2005: THE YEAR IN REVIEW

Ukraine's Cabinet: out with the new

It started when Mikhail Brodsky, a political ally of Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, declared on September 2 that "there is nothing but corruption around Yushchenko." Three days later, Oleksander Zinchenko, the president's chief of staff, called a press conference in which he accused President Viktor Yushchenko's closest advisors of using their positions of power to advance their business interests. Mr. Zinchenko also announced he was resigning.

He was directly confronted by one of those he accused, Petro Poroshenko, who denied any wrongdoing.

In the early morning of September 8, Vice Prime Minister for Humanitarian Affairs Mykola Tomenko supported Mr. Zinchenko's accusations of corruption and said he, too, was resigning.

That was the straw that broke the camel's back for the Ukrainian president.

Just four hours later, he went on national television and stunned the world by announcing he was firing his prime minister, the Cabinet of Ministers and top government officials - all former allies who played critical roles during the Orange Revolution.

The press conferences and accusations by Messrs. Brodsky, Zinchenko and Tomenko that arrived in increments were all part of a script in which the Tymoshenko team braced itself for a schism that would divide the Orange Revolution's ranks.

The accusers fingered several or all of the same players in the Yushchenko team: Mr. Poroshenko, senior presidential aide Oleksander Tretiakov and Our Ukraine parliamentary faction leader Mykola Martynenko.

"A small group of political opportunists is trying to use the efforts of hundreds of patriots of Ukraine for the private interests," Mr. Zinchenko said. "They are exercising their power in order to privatize and lay hands on everything possible."

Mr. Zinchenko's accusations provoked a crisis in the government, which Mr. Yushchenko spent three days trying to resolve, said his press secretary, Iryna Heraschenko. A deal had been reached in which Mr. Poroshenko and several other officials would voluntarily resign, she said. However, Mr. Tomenko's press conference forced Mr. Yushchenko into his decision to dismiss the entire government, she added.

Mr. Poroshenko voluntarily resigned his post shortly after Mr. Tomenko in order not to obstruct an official investigation into the corruption charges leveled by Mr. Zinchenko.

Following the Cabinet's dismissal, Ms. Tymoshenko's close ally, Oleksander Turchynov, the chair of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), announced he was resigning because he believed the president's decision threatened national security.

Two separate governments had existed and clashed under the Yushchenko administration, Mr. Tomenko said. Mr. Poroshenko led the oligarchic interests, while Ms. Tymoshenko represented the lawful political interests, he said. He criticized President Yushchenko for a lack of communication in his government. Any attempt to communicate with the president had to meet the approval of Mr. Tretiakov, he said.

Foreign Affairs Minister Borys Tarasyuk supported that claim, stating he wasn't able to communicate with Mr. Yushchenko for three months due to Mr. Tretiakov's interference.

During his press conference announcing the dismissals, Mr. Yushchenko said he never again wanted to repeat the three days he spent trying to keep the Cabinet together. Throughout the months of Cabinet conflicts, Mr. Yushchenko said he felt as if he were a "baby sitter" - a position he felt a president shouldn't have to be in.

Explaining his decision, Mr. Yushchenko said he noticed his ministers didn't trust each other and were making side agreements that led to scandals, the latest of which involved the Nikopol Ferroalloy Plant.

Thus began Mr. Yushchenko's attacks against Ms. Tymoshenko that he repeated often and relentlessly.

In the plant's re-privatization, Mr. Yushchenko accused Ms. Tymoshenko of favoring the Pryvat business partnership led by Ihor Kolomoyskyi over other competitors. He likened it to taking a plant from one gang, led by Viktor Pinchuk, and giving it to another, led by Mr. Kolomoyskyi.

The next evening Ms. Tymoshenko appeared on national television declaring that her Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc would go into the March 2006 parliamentary elections on its own. She said she didn't want to join with Mr. Yushchenko's Our Ukraine bloc because of the corruption the president's entourage is mired in.

"It does not mean we are at war," she said on September 9. "But we have two different teams, two very different sets of people. I will not go to the elections together with the people who have so discredited Ukraine."

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, January 15, 2006, No. 3, Vol. LXXIV

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