Presidential mud slinger at it again..

The battle between the President's secretariat and PM Tymoshenko is gaining revs.

The official Presidential site today carries this:

Yulia Tymoshenko is consciously bringing down the coalition and going for open conflict with the President - Victor Baloha

The head of the secretariat of the President of the Ukraine, Viktor Baloha, considers that decisions of cabinet of ministers on land reform, and the ever more obvious co-operation between BYuT and the oppositional PoR unequivocally testify that the leader of BYuT is on a path to destroy the parliamentary majority, and to enter open conflict with the President, Viktor Yushchenko.

"The undisguised mercenary, coursely pragmatic, actions of Yulia Tymoshenko's team are concealed by beautiful pathos-arousing phrases about unity, democracy and the struggle against corruption. However, in reality, political and business schemes are being hatched which are intended to provide a monopolisitic position for BYuT and its leadership in the political arena, in authority, and in the economy. Shady deals are being conducted comprising secret agreements, that are intended to ensure administrative and financial power for this political force. An entire arsenal of means has been set into motion, often of a dubious nature from point of view of law and morals," says Baloha.

The posting on the official site goes on:

"The idea for supporting a united candidate for the Kyiv mayoral elections has failed precisely because of the egoistic position of BYuT." The 'white-hearts', for incomprehensible reasons, are convinced that it is they who have the widest support in the capital, and that their candidate will obtain the greatest number of Kyivan votes. The opinions of their other partners from the democratic camp were not even taken into consideration.

Therefore the entire fault for failing to agree on a united democratic candidate lies squarely on them.

At the same time ByuT actively proposes a politechnological route - mayoral elections in two rounds. Thus, they want to impose a rudimentary Soviet model of local authority elections that does not exist anywhere in the democratic world. In order to achieve its corporate goal BYuT is prepared to cast our country decades into the past.

Baloga declares that the "Tymoshenkivtsy" have recently voted together with the deputies from Party of Regions on the 'unconstitutional' law "On the cabinet of ministers" and on the law on state tender purchasing, which, according to Baloha, preserves criminal mechanisms, enabling theft of billions of hryven of state funds.

Frequently BYuT's partners have been the Communists, who, by no means for unselfish motives, have helped to pass the necessary resolutions. Deputies from BYuT voted for the yesterday's parlimentary overturning of the President's ruling - which in the essence proposes that Constitutional Court judges stained by corruption remain in office. It have became obvious, how deeply slogans of struggle against corruption differ from actual practice."

Together with Party of Regions, BYuT he wants to create and head a parliamentary commission for revising the Constitution. They have provocatively disregarded sharp protests of their NUNS partner in the democratic coalition. "In their desire to control even the fundamental laws of the land BYuT is prepared to enter every kind, of even distorted, union, even with those, who until they rose to power they mercilessly criticized.

"There is nothing surprising in the fact that the Kabmin has taken the decision they did on auctions for the sale of land, and that prime minister speaks about existence of a land Mafia. It is possible to assume that the leader of government simply wants to head this Mafia herself...

All very heavy stuff..

Tymoshenko, in response to Baloha's tirades, at a press conference today said: "No other format of coaltion is acceptable to us, apart from that which already exists. The existing coalition - this is a long-endured result. I value the unity of the coalition and will not allow any individual persons to destroy it."

[Note: As things stand there will be only one round in the Kyiv mayoral elections, so there is a significant possibility that a candidate, such as current disgraced mayor Chernovetsky, remains in power because opposition votes will have been divided up into small portions between remaining candidates. However BYuT are demanding that tomorrow a bill is debated in the VR on conducting mayoral elections over two rounds, which would greatly improve the chance of a BYuT or NUNS supported candidate winning, even though the President and NUNS are against this.]