So easy for PoR..

So the dust has settled after yesterday's momentous events in the VR. Observers who glibly assumed the oranges were back on track got it badly wrong, maybe forgetting how devious the old riders on the Ukrainian political merry-go-round over the last ten or even fifteen years have been over that period, and how politically inept Yushchenko has repeatedly shown himself to be.

It took the oranges 100 days to get their act together, even though some of them are 'almost family', confirming there was virtually no chance of the structure holding together. So it proved. Yushchenko, who on many occasions after the March VR elections, couldn't even bring himself to utter the name of Tymoshenko to journalists, must be held primarily responsible for the debacle.

Yushchenko disastrously sacked both Tymoshenko and Poroshenko last August because of their constant squabbling. Expecting them to work together again after all of their mutual recriminations, as I wrote previously, was totally bizarre.

PoR were never interested in being in opposition. Their unofficial leader Akmetov, and his associates did not get to where they are today by making compromises, but by ruthless cunning, and exploitating opponents' weaknesses to the max. by every possible means. For them it has all been too easy.They will now drive home their victory - they want Yanukovych as PM.

In any coalition, the lesser partners inevitably have a disproportionate amount of power, but are easiest to exploit, and this is true of the Socialists. Moroz was inevitably going to be the king-maker.

Yushchenko has made blunder after blunder. If he really didn't fancy working with BYuT, then until recently PoR would have grudgingly formed a coalition with Yushchenko's NSNU and the Socialists, with Yekhanurov as PM, and a disproportionately large number of NSNU ministers in the cabinet. But PoR, after yesterday's success, will now not be in any mood for that sort of thing. [A PoR-NSNU-Socialist coalition may have made some sense, unifying the country and so on, and would have offered stability.]

The newly-formed PoR-Socialist-Communist coalition still only provides 240 votes, out of 450, and is vulnerable to attack. Its constituents are strange bedfellows indeed, PoR being densely populated by 'big roller' businessmen. They could all fall out with one another very quickly unless the two small leftist partners are not continuously 'financially' encouraged to behave themselves.

Last summer the oranges were in total command - PoR were in disarray. Now, [if PoR are not too hubristic], all they will offer NSNU is a few crumbs to tempt some of them over to stabilize the newly-formed PoR-dominated coalition.