In need of principles
While all representatives of opposition are at each other’s throat, young people declare their stand
Within just one month of his presidency, Viktor Yanukovych managed to build a strong vertical chain of command, receive a loyal prime minister, shape parliamentary opposition the way he wanted, and appoint the right kind of go-vernors. What about the opposition? It looks confused and demoralized, mostly trying to square accounts and figure out who is for real and who is someone’s puppet, as well as assessing different characters’ ideological motivations.
Yulia Tymoshenko quickly put together her “government of the future,” led by Serhii Sobolev, and went off on holiday. Arsenii Yatseniuk keeps threatening to show his shadow cabinet, but its presentation keeps being postponed. Perhaps the only opposition move was made by Viacheslav Kyrylenko when he registered the re-solution on Tabachnyk’s resignation.
Incidentally, the appointment of Tabachnyk [as Minister of Education and Science] was a godsend for the opposition, although our political moguls proved incapable of accepting it. Rallies of protest took place practically all over Ukraine without any of them taking part. Students, teachers, and parents regard the situation in the sphere of education as being of vital importance for them, and they combined efforts without any instructions from “upstairs.”
“Sectors of protest, unexpected by the opposition, are being formed. For example, Ukrainian students came out against the education minister. While the opposition was trying to figure out the strategy of attack against the new government, there emerged a totally new sphere of student unrest. Most likely our young people will find new leaders little inclined to achieve compromises with the current opposition,” political analyst Viktor Nebozhenko told The Day.
He assumes that the point isn’t the opposition’s strategy or their desire to be united: “They will unite only when arrests begin. Then they will have no time for deciding who is to give and take orders.”
Also, the opposition is losing the support of business. Experts predict that big business will smoothly move closer to those in power.
For want of political opposition elite, new forces may appear that will fill the gap, along with new leaders from amongst the students and small and medium businesses. These will be people who will have nothing to do with the clannish oligarchic system, and who will prepare a European model of the Ukrainian state. Of course, this is a very optimistic scenario, but one always hopes for the best.
