Ukraine Burns According to Plan

Sometime earlier Parliament's leadership insisted it was vital to discuss the IMF Memorandum and decide on the government. Considering that the memorandum is not an international instrument and that debating it in Parliament would be pointless, the whole thing was apparently meant to give the Cabinet a dressing down for being servile to international lenders, culminating in showing the government the door. There are many indications that the Left, wishing to topple the Cabinet, may be supported by some from the Right and even Center, acting for reasons of their own (ranging from a desire to get closer to the President to feeling chagrined by Premier Pustovoitenko's going back on his promised "coalition government").

The Day has suggested that, hard as the Left might try, the Cabinet will step down only if and when the President wants it to. Judging from the quickening pulse in the legislature's lobby, word from the top has already come.

One source in the presidential entourage explains the current situation: "While our presidents are elected in Moscow, our premiers are appointed at the IMF headquarters. The next IMF board meeting will decide the Cabinet's destiny. If they say no more credit, it will mean that the Cabinet is fired. And the Communists are making the most of the situation."

One NDP member (best left nameless) is even more straightforward: "The presidential entourage consists of criminal elements sitting in Parliament. They are now cooking up a pseudo-leftist government to be headed by a Leftist Premier, not necessarily a Communist, while the Cabinet will be made up of representatives of the semi-criminal world. If this happens the Left will be discredited on demand, while the Revival of the Regions and United Social Democrat factions will mind their own business. Then clearly they will all sell Kuchma out, and come to terms with the CPU on Tkachenko's candidacy."

"Certainly, today not everyone understands how many trumps the Interparliamentary Assembly vote handed Oleksandr Tkachenko because he was able to push it through," says ex-Minister Viktor Suslov (Peasant Party), then adding (please attend!), "I don't know who will be the next President, but I have a feeling that the new Cabinet may be shaped now to adjust to the next Chief Executive, without waiting for the presidential campaign..." Mr. Suslov believes that the current Communist faction has "matured, learned to negotiate, and today has a real chance to garner enough votes to topple the government." Ending on an impressive note: "I have already more than once occasion said that the Cabinet has been caught red-handed double-dealing: the IMF program laid down in the Memorandum and the one for the Deputies are two different documents. So the government is on the hook."

There is a strong likelihood that the Cabinet was caught precisely when the Premier admitted recently that there was no money to subsidize the countryside. In other words, the champion of collective and state farms heading Parliament will no longer be able to dish out fuel, seed, and fertilizer with all the attendant political dividends. In a word, something has to be done quickly.

Indeed, urgent measures must be taken also by all those regarding the Premier's current cadre reshuffling as "an attempt by Pustovoitenko to form some kind of government of his own." Holubchenko's and Osyka's removal, other internal "institutional reforms" such that Shpek can no longer control loans, and several other names to go down are trumps that have possibly been already been played. "There isn't a single person working for Kuchma in the Cabinet now." Another man with a keen sense of humor and with a first-hand knowledge of the President's suspicious disposition, pointed out: "Very soon they will be able to use the formula, 'dismissed for loyalty to Kuchma'."

If the process of Cabinet dismissal has already begun, a natural question arises: How will the portfolios be allotted? Presidential Administration source suggests three candidates for Premier: Biloblotsky, Azarov, and whomever the Communist propose. And there is no evidence to rule out the possibility of Biloblotsky receiving the Left's blessing.

The Day has already warned that Ukraine's latter-day history will evolve depending on whether Volkov & Co. get the better of Pustovoitenko & Co. The Communists are taking advantage of problems with the IMF and are in turn being used by an interest group fighting the Premier. Who uses whom with what results still remains to be seen.