<I>The Day</I>’s experts believe a professional government is the best way to raise standards in politics
Total mistrust is the main feature of Ukrainian politics. Yushchenko mistrusts Tymoshenko, Tymoshenko mistrusts Yushchenko, and they both mistrust Yanukovych.
According to Ukrainska Pravda , President Yushchenko insists that well before the formation of a democratic coalition, parliament should elect the speaker and vote for a new version of the law “On the Cabinet of Ministers,” which does not rule out cabinet’s partial subordination to the Presidential Secretariat and the National Security and Defense Council.
In other words, a coalition has not even been formed and there is already friction. On the other hand, it is still not clear if this coalition will be formed at all. The BYuT may well choose to remain in opposition for two years and then assuredly run for the presidency and win.
We asked The Day’s experts the following questions: “Are the Orange people capable of learning from their mistakes? Will they repeat the same blunder? Will Tymoshenko and Yushchenko be able to work constructively together?”
Ihor LOSIEV, Associate Professor, Culture Studies Department, National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy:
“Frankly, I don’t believe they will be able to work together constructively because there is colossal distrust among Ukrainian politicians. This mistrust is generally justified because almost all our politicians have the qualities of petty cardsharps.
“While 30 Our Ukraine-National Self-Defense members said they would categorically oppose forming a coalition with the Party of Regions, approximately the same number is clearly taking a different stance.
“I think there will be protracted horse-trading again: the leaders will dance bizarrely around each other and dish out high-sounding declarations that can be interpreted in all sorts of ways. This will continue for a long time and come to a totally miserable and ludicrous end — almost the way it was the last time. What is not clear is why so much time had to be wasted.
“So I am pessimistic. Our politicians have not changed an iota in all this time, and I don’t think they have learned anything. I hate to see my forecast come true, but at the moment this is what I think.”
Serhii BILOSHYTSKY, Candidate of Sciences (History), Khmelnytsky:
“I think the very idea of the ‘Orange forces’ has ceased to exist. In late 2004 various political forces led by such different leaders as Yulia Tymoshenko, Oleksandr Moroz, Anatolii Kinakh, Oleksandr Zinchenko, David Zhvania, and others supported the presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko in order to use his brand name and thus clear the government stage of stronger players — Leonid Kuchma and his likely successors. In those leaders’ views, the next stage of the struggle was to ‘privatize’ Yushchenko or even destroy him as a politician.
“So in the struggle for power the Orange forces proved to be pragmatic fellow travelers rather than comrades-in-arms. They are the same now. This means that they did not make any fundamental mistakes in 2005 or 2007. So it is difficult to say that they learned any lessons. These political forces are still competing uncompromisingly for power, accusing each other of posing a major threat to comfortable existence in the system of power.
“As for an effective alliance between Yushchenko and Tymoshenko, I think it is possible if three conditions are met. First, the West should be sincerely and insistently interested in this. Second, Yushchenko should psych himself up to declare Tymoshenko his successor in the 2009 elections. Third, the power elites nurtured by Yushchenko must secure reliable guarantees that their political and economic interests will be retained under Tymoshenko’s presidency, which will be possible only if the BYuT leader manages to restrain the ambitions of her teammates.
“My personal impression is that this kind of scenario is not very likely. The president’s men will not allow Yushchenko to take part in his ‘political funeral,’ which will take place if he dares to form the ‘agenda’ of today’s Ukraine together with the dynamic, creative, and charismatic Tymoshenko.
“On her part, Tymoshenko is not exactly craving power in the conditions of overrated social expectations, when she, as the likely prime minister, can only get a safe parliamentary majority, a multi-vector coalition government, and an overseer in the shape of the Presidential Secretariat.”
Volodymyr PRYTULA, chairman, Committee for Monitoring Freedom of the Press in the Crimea:
“Intelligent people have the ability to learn from their mistakes. And since both Yushchenko and Tymoshenko are intelligent people, as is their milieu, they must have learned something from their past experiences. But I would not rush to claim that Tymoshenko will be appointed prime minister because for this to happen a rather complex path must be trod. Parliament should assemble, solve its internal problems, and steer clear of existing threats, like the denial of mandates or withdrawal of certain factions; only then can one speak about the prime minister’s candidature. It is quite possible that it may be somebody other than Tymoshenko, especially considering that she herself may well opt for some other role.
“As for constructive cooperation between Yushchenko and Tymoshenko, I think that for greater stability it would be better to form what is known as a coalition of national unity rather than the discredited ‘broad-based’ or ‘single-color’ one. I don’t think it is just a question of cooperation between the president and the prime minister. It is a far broader issue: the president and the prime minister should cooperate to ensure stability in the state and promote socioeconomic development. It therefore follows that cooperation and stability in Ukraine are only possible if the coalition government, even if it is based on one or two political forces, accepts some very high- skilled representatives of the Party of Regions and other parties. I think that in the current situation only the communists should not be invited to the national unity coalition because their practices and ideology have proved to be totally ineffectual, while the rest of the political forces have prospects of taking part in ruling Ukraine.
“At the same time, such a coalition should do its best to eliminate diarchy in Ukraine for the sake of stability. To this end, we should, above all, resolve such problems as the introduction of amendments to the Constitution, restoring most, if not all, of the powers erroneously stripped from the president, abolishing parliamentary immunity, and establishing a balance among the branches of power. Cooperation between the president and the prime minister is possible precisely under these conditions.”
Volodymyr MYKHAILYSHYN, head of the Domestic Policy Department, Dnipropetrovsk City Council:
“I have no doubts that Yushchenko and Tymoshenko will be able to work together. The only question is how long their cooperation will last. In 2005, just three months after the new cabinet was formed, the president began to criticize Tymoshenko because of the high rate of inflation and he fired her in September. Their cooperation lasted for about eight months, although a government is usually given one year to show its potential. We should also remember that the members of the Orange team considered themselves winners, and the situation in the country was not as critical as it is now. We are now approaching the presidential elections, and almost nobody doubts that Tymoshenko will also run for this office. Considering that her bloc polled significantly more votes in the latest parliamentary elections than the pro-presidential one did, Lady Yu stands quite a good chance. But if she heads the government again, she will have to take responsibility for resolving difficult problems, such as supplying gas to households during the heating season and keeping food prices in check.
“She will also have to keep her election promises. Remember how Tymoshenko assured voters that she would manage to refund the Saving Bank’s frozen deposits within just two years and put the Ukrainian army on a professional footing by early next year, not to mention the social payments that the Constitutional Court allowed the Tymoshenko team to make, the many-times increase of the childbirth allowance, and the abolition of parliamentary immunity and privileges. If Tymoshenko betrays her voters, then her adversaries will surely seize upon this, and the government will come under scathing criticism, which will be much more powerful than in 2005. Premiership may also be a ‘trap’ for Tymoshenko, the goal of which would be to dismiss her with a heavily tarnished reputation some time later. Whatever the case, cooperation between the two former leaders of the Orange Revolution, now part of history, will certainly be complicated. The struggle for power will surely aggravate it, all the more so as the stakes are higher than before.”
Mykola VASKIV, professor, Kamianets-Podilsky State University:
“BYuT’s programs and plans are still a mystery, but in general it didn’t have to learn many lessons from the past. The bloc members clearly promised to uphold the principles of the Orange Revolution, which they have been trying to uphold in their work. Perhaps they should only have learned how to be flexible. But who can say where the line is drawn between flexibility and betrayal of voters’ interests?
“Our Ukraine faced much more serious problems when it underwent a fundamental renewal and even some purification. As part of a bloc with other parties, its members are still claiming adherence to the principles of building a democratic coalition. It is not clear what the president meant when he said it is necessary to strike a deal with the Party of Regions. But a firm statement of the OU leadership about the possibility of a democratic coalition only was probably the decisive argument in the president’s subsequent interpretation: he claimed he meant that parliament can only work effectively if there is a powerful opposition.
“The president is completely right in this case: for the sake of social consensus, the winner should be the first to offer a hand even if this hand is not very clean. Obviously, the party with the largest number of oligarchs has a lot of members who would gladly defect to the opposite camp, as their Orange predecessors once did. But now, after the official explanation of the reasons why the 5th-convocation parliament was dissolved, this is impossible. This does not mean that there will be no defectors in principle. They will officially remain part of the PR or the Lytvyn faction but will be pushing the ‘right’ buttons at the right moment. At the same time, the confrontation between East and West, Ukrainian and Russian speakers, and advocates of the SES and the EU will be gradually defused, while pro-EU sentiments will be on the rise because both the White-Blue and the Orange are striving for EU membership.
“The most complicated situation is the president’s. The impression is that he and his staff have long been concerned about the next presidential elections, and they are trying to swing them in their favor right now with the help of intricate political combinations and deals with those who are, and will continue to be, their ideological opponents. What the president should focus on right now is creating, as soon as possible, an effective and uncorrupted public administration machine. The sooner this happens and produces visible results, the more chances Yushchenko will have for a second presidential term. And although mistrust in Tymoshenko is still strong, it is her premiership that may give Yushchenko a very real chance of becoming president for a second term. Otherwise, the animosity of eastern voters will be compounded by the mistrust of the central and western electorate.”
