Thursday, December 11, 2008

Tymoshenko 'jumping the gun'?

Following the surprise appointment of a new parliamentary speaker yesterday, tonight PM Tymoshenko addressed the nation in a TV broadcast.

I've translated some portions below:

"...You know that the situation in the Ukraine was recently complicated by a consciously created amoral political crisis, which made it simply impossible to resist by financial-economic means. A paralysed parliament, irresponsible, empty criticism, aggression and black propaganda - the reasons for these were a shallow fight for the second presidential term at any price.

But there is good news too. Yesterday, in the parliament, a new coalition of three political forces was formed: of our fraction [BYuT], the NUNS bloc and Volodymyr Lytvyn's bloc. Volodymyr Lytvyn was finally elected a speaker for parliament. The Parliamentary political crisis has ended. Tomorrow, in the VR normal operations will resume. Our hands are freed from shackles. Kremlin plots, state mutinies, denial of the right of people to elect their President, [all of which president Yushchenko accused Tymoshenko of..LEvko] have been exposed as banal untruths. I want to thank all political forces, fractions, people deputies, who by their voting yesterday ended this political disgrace and created a coalition. All these positive steps were made not with the aid of the President, but in spite of his active opposition to the creation of the coalition. But now our priority in parliament, after overcoming the political crisis, will be dedicated to overcoming all that is wrong and normalization of the life of each one of you...."

Tymoshenko gives details of new political and economic initiatives, and continues:

"..... And this is only the beginning of normal operation after the termination of the shameful, intentionally created, political crisis. I declare, that I will personally nurture this parliament, this newly created coalition. I will never allow the tormenting of the VR, or of the country, which we have observed in recent months. Because no presidential elections are worth political adventurers throwing the country into the abyss of opposition and chaos...."

In the 2007 VR elections, BYuT obtained 156 seats in parliament, NUNS 72, and Lytvyn's bloc [BL] 20, i.e. 248 in total - well in excess of the 226 required to form a ruling coalition.

However, Lytvyn's appointment as VR speaker yesterday supported by 154 deputies from BYuT, 40 from NUNS, and 20 from BL, i.e. by 214 deputies. So Lytyvn was elected thanks only to 27 Communist votes and 3 from PoR.

Some NUNS deputies already claim that the declaration on the recreation of this new 'democratic' coalition was not signed by NUNS head, Vyacheslav Kyrylenko, but by Borys Tarasyuk, which, in the opinion of these NUNS deputies renders it invalid.

However, it seems that the NUNS deputies who supported Lytvyn also support the new coalition, so their number is sufficient to vote through NUNS restarting co-operation with BYuT at their party meeting.

But Tymoshenko's bitter outbursts tonight, will not have helped these guys in convincing their fellow party deputies who loyal to the president, to go with them. Officially, the NUNS fraction are currently "finalising" the coalition agreement with their two partners.

If this newly-formed is successfully assembled, and if it is to work, it looks as if Lytvyn will have to use all of his cunning. He will have to constantly cajole at least some PoR or Communist deputies to support any of the coalition's parliamentary proposals, for them to be adopted.

Right now PoR will not be much worried about the durability of this new coalition. Tymoshenko will be happy with her tactical victory over the president. But what future is there for the badly-split NUNS?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Tomorrow 'normal' VR operations will resume."

God help us all!

It's still impossible to figure out what the whole point of this stupid exercise was.

I guess we'll see whether they'll finally get rid of parliamentary immunity.

Anonymous said...

well, Yushchenko is still at it. Kyiv Post, Ukrainian Pravda and others are reporting that Zvarych, a member of Our Ukraine, announced that Yushchenko doesn't want his party to be in a coalition with BYuT and the Lytvyn Bloc.

In the meantime, here's something that I found very, very interesting (apart from the heat being cut off in Kyiv - noone knows why):

One of the government agency heads has limited the travel allowance by government officials in government cars (can you guess what brand of car they drive) to "only" 3000 km per month. It used to be unlimited. So a bunch of them signed a letter, madder than wet hens, protesting this new limit.

Well, the comments on Ukrainian Pravda are very interesting.

Among them:

- "bitches" (in the sense of the Ukrainian word for female dog)

- "the groundwork has been laid for a revolt - all we need now is the detonator"

- "put them all on bicycles"

- "this article needs to be televised all over. It would be even better if there were small stores opened all over Kyiv, which sold various agricultural implements - axes, pitchforks, etc., and if TV's were placed in these small stores showing this article and similar ones. Maybe something will happen, to the benefit of the government:-)"

- One person makes a calculation of distances around Kyiv, and says "why do these people need to travel 3000 km - they can take care of business in the minister's cabinet and over the Internet"

- "where is my pitchfork"

- "put them all in marshrutkas" (those are private vans which function like taxis)

- "glory to a free Internet"

- "just one word - STOP, you goats" (Yanukovych called the people goats when he was running for prez)

It just so happens that the cry-babies are, in part, from the Party of Regions - Yanukovych's party.


This is some great stuff!

I think that the natives are restless, and very, very fed up with all the government shenanigans and "largesse" that government "officials" shower on themselves and their buddies.


http://www.pravda.com.ua/news_comments/2008/12/11/85973/p_0.htm

Anonymous said...

Yushchenko is the only one that has absolute immunity. Members of the Parliament can still be prosecuted and face court. So It is a bit too simplistic to try and place blame on the question of Immunity. These provisions are designed to prevent the government from unduly using its power to harass and intimidate members of parliament. Something we have seen Yushchenko pursue in recent times against Yulia Tymoshenko. The tools of trade for Yushchenko supporters. A common Soviet style approach to silencing your critics

Come July Yushchenko loses power and authority to dismiss the parliament. He will have to move against the Parliament before then

His next move to destabilize Ukraine and the government will be over the budget which has to be passed before the end of the year. Yushchenko has played chicken with the budget every year since 2006, undermining Ukraine's economic stability.

If anything next years budget should fold provisions for early presidential elections.

Anonymous said...

Kyiv, Dec. 16 (Interfax-Ukraine) - The leader of the Our Ukraine-People's Self-Defense Bloc faction, Viacheslav Kyrylenko, and his deputy Roman Zvarych resigned from their posts at a faction meeting on Tuesday.

Faction MP Viktor Shemchuk told Interfax-Ukraine on Tuesday that the faction had decided to sign an agreement on the creation of a coalition with the factions of the Bloc of Yulia Tymoshenko and the Bloc of Lytvyn.

"The decision was backed by 37 votes and rejected by 17 votes so as to sign a coalition agreement [with the BYT and the Bloc of Lytvyn] and empower [faction MP] Borys Tarasiuk with the signing of this agreement," he said.

http://www.kyivpost.com/nation/32004