Dismissal stayed

Building plans means making God laugh. This saying fits in very well with Ukrainian politics. Last Wednesday BYuT members almost vowed that parliament would vote the minister of defense out of office on Friday, if not on Thursday. But, instead, Yurii Yekhanurov was given a new lease of life at least until the summer: the next plenary meeting of parliament will open on June 2. The BYuT is saying apologetically that the relevant parliamentary committee has not made a decision on the Yekhanurov issue. Parliament journalists began to take on the committee chairman Oleksandr Omelchenko: what is the matter? And it turned out that the committee had decided everything long ago. As long as four months ago they advised parliament to dismiss the minister of defense. When the committee received one more resolution on the dismissal of Yekhanurov, Omelchenko said in a letter to Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko that the matter had already been looked into – the committee’s decision remains valid because the Verkhovna Rada session is still in progress.

“If at least a half of the Auditing Department’s information on corruption in the ministry is true, Yekhanurov himself must hand in his resignation,” Omelchenko told journalists. “Let us be frank. Let us recall the way Yekhanurov wriggled into the office of defense minister. The president implored him on the phone to vote for Premier Tymoshenko. That was political corruption on the part of Mr. Yekhanurov.”

It is actually common knowledge that Yekhanurov has never been Tymoshenko’s blue-eyed boy. Over the past two months, the prime minister has launched two informational attacks on the minister of defense during Cabinet sessions: at first she spoke about back salaries and then about land-ownership “operations” of the Ministry of Defense. Last Wednesday the premier launched an offensive. The report of the Main Auditing Department (KRU), which had examined the Ministry of Defense, was discussed at the governmental session in the presence of TV cameras, which ended up in a two-hour show. Tymoshenko’s passage about expensive army sausages and eggs is now a popular object of quotations.

In the opinion of Communist Oleksandr Holub, the point is not in likely corruption: it is a struggle for administrative resource and the uniformed services in the run-up to the elections.

“Regretfully as it is, governmental officials and society as a whole are in principle accustomed to corruption in the Ministry of Defense. And nobody is surprised by the very fact of likely corruption. This is regarded as a natural thing,” he told The Day. “Even if it is so, why not begin with, say, the Ministry of Transport?”

Another interesting point: it is the BYuT member Ihor Rybakov who submitted a draft resolution on Yekhanurov’s dismissal on Wednesday. He is, incidentally, the MP whom the BYuT dubs a “traitor” and whom the Central Election Commission once wanted to strip of the parliamentary mandate. It is also alleged openly that this MP is in cahoots with Viktor Baloha, ex-chief of the Presidential Secretariat.

This raises the question: why does Rybakov need to play up to Tymoshenko? It will be recalled that the Yekhanurov scandal erupted when Baloha quit the Secretariat and Ulianchenko took over. Meanwhile, as is known, Yekhanurov is very close to Ms. Ulianchenko – they are bound with longtime friendship.

“Baloha quit, slamming the door. This means he is in conflict with the whole presidential team, including Yekhanurov. He urgently called Rybakov and told him to submit the BYuT draft resolution as soon as possible… We can say Rybakov and Baloha is the same thing,” says the BYuT member Serhii Mishchenko, explaining the intrigue.

The situation with Yekhanurov is an equation with three unknowns. It is quite possible that the interests of the sworn opponents Tymoshenko and Baloha coincided in this case. Meanwhile, the BYuT is looking for ways to register its alternative resolution and is trying to find out if there are enough votes to dismiss the defense minister. They have sufficient time now for these deliberations because the Verkhovna Rada closes for a week’s recess.

Unfortunately, when political forces are building their relations in such a way that it is difficult to distinguish between a debate and a friction, there can be no political analysis and forecasting. For it is next to impossible to separate the wheat from the chaff, i.e., to find out whether it is really a proven fact of violations or just interdepartmental intrigues and bargaining. Yekhanurov himself said last Thursday in the Schuster Live TV program that what the Cabinet was discussing on Wednesday about the KRU’s examination of his ministry was based on purely political considerations.

No matter what this situation will end up with, one thing is clear: the current government has the quality of a product that is “past its sell-by date.” Incidentally, speaking to journalists, the minister of defense urged the public to take part in checking the quality of servicemen’s food. But, maybe, we will not confine ourselves to this only?