Sunday, April 05, 2009

Tymoshenko's defence

Watch Yulia Tymoshenko's remarkably confident, and at times passionate defence of her government's anti-crisis policies on Friday's 'Shuster Live' programme here

4 comments:

elmer said...

OK, like an idiot, I bit yet once again. Another 4 hours or more, for lots of speechifying, and questions with lots of haranguing prologues, for something that could have been said in minutes. But it wasn't worth it - and it was.

1) First, the boys and girls in Ukraine are starting to get it, more and more, what democratic government means. Imagine my shock when Konovaluk, from the Party of Regions, started talking about how noone trusts the government (of course, he meant Yulia Tymoshenko's govt, in the European parliamentary sense, but nevertheless), and that - gasp - government needs to actually represent the people!

2) The PoR got a good raking over the coals, not only from Tymonatrix, but also from former Prez Kravchuk and others, about how the Party of Regions owns everything (note - it's now out in the open that "political parties" own everything), but that people were laid off from businesses that the PoR owns, but were not laid off from state-owned businesses, and that for the years that the PoR were in power, not a single thing was done to improve and upgrade the infrastructure in Ukraine.

3) The PoR representatives looked singularly downcast and downtrodden as their party was being raked over the coals for laying off people, not making any upgrades to infrasture in the past 17 years, robbing the country blind with all sorts of "offshore" schemes, and blockading Parliament yet again. So they resorted to an old sovok trick - when you have nothing to say, just keep blustering, and pound your shoe on the table and make it seem as if you are attacking. Noone was buying it.

4) Tons of facts and figures from Tymonatrix (an old sovok legacy, but needed in this case - and she's certainly in command of facts and statistics) about how Ukraine really was not the worst country in unemployment, or drop in Gross Domestic Product. References from her and others about Forbes Magazine's list of the wealthiest people on earth, but a happy, joyous note from Tymonatrix - the US is responsible for the global crisis, and none of the oligarchs from Ukraine or Russia on the Forbes list are to blame for the crises.

5) More raking over the coals of the PoR for not cooperating in dealing with the crisis, with former Prez Kravchuk playing the wise old oil, with some pretty good advice, actually.

6) Everyone agreed that the Constitution needs to be amended, that the 2004 amendments were disastrous, causing constant feuding between the Prez and Parliament, but that the Constitution should not be amended in the way that Yushchenko is proposing, and the Yushchenko is merely looking for a "soft landing," in the tradition of previous Ukrainian presidents (ie, proposing a bicameral Parliament where former prezes, including Yushch, would occupy seats in one of the houses of Parliament).

7) Lots of prologues to questions, and a really, really bad habit - severely interrupting other speakers, while demanding that noone interrupt oneself. It leads to absolutely chaotic shouting and babble, where noone is understood.

8) Kudos again to a Ukrainian station willing to devote a substantial amount of air time to serious topics. Shame on the participants for wasteful repetition and chaotic interruption of each other.

9) A bonus at the end - Ani Lorak! Babelicous!!!! Schwing!!!! Wow!!!! What she's doing on a serious discussion of anti-crisis policies by the govt, I don't know, but who cares!!! Babelicious!!!! Too bad she sang in Russian.

10) Odd - near the end, former prez Kravchuk announced that some survey or another had determined that Tymonatrix was the best looking of female politicians in some survey or another. Well, she is good looking, but along with the patronizing comments during the show, I'm not sure it was appropriate.

They're learning, folks. Or at least they're making noises like they really are learning true democracy. There was even talk of getting rid of the stupidly corrupt party list system (gasp!) and electing representatives by district, by majority vote. This even from the PoR!!!

elmer said...

I forgot - and this was priceless.

Savik had a couple of guests from Roosha on the show.

And here it was - the rooshan prattling on about "the opposition" in Rasha.

This brought bemused chuckles from everyone (there is no opposition in Russia, everyone knows that), and incredulous, but polite, questioning with a smile from Tymonatrix - "is there an opposition in Russia"?

And, of course, everyone knows there isn't.

Priceless.

LEvko said...

Thanks for write-up of the program Elmer - I am just a bit too lazy to do this. The whole programme was instructive, and although debate was heated at times, it was within the bounds of normal political discourse.

President Yushchenko's latest statements calling for early joint elections are not well reasoned [ http://www.president.gov.ua/en/news/13432.html ] As long as the VR can function properly and legitimately there is no reason for its dismissal.

It has to be said Shuster's studio set is pure Starship Enterprise and amplifies Tymoshenko's celestial image.

elmer said...

No thanks necessary, but you are very welcome.

One thing that really struck me as funny and bizarre - Tymoshenko blamed the lack of knowledge about the good works of her ministry on -the media. She claimed that assorted media are owned by political opponents who don't really report the news.

But, at one point, Konovaluk from the Party of Regions quoted from, of all things, "Ukrainian Pravda," the Internet paper one of whose co-founders was Georgiy Gongadze, who was beheaded at the behest of former president Kuchma - from the Party of Regions.

Now, if anything is true about Tymonatrix, it is that she is not shy about publicizing herself through various means. In fact, she is a publicity tornado. Among other things, there is a Tymoshenko web site, and there are tons of TV appearances.

One can only ask - Why are people in Ukraine so ill-informed?

Or is it that the machine politics of the Party of Regions still holds sway over a sizeable portion of the Ukrainian electorate, who are more than willing to sell their souls and their futures to the Party of Regions for a few hryvnia - in order to keep oligarchs in power?