Yushchenko Bloc with Azarov and Tymoshenko?

The Forum of National Salvation proposes to unite with Labor Ukraine and the bloc led by Socialist leader Oleksandr Moroz to form a single democratic election alliance with a single party list, reads an open letter addressed to former Premier Viktor Yushchenko, leader of Our Ukraine, by Yuliya Tymoshenko heading the FNS electoral bloc. In particular, she suggests that Mr. Yushchenko determine whether he is prepared to take charge of such an alliance (Our Ukraine, the FNS, and Socialist Party), Mrs. Tymoshenko announced at a September 27 press conference in Kyiv, stressing that she did not intend her message to be an ultimatum; she wants the subject discussed publicly. “Two weeks before the elections is no time for cloakroom talk,” she said, adding that she expected a “straight and honest answer” from Mr. Yushchenko.

What makes the situation piquant for Mrs. Tymoshenko is the fact that she is not the first to try to make use of the so-called and ill- explained Yushchenko phenomenon in the campaign. Before her, similar offers were made by Petro Poroshenko who believed Our Ukraine could work together with TUNDRA in an electoral super-bloc that would surely win a landslide the next parliamentary elections. Incidentally, the FNS leader regards such talks between the ex-premier and other political forces as “moving toward cooperation” with the presidential entourage, thus intimating that Yushchenko does not know how or has no right to make decisions of his own.

Serhiy Soboliev of Reforms and Order, one of Our Ukraine’s potential members, commented for The Day on Tymoshenko’s statement: “Yushchenko has received similar proposals from Mykola Azarov and Roman Bezsmertny, who is still with the NDP, also from leaders of the Agrarian Party.” He believes that there are two options for cooperation among Our Ukraine, the FNS, and Socialist Party: either controlling the elections or coordinating election efforts at the lower levels of government. Mr. Soboliev does not think that the single bloc proposed by Yuliya Tymoshenko can be seriously considered, if only because of the short notice.

Indeed, mentioning short notice in this context does not look very proper, considering that the FNS (among whose members were quite as few Reforms & Order leaders) announced its support for Yushchenko almost at the outset. And Premier Yushchenko seemed to always need Vice Premier Tymoshenko’s presence. But after the cassette scandal abated more moderate R&O figures did what looked very much like distancing themselves from the FNS and SPU Ukraine Without Kuchma campaign. Now they seemed somewhere in between opposition (a gesture meant for Bankova Street) and non-opposition (to please their former party comrades). Mr. Yushchenko, however, may have a point. It is time for all those under the Our Ukraine stalwarts decide just where they stand. Apart from short notice, what is there to prevent them from siding with the FNS and Moroz?