ANALYSIS: Poroshenko seeks Ukraine's next post-election prize (01/23/05)

ANALYSIS

Poroshenko seeks Ukraine's next post-election prize

by Jan Maksymiuk
RFE/RL Newsline

Ukrainian lawmaker and businessman Petro Poroshenko announced in early January on Channel 5 that he is prepared to accept the post of prime minister from Viktor Yushchenko, whom the Central Election Commission on January 10 declared the official winner of the December 26 presidential vote.

Mr. Poroshenko's public declaration of readiness to head Ukraine's new Cabinet followed similar signals from two other political allies of Mr. Yushchenko: Yulia Tymoshenko and Anatolii Kinakh. Ukrainian political observers mention two more potential candidates for the post of prime minister: Socialist Party leader Oleksander Moroz and Our Ukraine Party head Viktor Pynzenyk. Mr. Yushchenko might thus develop a headache over the number of hopefuls for the premiership now that he is back from his vacation in the Carpathian Mountains.

Just who is Petro Poroshenko? And why does he think he might be taken seriously by Mr. Yushchenko in the company of such political heavyweights as Ms. Tymoshenko and Mr. Moroz? Indeed, even Messrs. Kinakh and Pynzenyk are better known in the Ukrainian political arena than Mr. Poroshenko.

All of Mr. Poroshenko's would-be rivals for the post of prime minister have previous experience in senior government jobs: Mr. Moroz was Rada chairman in 1994-1998; Ms. Tymoshenko was vice prime minister in the Yushchenko Cabinet in 2000; Mr. Kinakh was prime minister in 2001-2002; and Mr. Pynzenyk served in the government as a minister and vice prime minister in 1992-1993 and 1994-1997.

As for Mr. Poroshenko, his most prestigious public post to date has been his leadership of the Parliament's Budget Committee, which he has headed since 2002.

To begin with, Mr. Poroshenko is the owner of the Channel 5 television station, which contributed mightily to the success of the Yushchenko-driven Orange Revolution in Ukraine. Channel 5 was the country's only TV channel sympathetic to Mr. Yushchenko's presidential bid throughout the 2004 election campaign and in the first week of the Orange Revolution that followed the discredited presidential run-off of November 21, 2004, that went to then-Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych.

It was only in the second week of protests by orange-clad Ukrainians on Independence Square in Kyiv that journalists on other television channels, both private and state-controlled, rebelled against official censorship and started to cover events in Ukraine in a more unbiased manner. Channel 5 spearheaded a major breakthrough in Ukraine's electronic media sector toward more pluralistic and balanced news coverage, which clearly benefited the opposition presidential candidate Mr. Yushchenko.

Notably, Mr. Poroshenko is also a wealthy businessman whose financial contribution to the Yushchenko presidential campaign - in addition to that from Ms. Tymoshenko - was surely hefty, although we will most likely never learn exactly who paid what in sponsoring Mr. Yushchenko's campaign. Mr. Poroshenko runs the Ukrprominvest concern, which includes five confectionery plants and a business that sells foreign-made automobiles and motorcycles, and also manufactures domestic motor vehicles and ships. Mr. Poroshenko is the largest confectionery manufacturer in Ukraine and has been dubbed the country's "Chocolate King." He once said that "more than $100 million" has been invested in Ukrprominvest.

Asked by Channel 5 to comment on Mr. Yushchenko's requirement that the next prime minister not have business connections, Mr. Poroshenko said he has no business interests "from a formal point of view." Some Ukrainian media have reported that a significant portion of Ukrprominvest assets legally belong to Mr. Poroshenko's father, Oleksii Poroshenko, who is now general director of Ukrprominvest.

Petro Poroshenko was born on September 26, 1965, in the city of Bolhrad, Odesa Oblast, near the Ukrainian-Moldovan border and near the Danube Delta. He debuted in national politics in March 1998, when he was elected to the Verkhovna Rada from a first-past-the-post constituency in Vinnytsia Oblast. At the time, Mr. Poroshenko was a member of the Social Democratic Party-United (SDPU) led by Viktor Medvedchuk and was a member of its political bureau.

In 2000 Mr. Poroshenko quit the SDPU to form his own parliamentary caucus, called Solidarity, and a political party called the Party of Solidarity of Ukraine. By the end of 2000, his party had joined the Party of Regions of Ukraine (now headed by Mr. Yanukovych), of which he became a co-chairman.

In 2001, Mr. Poroshenko left the Party of Regions, recast his former party into the Solidarity Party and joined Mr. Yushchenko's Our Ukraine election bloc. Mr. Poroshenko become manager of the Our Ukraine parliamentary campaign staff in 2002 and, after his election to the Verkhovna Rada in March 2002, became head of the Budget Committee.

Mr. Poroshenko, who was deputy manager of Mr. Yushchenko's landmark presidential campaign in 2004, is generally described as a highly influential person in the Mr. Yushchenko entourage. He is also regarded as a moderate, particularly in comparison with radical populist Ms. Tymoshenko. Although Mr. Poroshenko has kept a low political profile so far, his maneuverings in party politics and the Verkhovna Rada have demonstrated that, if nothing else, he is capable of forging political alliances with oligarchic groups - a talent that no doubt boosts his stock as a potential prime minister.

Mr. Poroshenko's constructive political relations with Rada Chairman Volodymyr Lytvyn are another advantage, especially as Lytvyn's 30-strong National Agrarian Party caucus is tapped to join a pro-Yushchenko coalition in Parliament; Mr. Lytvyn, whose political stature has risen markedly during the 2004 election standoff, is expected to guarantee the stability of the pro-Yushchenko parliamentary coalition in the first year of his presidency.

Mr. Poroshenko's strong business ties arguably represent his most serious shortcoming as a candidate for the top Cabinet post, regardless of his freedom from the "formal point of view." Too many businessmen in Ukraine appear to perceive the Yushchenko victory as an opportunity for revenge against the oligarchs who supported the Kuchma-Yanukovych regime and for a "redivision" of the spheres of economic influence under the new regime. Would Mr. Poroshenko be similarly tempted to mete out "economic justice" and promote his "wronged" associates to the posts and benefits they were denied during the era of President Leonid Kuchma?

In other words, Mr. Yushchenko must think long and hard before any possible decision to nominate Mr. Poroshenko to the prime minister's post. Mr. Yushchenko needs not a war with Ukrainian oligarchs, but rather their cooperation, primarily in replenishing the state budget.

Mr. Poroshenko told an interviewer in mid-2004 that it is entirely possible for the Ukrainian budget to post annual revenues of 100 billion hrv ($19 billion) by reclaiming some of the money circulating in the country's shadow economy. (Budget revenues for 2005 are expected to total 86.5 billion hrv.) To make that happen, the government arguably needs to cajole the old oligarchs out of the shadow economy and into the light, rather than to replace them with new, formerly "wronged" substitutes.

Jan Maksymiuk is the Belarus and Ukraine specialist on the staff of RFE/RL Newsline.

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