Taras Kuzio’s Blog

Viktor Baloga Returns to His SDPUo Roots

Reading http://www.pravda.com.ua/articles/2010/11/24/5608935/ Viktor Chyvokin wrote: ‘Unofficially he (Viktor Baloga) has become in charge of organizing support for Yanukovych throughout western Ukraine’.
Baloga has thus returned to his SDPuo roots where he first entered politics in the late 1990s in Zakarpattia, then moving to Our Ukraine and from 2007-2008, when he established the pro-Yanukovych Yedyni Tsentr and sought in every possible way to destroy the Tymoshenko government and replace it with a grand coalition, he has returned to his Kuchma era roots.
This proves once again how much of a disaster it was for Viktor Yushchenko’s presidency that the head of his Presidential Administration for half of his term in office was Baloga. For the majority of his time as the presidents chief of staff Baloga was working for the Party of Regions. I wrote about Baloga as a fifth columnist in the Kyiv Post in 2008-2009:

http://www.kyivpost.com/news/opinion/op_ed/detail/34910/

http://www.kyivpost.com/news/opinion/op_ed/detail/33610/

The appointment of Baloga as a Minister of Emergency Situations and the take over of Zakarpattia by United Centre party is a re-play of the take-over of the region by the SDPUo (Social Democratic united Party) after the 1998 elections. President Kuchma selected parties of power to control Ukraine’s regions: Party of Regions (Donetsk), Trudova Ukraina (Diproprtrovsk), Democratic Initiatives (Kharkiv), Agrarians (central Ukraine), and the SDPUo and its satellites (Western Ukraine).
Baloga’s role is therefore to be the new Medvedchuk – to control, corrupt, and spread cynicism and duplicity throughout western Ukraine so that Yanukovych may take full control of the country in 2012 to prepare for his re-election for a second term in 2015.
In the last decade cynicism has spread to such an extent that it has expanded into every aspect of Ukraine’s polity. But, I doubt there is a more cynical and duplicitous political party than United Centre which has developed to an art form the Orwellian ability to say one thing and do another.
P.S. I have a question to the former head of the Committee of Voters in Ukraine, that was supported by the US government funded National Democratic Institute for many years, Ihor Popov – why did you agree to become head of United Centre?