Entrepreneurial Opposition Still Unborn
The new party of industrialists and entrepreneurs will hold its founding congress on February 9, Anatoly Kinakh, chairman of the organizing committee and of the parliamentary committee for industrial policy, president of the USPP [Ukrainian Association of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs], announced at a press conference on January 26.
The need to form the new political party was justified by the former First Deputy Premier in terms of the need to secure reliable protection for domestic production. In reply to the natural question about who they actually wanted to protect themselves from, he offered a rather exacting analysis of the economic situation, lashing out at the Cabinet’s draft budget. A USPP press release quotes Mr. Kinakh as saying that an analysis of the government’s intentions and practical steps provides no grounds to consider them adequate for normalizing the economic situation.
Anatoly Kinakh says that Ukraine’s accounts payable for 1999 have increased by almost 7%, reaching UAH 220 billion. Yet the Cabinet’s efforts to solve this key problem are more like slogans mechanically borrowed from the IMF, without allowing for what Mr. Kinakh believes the systemic character of the payments crisis plaguing the Ukrainian economy.
As a member of the parliamentary majority, Mr. Kinakh has made a move in the “right” direction, wishing the Cabinet the best of success on its budget bill in Verkhovna Rada. He noted, however, that the budget is not an end in itself and proceeded to list the bill’s shortcomings, particularly deductions that are actually a sales tax, collection of enterprises’ debts with no claims, the government’s intention to increase the excise tax on alcoholic beverages, petrochemical products, etc.
Judging by his statements, the Cabinet will have a hard time getting support even from “its own” majority when deliberating the 2000 budget bill. In this Mr. Kinakh sees the problem of national economic security, since a belatedly enacted budget program will dampen Ukraine’s investment attractiveness. Yet he considers that the government is guilty in the first place, still placing the emphasis on the budget’s “fiscal component.”
As chairman of the majority, Anatoly Kinakh expressed concern over the current aggravation of the domestic political situation which may cause another year wasted in the course of developing the economy and blamed the Left minority. Simultaneously he spoke against the majority’s intention to expel the Left from parliamentary committees. Nor did he let the opportunity to bite the government pass by when commenting on the energy sector, hinting at Deputy Premier Yuliya Tymoshenko’s conduct: “We need no ad-libs here. Ukraine must appear at the negotiations taking a coordinated stand. Nor should we forget our counter-proposals, namely payments for gas transit in cash.”
The vein in which Mr. Kinakh spoke left one with the impression that an anti-Cabinet opposition was taking shape within the majority and that the new party, even though still to be named, would claim the status. When asked by
The Day, however, its prospective leader was vague. While confirming his decision to quit the NDP in a roundabout way, he stressed that he would continue to cooperate with it.
INCIDENTALLY
Among his future party comrades, Mr. Kinakh mentioned First Deputy Premier Yuri Yekhanurov and Oleksandra Kuzhel, Chair of the State Committee for Regulatory Reform and Entrepreneurship. Mr. Yekhanurov, however, was “surprised” to learn from the press about his being on the organizing committee of the new political party of industrialists and entrepreneurs, reports Interfax Ukraine. He declared in an interview that he is still a member of the People’s Democratic Party (NDP).
