Bi-partisan politics +1

Mykhailo Basarab in an interesting article in 'Ukrainska Pravda' provides analysis of recent events in Ukrainian politics, and explains BYuT and PoR's strategic co-operation, as highlighted by their voting together in the VR to override president Yushchenko's veto on the cabinet of ministers' law which has so reduced his powers.

The actions of the two political forces could indicate that their plan is to construct a bipartisan system, in which there is no place for other parties.

According to the author, there has been some signs that early elections may be planned by both political forces. Both BYuT, and Regiony have recently held gatherings of deputies of all levels. This could be co-incidence, or perhaps 'a synchronization of watches' before the beginning of battle. Crimean Verkhovna Rada Vice Chairman Vasyl Kiselev, at their meeting in the Crimea, spoke of the need for raising the voting threshold for entry into the VR to 9 - 12%. Only two political forces, those headed Tymoshenko and Yanukovych, could be sure of clearing such a threshold.

I also posted recently on deputy PM Andriy Klyuyev's interview in which he stated that in the country there is a government and there is an opposition, who must co-operate. The personification of opposition, in the opinion of vice-premier, was Yuliya Tymoshenko, with whom it is necessary to conduct discussions for beneficial collaboration.

A leading PoR spokesman and VR deputy, Taras Chornovil, hinted that although early elections are not likely and his party are not making preparations, but that everything is possible... And Tymoshenko never stops talking of early elections.

Yushchenko's team has been stirred by these 'straws in the wind' and has no wish to be 'cut out' of Ukrainian politics alongside the Communists and the Socialists, by the two largest parties PoR and BYuT. As result, NU and Yuliya Tymoshenko's bloc have recently, perhaps slightly surprisingly, signed an agreement on common opposition activity in the VR.

The author, Mykhaylo Basarab, says that for NU nothing remains but to adapt to the BYuT/PoR algorithm of a bipartisan system. If NU are to survive, then they have one choice - to go into one team with BYuT as a subservient partner, but the president and his secretariat are finding it difficult to accept that they have to 'lie down under Tymoshenko's stiletto heel'.

So possibly NU, led by Yushchenko, envisages a role in the future battle between the two Titans, as a referee, or a party with a casting vote, which if necessary could separate the two stubborn giants. In other words, in this bipartisan system, NU could be a small but decisive third party.

"His heart's a prune
When it once was a plum
If you know him now
Then that's the kind of Man
That [he's] become..

"Man That I've Become" - Nick Lowe [songwriter and singer]