Saturday, October 11, 2008

Yushchenko's untenable position

As Mustafa Nayem and Serhiy Leshchenko point out in an article in U.P. any Yushchenko-led party standing for election in the proposed December 7th elections will be in an untenable position.

The president in his address to the nation on Wednesday explained that the reason for calling early elections was BYuT's 'betrayal' of its partner NUNS in the democratic coalition.

On returning from the summer recess on September 2nd BYuT promptly voted in concert with PoR to enact laws weakening the president's authority.
Yushchenko said: "The events of 2nd September and those decisions which were accepted in parliament, unconditionally made the [further] existence of the democratic coalition impossible. And from 3rd September, de jure, the collapse of the coalition was announced [by NUNS].

In early VR elections any President-led party will most likely come in third, or worse, the first two places being fought over by PoR and BYuT.

Any rapprochement between BYuT and NUNS is most unlikely as this would mean returning to Tymoshenko powers that president has taken from her by dismissing parliament. Furthermore Tymoshenko and Yushchenko will be slugging it out for the orange electorates' vote in next year's presidential elections.

On the other hand, any hint of movement by the presidential bloc toward PoR will be fully expoited by BYuT as indication of an oligarchic conspiracy between PoR money-bags Rinat Akhmetov, and the president.

LEvko thinks that just over a month ago BYuT and PoR launched a plan that had clearly been prepared during the summer recess to truncate the president's authority. Now PoR are quite keen on early elections because they have a good chance of winning and returning to government. If PoR are back in power after the election how can the president be sure they will not revert back to that same policy as agreed with BYuT during the summer and 'shaft' him again? He knows that as president he could probably live with one opponent..but not with two..hence the presidential secretariat's vicious campaign to destroy the weaker.

It was a PoR-led parliament that was dismissed kicking and screaming by Yushchenko last year. This year it is BYuT. My guess is that there is a lot of capital deposited in PoR's 'grudge bank' last year waiting to be cashed in by PoR if they return to power in the snap election... particularly as there are huge differences on policies between the president and PoR on such key topics as relations with Russia and the Georgia/South Ossetia crisis, NATO, Russian as a second state language etc. And Yulka T. will be hovering to finish off the job too..

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

But, then again, there's Chornovil, claiming that the Party of Regions is in cahoots with Yushchenko.

I believe the part about Yushchenko buddying up to Firtash, and to the boys from RosUkrEnergo. Yushchenko, surprisingly, seemed to be upsent when Tymoshenko was talking about getting rid of RosUkrEnergo. And we know, from reports in Ukrainian Pravda, that Firtash has given plane rides, at the very least, to Yushchenko and/or his family.

The problem with Chornovil, and the other politicians in Ukraine, is that they say one thing one minute, and quite another the next.

Here's the link:

http://www.unian.net/eng/news/news-277915.html

Anonymous said...

The Kyiv Administrative court has issues a injunction suspending the Presidents decree dismissing Ukraine's democratically elected parliament.

In what is reminiscent of events unfolded last year, Victor Yushchenko has again interfered with the independence of Ukraine's judiciary.

In April 2007 the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) passed a resolution in consideration of a report titled Functioning of democratic institutions in Ukraine. (Items 13 and 14) stated:

“The Assembly deplores the fact that the judicial system of Ukraine has been systematically misused by other branches of power and that top officials do not execute the courts’ decisions, which is a sign of erosion of this crucial democratic institution. An independent and impartial judiciary is a precondition for the existence of a democratic society governed by the rule of law."

The associated explanatory report under the sub-heading of Pressure on the courts expressed concern that

"Several local courts have made decisions to suspend the Presidential Decree only to then withdraw them, allegedly under pressure from the presidential secretariat." (item 67)

In emphasis the report (item 68) stated

"This is a worrying tendency of legal nihilism that should not be tolerated. It is as clear as day that in a state governed by the rule of law judicial mistakes should be corrected through appeal procedures and not through threats or disciplinary sanctions ”