Promises and ambitions

BYuT leader Yulia Tymoshenko has once again declared that she is ready to shed presidential ambitions during the 2009 elections for the sake of bringing the Orange team back together. Interfax Ukraine quotes her as saying this the day before yesterday, during a meeting with representative of the US Chamber of Commerce in Ukraine. Earlier she made the same promise as requested by Our Ukraine’s Roman Zvarych while on air, live, during the program Freedom of Speech. “I will keep my promise and will have a legend on my T-shirt and sweater to the effect that I will not run for president in 2009, so all barriers can be removed. I do not want to damage our unity in any way,” Tymoshenko stated during the meeting with the Americans. The BYuT leader noted that her “team is ready to support the [current] president now and in 2009, although not later because it is prohibited by the constitution.”

Meanwhile, one of her closest Parteigenossen, Andriy Shkil, said in an interview with the Glavred Internet periodical that he considered it necessary to clarify the BYuT leader’s statement: “She is prepared to support Viktor Yushchenko (during the 2009 elections — Ed.) not as just Yulia Tymoshenko, but as Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.” When asked whether this meant that Tymoshenko would back Yushchenko in the next presidential campaign only after having been appointed prime minister, Shkil replied: “Yes. She will support him as prime minister, but whether she will support him as an ordinary citizen remains to be seen... First let us become ordinary citizens and then we’ll make promises.”

In fact, it would serve Our Ukraine well if its people stopped humiliating themselves and the current president by asking the BYuT leader to shed her presidential ambitions in the next presidential elections. The more so that Yulia Tymoshenko’s possible second premiership will not be possibly long, judging by all forecasts and the logic of interrelationships within the Orange group. Thence her only path leads to opposition — or, in Andriy Shkil’s own words, to the status of an ordinary Ukrainian citizen. If all works out this way, then what sense can any promises make, be it spoken words or legends written on T-shirts/sweaters, or even those set forth in the future coalition agreement? “My biggest ambition is to build Ukraine in a manner in which it would shine like a diamond in the civilized world; now show my anyone who can make me stop making these ambitions a reality,” she declared during the meeting with officials of the US Chamber of Commerce. Indeed, show us such a person!