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Jamestown Foundation
Jan 6 2010
Yushchenko and Yanukovych Forge an Electoral Alliance
Publication: Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 7 Issue: 2
January 5, 2010 04:51 PM
By: Taras Kuzio
On December 25, 2009 UNIAN published a secret agreement `On Political
Reconciliation and the Development of Ukraine' leaked by Yaroslav
Kozachok, the deputy head of the presidential secretariat's department
on domestic affairs and regional development. Kozachok resigned in
protest at the secret agreement between President Viktor Yushchenko
and Party of Regions leader Viktor Yanukovych to appoint the former as
Prime Minister in the event of Yanukovych's election.
The Yushchenko and Yanukovych campaigns `not surprisingly` alleged
that the document was a forgery (Ukrayinska Pravda, December 28). At
the same time, its authenticity is proven by two steps undertaken by
the presidential secretariat. Firstly, the presidential secretariat's
pressure on television channels not to discuss the document, which led
to Kozachok complaining about the return of censorship to Ukrainian
media. `It is obvious that ignoring (the document) has taken place on
instructions from `above,' and the system has worked to block the
appearance in the mass media of information unpleasant for senior
officials' (Ukrayinska Pravda, December 29).
This would not be the first occasion when direct intervention halted
revelations about a secret electoral alliance between
Yushchenko-Yanukovych. In December the Security Service (SBU) was
instructed by the president to investigate the appearance of large
billboards throughout Kyiv and other cities that had reproduced the
front cover of the December 4 edition of the weekly magazine
Komentarii with the headline `Yushchenko has negotiated the seat of
premier.' The billboards, which showed Yushchenko and Yanukovych
embracing in a pose reminiscent of the Soviet and East German leaders
Leonid Brezhnev and Erich Honecker, were ordered to be taken down. The
Ukrainian media complained of `censorship.'
Secondly, if the document unveiled by Kozachok was indeed a `forgery'
then why did the president order the prosecutor-general to launch an
investigation into the publication of a `state secret?' Yushchenko
ordered a full report within ten days on how the document was leaked,
while presidential secretariat head Vera Ulianchenko initiated an
internal investigation of Kozachok's employment record (Ukrayinska
Pravda, December 28).
The secret agreement aims to ensure `political stability and economic
development' and to end years of political in-fighting. Both sides
agreed compromises based upon avoiding raising issues that are
considered divisive within Ukrainian society. Yushchenko agreed not to
raise rehabilitating and promoting nationalist leaders or demanding
compulsory Ukrainian language tests in schools and universities. In
return, Yanukovych would not advocate Russian as a second state
language or call for a referendum on Ukrainian NATO membership (UNIAN,
December 25). Yanukovych has downplayed his election program
commitment to Russian as a state language and Yushchenko has not
mentioned NATO in his program.
The next section of the secret agreement calls for Yushchenko and
Yanukovych not to criticize each other. The 2010 election campaign is
noticeable for the absence of criticism by Yushchenko of Yanukovych
and the former's daily accusations against Tymoshenko. Yushchenko has
asked voters to stay at home and not vote in round two, arguing there
is no difference between Tymoshenko and Yanukovych who will inevitably
enter the February 7 run off. A low turn-out in `Orange Ukraine' would
result in Yanukovych's election, while a large voter turn-out would
ensure Tymoshenko's election since the combined `Orange' vote is
larger. Yushchenko is in effect calling on his supporters to not vote
negatively against Yanukovych in the second round.
Playing on Western Ukrainian, anti-Russian nationalism, Yushchenko has
accused Tymoshenko of being `unpatriotic' by referring to the fact
that she has only one ethnic Ukrainian parent (her Armenian father
separated from her mother when she was a child). In addition, since
the summer of 2008 Yushchenko has repeatedly condemned as `treasonous'
Tymoshenko's cultivation of a pragmatic economic-energy relationship
with Russia that has brought her support from Western Europeans
anxious to avoid another gas crisis in January. Yushchenko has
appealed to Ukrainians to vote for a `Ukrainian premier' (meaning
himself) who will not, allegedly unlike Tymoshenko, sell Ukraine to
Russia by permitting the Black Sea Fleet to remain in Sevastopol
beyond 2017, which would require a constitutional amendment that no
president could undertake (Ukrayinska Pravda, January 3). Tymoshenko
would also allegedly transfer Ukraine's gas pipelines to Russia, an
accusation which contradicts Tymoshenko's mobilization of parliament
in February 2007 to vote for a law banning any transfer of the
pipelines from Ukrainian state control and her March 2009 agreement
with the EU to modernize the pipeline infrastructure without Russian
involvement.
Tymoshenko is also accused of being the `biggest threat to democracy'
in Ukraine, Yushchenko has claimed (Ukrayinska Pravda, December 24).
This accusation ignores the perilous state of Ukrainian democracy, as
shown by recent Western and Ukrainian surveys, which reveal that
Ukrainians associate democracy with `chaos' following years of
instability and elite in-fighting.
The `Coalition of Political Reconciliation and Development of Ukraine'
would propose Yushchenko as its candidate for prime minister. The
basis of this coalition remains unexplained, since Yushchenko controls
only 15 out of 72 Our Ukraine deputies.
Yushchenko has always wavered between supporting a grand coalition
with the Party of Regions or a `democratic' coalition with the
Tymoshenko bloc (BYuT). Following the March 2006 elections Yushchenko
sent the Prime Minister (and head of Our Ukraine) Yuriy Yekhanurov to
negotiate a grand coalition and Roman Besmertnyi to form a
`democratic' coalition. Following the dissolution of parliament in
April 2007, Yushchenko negotiated a compromise with the Party of
Regions to hold pre-term elections in September in exchange for a
grand coalition. During the 2007 election campaign Yushchenko
campaigned for a `democratic' coalition, which was established with
Tymoshenko as its candidate for prime minister in December 2007. Raisa
Bohatyriova, the head of the Party of Regions parliamentary faction,
was appointed as secretary of the National Security and Defense
Council (NRBO) who, together with the presidential secretariat head
Viktor Baloga, spent 2008 seeking to undermine the Tymoshenko
government in which Yushchenko had demanded that half the cabinet
posts go to Our Ukraine.
The agreement seeks a grand coalition through a Yanukovych presidency,
but will again fail for the same reasons that it has in the past.
Yushchenko will be unable to ensure that a parliamentary majority will
vote for him: Our Ukraine deputy Oleksandr Tretiakov said that
parliament would never vote for Yushchenko's candidacy (Ukrayinska
Pravda, December 15). Tymoshenko would therefore remain a
constitutionally powerful prime minister under President Yanukovych.
http://www.jamestown.org/single/?no_c ache=1&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=35871&tx_ttn ews%5BbackPid%5D=7&cHash=e9627f75db
Jan 6 2010
Yushchenko and Yanukovych Forge an Electoral Alliance
Publication: Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 7 Issue: 2
January 5, 2010 04:51 PM
By: Taras Kuzio
On December 25, 2009 UNIAN published a secret agreement `On Political
Reconciliation and the Development of Ukraine' leaked by Yaroslav
Kozachok, the deputy head of the presidential secretariat's department
on domestic affairs and regional development. Kozachok resigned in
protest at the secret agreement between President Viktor Yushchenko
and Party of Regions leader Viktor Yanukovych to appoint the former as
Prime Minister in the event of Yanukovych's election.
The Yushchenko and Yanukovych campaigns `not surprisingly` alleged
that the document was a forgery (Ukrayinska Pravda, December 28). At
the same time, its authenticity is proven by two steps undertaken by
the presidential secretariat. Firstly, the presidential secretariat's
pressure on television channels not to discuss the document, which led
to Kozachok complaining about the return of censorship to Ukrainian
media. `It is obvious that ignoring (the document) has taken place on
instructions from `above,' and the system has worked to block the
appearance in the mass media of information unpleasant for senior
officials' (Ukrayinska Pravda, December 29).
This would not be the first occasion when direct intervention halted
revelations about a secret electoral alliance between
Yushchenko-Yanukovych. In December the Security Service (SBU) was
instructed by the president to investigate the appearance of large
billboards throughout Kyiv and other cities that had reproduced the
front cover of the December 4 edition of the weekly magazine
Komentarii with the headline `Yushchenko has negotiated the seat of
premier.' The billboards, which showed Yushchenko and Yanukovych
embracing in a pose reminiscent of the Soviet and East German leaders
Leonid Brezhnev and Erich Honecker, were ordered to be taken down. The
Ukrainian media complained of `censorship.'
Secondly, if the document unveiled by Kozachok was indeed a `forgery'
then why did the president order the prosecutor-general to launch an
investigation into the publication of a `state secret?' Yushchenko
ordered a full report within ten days on how the document was leaked,
while presidential secretariat head Vera Ulianchenko initiated an
internal investigation of Kozachok's employment record (Ukrayinska
Pravda, December 28).
The secret agreement aims to ensure `political stability and economic
development' and to end years of political in-fighting. Both sides
agreed compromises based upon avoiding raising issues that are
considered divisive within Ukrainian society. Yushchenko agreed not to
raise rehabilitating and promoting nationalist leaders or demanding
compulsory Ukrainian language tests in schools and universities. In
return, Yanukovych would not advocate Russian as a second state
language or call for a referendum on Ukrainian NATO membership (UNIAN,
December 25). Yanukovych has downplayed his election program
commitment to Russian as a state language and Yushchenko has not
mentioned NATO in his program.
The next section of the secret agreement calls for Yushchenko and
Yanukovych not to criticize each other. The 2010 election campaign is
noticeable for the absence of criticism by Yushchenko of Yanukovych
and the former's daily accusations against Tymoshenko. Yushchenko has
asked voters to stay at home and not vote in round two, arguing there
is no difference between Tymoshenko and Yanukovych who will inevitably
enter the February 7 run off. A low turn-out in `Orange Ukraine' would
result in Yanukovych's election, while a large voter turn-out would
ensure Tymoshenko's election since the combined `Orange' vote is
larger. Yushchenko is in effect calling on his supporters to not vote
negatively against Yanukovych in the second round.
Playing on Western Ukrainian, anti-Russian nationalism, Yushchenko has
accused Tymoshenko of being `unpatriotic' by referring to the fact
that she has only one ethnic Ukrainian parent (her Armenian father
separated from her mother when she was a child). In addition, since
the summer of 2008 Yushchenko has repeatedly condemned as `treasonous'
Tymoshenko's cultivation of a pragmatic economic-energy relationship
with Russia that has brought her support from Western Europeans
anxious to avoid another gas crisis in January. Yushchenko has
appealed to Ukrainians to vote for a `Ukrainian premier' (meaning
himself) who will not, allegedly unlike Tymoshenko, sell Ukraine to
Russia by permitting the Black Sea Fleet to remain in Sevastopol
beyond 2017, which would require a constitutional amendment that no
president could undertake (Ukrayinska Pravda, January 3). Tymoshenko
would also allegedly transfer Ukraine's gas pipelines to Russia, an
accusation which contradicts Tymoshenko's mobilization of parliament
in February 2007 to vote for a law banning any transfer of the
pipelines from Ukrainian state control and her March 2009 agreement
with the EU to modernize the pipeline infrastructure without Russian
involvement.
Tymoshenko is also accused of being the `biggest threat to democracy'
in Ukraine, Yushchenko has claimed (Ukrayinska Pravda, December 24).
This accusation ignores the perilous state of Ukrainian democracy, as
shown by recent Western and Ukrainian surveys, which reveal that
Ukrainians associate democracy with `chaos' following years of
instability and elite in-fighting.
The `Coalition of Political Reconciliation and Development of Ukraine'
would propose Yushchenko as its candidate for prime minister. The
basis of this coalition remains unexplained, since Yushchenko controls
only 15 out of 72 Our Ukraine deputies.
Yushchenko has always wavered between supporting a grand coalition
with the Party of Regions or a `democratic' coalition with the
Tymoshenko bloc (BYuT). Following the March 2006 elections Yushchenko
sent the Prime Minister (and head of Our Ukraine) Yuriy Yekhanurov to
negotiate a grand coalition and Roman Besmertnyi to form a
`democratic' coalition. Following the dissolution of parliament in
April 2007, Yushchenko negotiated a compromise with the Party of
Regions to hold pre-term elections in September in exchange for a
grand coalition. During the 2007 election campaign Yushchenko
campaigned for a `democratic' coalition, which was established with
Tymoshenko as its candidate for prime minister in December 2007. Raisa
Bohatyriova, the head of the Party of Regions parliamentary faction,
was appointed as secretary of the National Security and Defense
Council (NRBO) who, together with the presidential secretariat head
Viktor Baloga, spent 2008 seeking to undermine the Tymoshenko
government in which Yushchenko had demanded that half the cabinet
posts go to Our Ukraine.
The agreement seeks a grand coalition through a Yanukovych presidency,
but will again fail for the same reasons that it has in the past.
Yushchenko will be unable to ensure that a parliamentary majority will
vote for him: Our Ukraine deputy Oleksandr Tretiakov said that
parliament would never vote for Yushchenko's candidacy (Ukrayinska
Pravda, December 15). Tymoshenko would therefore remain a
constitutionally powerful prime minister under President Yanukovych.
http://www.jamestown.org/single/?no_c ache=1&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=35871&tx_ttn ews%5BbackPid%5D=7&cHash=e9627f75db