Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Speculation speculation..

Some interesting speculation from the excellent Mustafa Nayem and Serhiy Leshchenko in 'Ukrainska Pravda'. They propose three possible scenarios on how matters could develop in the creation [or otherwise] of a ruling coalition in the VR.

I've paraphrased some bits:

Almost one-and-a-half months have passed since the elections. In this time in Poland, even though voting took place three weeks later, the new parliament has already began work, inter-party negotiations have taken place, and a new prime minister chosen...

Yushchenko dissolved parliament on 2nd April. Now in October it's becoming clear that the only person who is in no hurry to 'get the show on the road' is Viktor Yushchenko himself. The parliament is dissolved, the status of the cabinet of ministers can be regarded as 'semi-legal', and the all-important Constitutional Court discredited...

Against this background the President remains only legitimate institution of authority in the country. But the Party of Regions, against whom this war was begun, are willing to go along with the situation, grasping for the chance to temain in the authority, even in the role of 'acting government'.

Presidential Scenario

The vote in the newly-elected VR to elect a speaker could well fall through [Vyacheslav Kirilenko is the favoured candidate from BYuT/NUNS, but there are deputies in NUNS who will not vote for him], and parliament [with the help of PoR] could select a figure acceptable to PoR e.g Ivan Plyushch or Volodymyr Lytvyn.

Logically the next stage would be to create a broad coalition. However, for this to occur NUNS would need to sort out certain internal procedures - i.e. to make a decision at the level of the individual fractions that make up NUNS. It's reasonable to assume that out of the 72 future NUNS deputies less than half would vote for a wide coalition or "shirka". To do so would expose themselves to accusations by Yulia Tymoshenko of betrayal.

In the absence of a coalition the cabinet of ministers headed by Yanukovich would continue to fulfill its duties.

The President would for sure insist on the resignation some of the more unpleasant ministers e.g. Nestor Shufrich and Mykola Rudkovskiy, and insist his own man was appointed minister of internal affairs position, but Yanukovich could probably accede to these demands.

The threat of the "oranges" reuniting would provide the President complete support of the Party of Regions and, possibly, even the Communist party. As a result, Yushchenko would remain the only fully authorised institution of authority in the country.
Meanwhile Yulia Tymoshenko is increasing her co-operation with Yuriy Lutsenko and Vyacheslav Kirilenko.

In the event that Tymoshenko's bid to become prime minister fails, the leader of BYuT will do that which voters have expected since September 2005 [when she was sacked from the PM's position by Yushchenko] - commence a campaign of attack against Viktor Yushchenko and call for early presidential elections.

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