NEWS ANALYSIS: The first 100 days of the Yushchenko administration (05/15/05)

NEWS ANALYSIS: The first 100 days of the Yushchenko administration

by Roman Kupchinsky
RFE/RL Belarus and Ukraine Report

Despite lingering hopes by some Russian politicians to see him fail and the ever-increasing shrillness of a badly decimated opposition, the government of Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko is surviving and going about the business of governing. The Yushchenko-Tymoshenko team celebrated its first 100 days in office on May 3 and by tradition deserves a report card.

The new government of Ukraine came to power on the momentum generated by the Orange Revolution, which, in turn, was powered by Mr. Yushchenko's repeated pledges to clean up corruption in Ukraine. This long-overdue housecleaning has been the overriding feature of the first 100 days in office of Yushchenko and his prime minister, Yulia Tymoshenko, who has personally taken the lead in this respect.

The newly appointed heads of the "power ministries" - the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), the Internal Affairs Ministry and the Procurator General's Office - have all been working overtime investigating hundreds of officials of the former regime of President Leonid Kuchma. Criminal charges have been filed against a small number of them thus far, the most visible case being that of Borys Kolesnykov, head of the Donetsk Oblast Council, who is in prison awaiting trial on charges of extortion. And, despite the opposition's claims that Mr. Kolesnykov is the victim of political revenge for his support of Viktor Yanukovych during last year's election, few view this defense seriously and most agree with the government that he was involved in a criminal act.

The Kolesnykov case, along with a court decision that the privatization of the giant Kryvorizhstal enterprise in 2004 was illegal, has created the impression that the Yushchenko government has taken on the Donetsk clan as its first target in the anti-corruption struggle. The fact that the two men who most benefited from the Kryvorizhstal privatization - Viktor Pinchuk (Mr. Kuchma's son-in-law) and Rynat Akhmetov (the generally acknowledged leader of the Donetsk clan) - are being targeted is proof for many that Mr. Yushchenko and Ms. Tymoshenko have set their priorities on reforming and cleaning up the Donbas while punishing the Kuchma clan for past crimes.

The Yushchenko government is widely expected by its supporters to arrest and try former President Kuchma on charges relating to the slaying of journalist Heorhii Gongadze. In its first 100 days in office, the new government has arrested two suspects, both high-level Internal Affairs Ministry officers, who have confessed to killing Gongadze. A third suspect, Internal Affairs Ministry Gen. Oleksiy Pukach, has an arrest warrant out for him and is believed by some to be hiding in Israel.

The only remaining hang-up in the case seems to be a controversy over recordings made by Mykola Melnychenko, whose erratic behavior and refusal to hand over the original recordings he purportedly secretly made in President Kuchma's office are holding up the prosecution, according to an interview with Procurator General Sviatoslav Piskun in Ukrainska Pravda on April 24.

Mr. Kuchma is also believed to be closely linked to large-scale fraud and embezzlement allegedly conducted by his property office chief, Ihor Bakai. Mr. Bakai, who is in hiding in Russia, is being sought by Ukrainian law-enforcement officials who want to question him about a number of suspect deals he authorized in 2004 involving tens of millions of dollars.

The first 100 days have also demonstrated that the government led by Prime Minister Tymoshenko is plagued by personal conflicts and squabbles. The most visible conflict is between Ms. Tymoshenko and Petro Poroshenko, the secretary of the National Security and Defense Council. It has long been known that Mr. Poroshenko wanted to become prime minister and that President Yushchenko's choice of Ms. Tymoshenko was influenced by pressure from those who saw her as an uncompromising figure who would combat corruption, while Mr. Poroshenko, a rich businessman, was seen as being less dedicated to fighting corruption. The conflict also involves unclear lines of responsibility between the Cabinet and the National Security and Defense Council, and has the makings of a turf fight.

One scandal reported by RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service that has generated bad publicity concerns Justice Minister Roman Zvarych. Mr. Zvarych, who renounced his U.S. citizenship in 1993 to become a Ukrainian subject, threatened to resign if the Cabinet passed a regulation forbidding the resale of oil from Ukraine. Soon it became known that Mr. Zvarych's wife was employed by an oil company that was exporting oil. The Cabinet did not pass the regulation and Mr. Zvarych remained in the government.

Soon afterwards the Ukrainska Pravda website conducted an investigation which it claimed showed that Mr. Zvarych had lied about graduating from Columbia University. Mr. Zvarych maintained that he did graduate from Columbia. Ukrainska Pravda then published a document from the registrar's office of the university stating that he did not.

Ms. Tymoshenko took a sanguine view of the matter and in an interview for the newspaper Dzerkalo Tyzhnia stated that Mr. Zvarych rarely attends Cabinet meetings and that his presence is rarely missed.

President Yushchenko himself has concentrated on foreign affairs during his first 100 days in office. His visit to the United States was considered a glowing success, considering that while he was addressing Congress, Ukrainian troops were being pulled out of Iraq.

Russian President Vladimir Putin's visit to Kyiv in March, although not regarded as a major step in Ukrainian-Russian reconciliation after Mr. Putin's blatant support for Viktor Yanukovych during the election campaign, nonetheless helped to ease tensions.

Mr. Yushchenko's trip to Ashgabat in March to discuss natural-gas deliveries and his reported success in convincing Turkmen President Saparmurat Niyazov to sign a long-term gas supply agreement with Ukraine can also be viewed as a positive achievement.

Mr. Yushchenko's goal of NATO membership for Ukraine advanced during the alliance's meeting in Lithuania in April, where the door was opened for Ukraine's eventual membership.

When taking into consideration that in Ukraine there is no transition period for a new government to familiarize itself with the workload of its predecessor, an oversight that can lead to a chaotic beginning for any government, the Yushchenko-Tymoshenko team has not fared poorly.

The first 100 days saw a certain amount of hurried and contradictory statements by new ministers and one, in particular Prime Minister for Humanitarian Affairs Mykola Tomenko, has been criticized in the press for being too vocal about matters that do not concern his portfolio. Despite this, the overall performance of the new government has to be seen as more than satisfactory and earns at least a "B" if not higher.

President Yushchenko earns an "A-," which could have been an "A+" were it not for his old habit of promising more than he is prepared to deliver at times.

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