UKRAINE
Yulia Tymoshenko – How Long?

Yulia Tymoshenko

With a Prime Minister with the least possible majority (226 of 450 votes), a president, who doesn’t trust her, a coalition partner whose unanimous support is not guaranteed, an opposition that will stop at nothing, including buying votes and using physical violence as an act against the decisions of the government – how long can one stand these conditions? This is the question occupying the minds of the Ukrainian people even more than the approaching government policy.

The unspoken truth is that State President Yushchenko is not fond of the Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and would prefer a wider coalition taking into account the more Russian speaking Party of the Region, led by the previous Prime Minister Yanukovych. This is also the opinion of some of the MPs from Yushchenko’s Union „Our Ukraine“ (NU), the coalition partner of Yulia Tymoshenko´s block (BJuT).

Additional insecurity was brought on when Tymoshenko was elected in the third round, using a hand raising method. This came about possibly due to manipulation of the electronic election system during the first round, in any case there was no clear majority. Day to day activities of the parliament will show whether this government will work in future or face a collapse. Moreover, the future of this government will be highly dependent on the current 20 MP's who are a fraction of the former Head of the Parliament Lytvyn, who denied being a part of the opposition, not having voted for Tymoshenko or the new cabinet.

Tymoshenko's first day in office

An essential weak point of the coalition could be Yulia Tymoshenko’s stubbornness. In September 2005, when she dismissed Yushchenko, she confused investors with her ad hoc decisions about the abolition of privileged economic zones and public announcements about investigation of more than 1000 privatization processes. There were also interventions such as the regulation of the energy prices, which resulted in a sudden lack of oil.

It would be important for Tymoshenko to cut down her preferences for interventions of the state and populist one-off payments; otherwise she will be met with strong opposition from some of the NU-MPs. At least, the liberal financial minister Viktor Pynzenyk comes from her own ranks. Pynzenyk has already held this office in the first two „orange” governments from January 2005 until August 2006. In the meantime, he led his small economic liberal party „Reform and Order” into the BJuT-coalition list. Because of the surprisingly good BJuT-results (over 30 percent, 156 MPs) the party won 10 mandates, which is much more than the slowly dying „Reform and Order” had expected. Now Pynzenyk has the controversial task of preparing a plan for the repayment of the private savings account of 130 billions of Soviet rubles that were lost in the last years before the independence. This is a typical example of Tymoshenko’s election promise. According to many experts even part of the payments, that in any case could not satisfy the people that lost their savings, will be a big burden for the state budget.

Another very important question that Pynzenyk has to answer is connected to the revision of the new 2008 year budget: How high should the social expenses be if the expected inflation is going to be about 16 percent?

The relations with Russia: Fond words or discretion?

Tymoshenko with supporters

Yulia Tymoshenko’s renowned fondness for the West, her sympathy for EU and NATO are curious in the way how she plans on building the relation with her big and unfriendly neighbor and energy supplier- Russia. In her first speech after the election she promised to crush obscure business structures with purchasing of Russian gas. Tymoshenko, in contrast to the new Head of the Parliament and former Minister of Foreign Affairs Yatsenyuk, seems to prefer fond words towards Russia.

The new Minister of Foreign Affairs (the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Minister of Defense are nominated by the president), the ambassador and former vice minister Ochryzko, was rejected by the previous Parliament in the last year, because he could not be accepted by Russia. Instead of him the 33 years old Yatsenyuk was elected. With his determined, but discrete manner, despite of his pro-western orientation, he could also win the respect of the Yanukovych -government and his Russian colleague Sergej Lawrow.