Stratfor did the following piece on it today:
Ukraine: No Grand Coalition in Kiev
October 04, 2006 22 01 GMT
The leader of the pro-Western Our Ukraine Party, Roman Bessmertny, announced Oct. 4 that his party will not join a broad coalition with Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich's pro-Russian Party of Regions. Bessmertny added that all Our Ukraine Cabinet ministers must now either resign from their positions or from the party ranks. Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko is standing by his pro-Western principles, but he is about to lose even more control of a government that fundamentally opposes most of his policies.
Analysis
Our Ukraine, the party of the pro-Western Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, will not join a grand coalition, party leader Roman Bessmertny said Oct. 4, a day before the party will formally withdraw from negotiations. The party also plans to withdraw its Cabinet ministers or ask them to renounce their party affiliations. With this move, Yushchenko has affirmed his ideological stance but lost further control of a government that already opposes him.
Cooperating with Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich and his Party of Regions has not panned out very well for Yushchenko. The Moscow-friendly Yanukovich has openly contradicted Yushchenko's policy on Ukraine's accession to NATO, the status of Russian as an official language and other state matters. Our Ukraine could have been a moderating factor for the parliamentary coalition and given it a constitutional majority, with more than two-thirds of the parliament's 450 seats.
Our Ukraine can choose to join former Prime Minister and Orange coalition partner Yulia Timoshenko, who already announced she would welcome back her former partner. Discord between Timoshenko and Yushchenko split the pro-Western vote in the March parliamentary elections and relegated the Bloc of Yulia Timoshenko and Our Ukraine to second and third place, respectively; however, by opposing the Party of Regions-led government, Yushchenko can hope to regain his pro-Western credentials and public support. Even if a renewed alliance with Timoshenko is not in the cards -- given that such an alliance has failed before -- Yushchenko and Our Ukraine can focus on promoting a pro-Western stance within Ukraine while trying to draw more international attention to their ideological goals and political situation. With an entirely pro-Russian government at the helm, Ukraine's Western supporters should be concerned about an even bigger influence by Moscow on Kiev.
While the latest move will increase the tensions between the executive and legislative branches of the government, this does not automatically translate into fresh elections or even an entirely new Cabinet. The Party of Regions, along with the Socialists and the Communist Party, has a majority. Yanukovich will appoint his people for the vacant Cabinet positions. Although the president has the authority to appoint the ministers of foreign affairs and defense, he has lost de facto control of those policies as well, with Yanukovich playing a greater and more public role in Ukraine's international relations. Ukraine is a state fundamentally divided into Russian- and Western-leaning halves, and Our Ukraine's move into the opposition illustrates that split. Yushchenko will have to work with a hostile government, but that is hardly different from the situation he is already in.
I am not sure how this strengthens Yushchenko's position.
2 comments:
Perhaps Yushchenko is biding time, taking a step back to try and give the western-leaning parties a chance to reinvent themselves.
Maybe he's hoping that the conditions that led to the Orange Revolution can be recreated by having the Pro-Russian / Communist parties running the government. Give them enough rope to hang themselves.
That's the best spin I can put on it. Basically, a common enemy focuses the opposition.
Before the next elections (when are they?) the western-leaning parties need get their acts together, and show that they can not only work together in opposition, but also as leaders. But I doubt it'll happen as long as Yulia Timoshenko thinks that she can run the country.
Addition to my comment above: It's a dangerous strategy.
Look at Russia's behaviour towards Georgia recently. Don't forget the natural gas crisis in Ukraine. Russian hegemony is on the rise again, and is the single biggest threat to Ukrainian sovereignty. The weakness of pro-western parties in Ukraine exacerbate the problem.
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