Friday, July 14, 2006

A few thoughts..

So, what happens next?

Yushchenko's predicament reminds me of an old joke about a tourist on a driving holiday in Ireland. Having become hopelessly lost, he stops in a remote village and asks an old local, "Excuse me old fella, how do I get to Ballygilligan?"
The old guy, thinks..and thinks. After a while he replies, "You know what, If I was you...then I wouldn't be starting from here.."

Yushchenko must take the blame for astonishing missteps after the March parliamentary elections. The truth is though, the election results for the Oranges didn't pan out as well as they had hoped, so their position was always weak - an highly vulnerable overall majority of only 17, in a 450 seat parliament, where bribery and corruption is endemic. NSNU in particular, with only 14% of the vote took a beating.

This perhaps explains why NSNU began double-dealing from the start - and have fallen between two stools. Maybe Moroz is correct: the position Ukrainian politics finds itself in now, would have probably come to pass anyhow, after just a few months of an NSNU/BYuT/Socialist coalition.

Who know? Maybe Moroz himself was given assurances by PoR regarding allocation of ministerial positions for possible NSNU defectors, in order to make it easier for him to go over and join the 'anti-crisisists'. He probably hoped that his switching from democratic coalition to anti-crisis coalition would improve matters, that a grand coalition would be quickly formed, and that his betrayal of his orange partners quickly forgotten.

If the country does spin out of control, he will be aware that his actions may have caused this to happen..Will he now be having second thoughts or regrets?

PoR know their anti-crisis coalition is not particularly stable either, so despite all of the confident talk, they will be desperately trying to poach as many NSNU and BYuT deputies, hence the rumors of $5M and $10M inducements mentioned in my previous blog. Messy protracted battles with the President in the weeks to come will not suit them either. Maybe early re-elections would suit them best too? Former president Leonid Kuchma, once called a red cockroach by Yuliya T, has crawled out from under his stone and said as much.

Prominent Socialist and Minister of Internal Affairs Yuriy Lutsenko, tore up his Socialist party card yesterday, so there's some turmoil there too, as well as in NSNU. Even the Communists are worried that NSNU will join PoR in the new coalition, and that they will be dumped. You just can't trust anybody these days..

Maybe the President will come up with something in his regular Saturday radio address..

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