lytvyn is made speaker then that would be on the way to the creation of Anti-Crisis coalition-2 after the removal of the Tymoshenko government. With Lytvyn co-opted by the Party of Regions, the Lytvyn bloc can no longer join a revived, larger orange coalition.
Yedyny Tsentr’s support for Ivan Pliushch as speaker is therefore a smokescreen as they want Lytvyn in the position. After pre-term elections the “Bloc Viktor Yushchenko” (with Yedyny Tsentr) would join Anti-Crisis-2.
A larger orange coalition would have been bad for Bankova as, with 248 deputies, it would have been independent from Baloga’s extremist Byzantine intrigues. Bankova could no longer blackmail the coalition, as it did when it only had 226-228 deputies, by threatening to not vote or organise defections.
Maybe there are other factors to explain Baloga’s extremist Byzantine politics. What is clear is that the orange revolution wished to remove this kind of politics. But, if anything Byzantine politics are more extreme today than they were under Leonid Kuchma.