Tarasyuk sacked, then unsacked, as battle rages over foreign minister (12/10/06)

Tarasyuk sacked, then unsacked, as battle rages over foreign minister

by Zenon Zawada
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - A political war has erupted within Ukraine's bipolar government after the pro-Russian coalition forces led by Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych attempted to sack the Western-oriented minister of foreign affairs, Borys Tarasyuk.

The Verkhovna Rada voted for Mr. Tarasyuk's dismissal on December 1 after he submitted a letter to the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine canceling Mr. Yanukovych's U. S. visit because the prime minister had failed to submit a list of directives for his five-day trip.

"A minister who is in opposition to the government can't work in the government, first of all," Mr. Yanukovych said after Mr. Tarasyuk's dismissal. "A minister who doesn't coordinate his activities with the prime minister and Cabinet of Ministers, and creates problems in international relations can't work in the Cabinet."

The battle over the post of foreign affairs minister marked a new degree of aggression in the Party of the Regions' campaign of seizing power in Ukrainian government, crossing into territory that is the president's domain - namely, foreign and defense policy.

What was once deemed a "cold war" in the bipolar government, with the pro-Western Presidential Secretariat on one end and the pro-Russian coalition government led by Mr. Yanukovych on the other, is now a wide-open conflict that is likely to get worse, political experts said.

On December 5 a Kyiv district court reinstated Mr. Tarasyuk to his post, ruling that the Parliament's vote violated Ukraine's Constitution and parliamentary regimen.

President Viktor Yushchenko reaffirmed the ruling by issuing a presidential order reinstating Mr. Tarasyuk as foreign minister.

The next day, the Cabinet of Ministers led by First Vice Prime Minister Mykola Azarov, denied Mr. Tarasyuk entry to their morning meeting.

Instead, Mr. Tarasyiuk paced the halls of the Cabinet of Ministers trying to reach the Secretariat with his cell phone, with little success. Mr. Tarasyuk said he would submit the matter for Ukraine's procurator general to review.

Mr. Tarasyuk's letter to U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine William Taylor was an attempt to pre-empt Mr. Yanukovych from once again subverting Ukraine's pro-Western foreign policy as established by the president and the foreign affairs minister.

During his September visit to Brussels, Prime Minister Yanukovych surprised Messrs. Yushchenko and Tarasyuk by announcing that his government had postponed plans to enter NATO, directly conflicting with the Presidential Secretariat's foreign policy goals.

Mr. Yushchenko had hoped Ukraine would sign a Membership Action Plan at NATO's November summit in Riga, Latvia.

Leading up to the U.S. visit, Mr. Tarasyuk wanted Mr. Yanukovych to submit a list of directives to prevent a repeat of Brussels and to ensure the prime minister wouldn't stray from the president's established foreign policy goals.

The Cabinet of Ministers received the directives request from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs only days before the visit was to begin, Vice Prime Minister for Fuel and Energy Andrii Kliuiev said in defense of his boss.

By the next day, Mr. Tarasyuk had already fired off his cancellation memo to the U.S. Embassy, he said.

The decision to deal directly with the U.S. Embassy, rather than consulting with Mr. Yanukovych first, was the straw that broke the camel's back, Mr. Kliuiev said.

"I don't know why there was such a hurry," Mr. Kliuiev told the Parliament on December 1. "In the opinion of all, literally all, the Cabinet ministers, this was specifically done to ruin the prime minister's visit."

It was only a matter of time before the Party of the Regions began targeting Mr. Tarasyuk, said Ivan Lozowy, president of the Kyiv-based Institute of Statehood and Democracy, which is exclusively financed by Ukrainian business donations.

The letter to the U.S. Embassy was an ideal pretext to try and sack Mr. Tarasyuk because he had been interfering with the Party of the Regions' attempts to sway Ukrainian foreign policy in the Russian Federation's direction, he said.

Mr. Yanukovych and the Party of the Regions are particularly interested in forging profitable business deals with Russia - even those that involve selling Ukraine's assets to Russian businessmen and thereby betraying national interests, Mr. Lozowy said.

"In return, the Party of the Regions gets money and concessions for business in Russia," he said. "That's what the Donetsk clan is interested in. And the last thing the Yanukovych government needs is to have a foreign minister keeping Russia at bay and criticizing them when they go too far."

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is one of Mr. Yushchenko's last strongholds in the Ukrainian government, after three of four Our Ukraine ministers resigned from the Cabinet in October.

Minister of Health Yurii Poliachenko chose to remain in the coalition government, indicating he was abandoning the Our Ukraine bloc.

Our Ukraine national deputies accused the Party of the Regions of engaging in a campaign of usurping the Ukrainian government.

The accusation didn't irk Mr. Yanukovych all that much. In fact, he agreed.

"We are going to instill order in the nation, no matter what they call that process," Mr. Yanukovych said. "If it's 'usurpation,' then let it be 'usurpation.' You can hold us back, but to what benefit? I wouldn't advise that, neither to politicians nor the president."

The conflict over the minister of foreign affairs is also a result of the new presidential-parliamentary structure of the Ukrainian government that went into effect on January 1.

During the tense negotiations during the Orange Revolution, Mr. Yushchenko and the Orange forces agreed to cede many presidential powers and appointments to the prime minister.

The Ukrainian president was able to retain the appointment of the foreign affairs minister, the defense minister, the chief of the Security Service of Ukraine, the chair of the National Security and Defense Council and the country's oblast administration chairs, commonly referred to as oblast governors.

By infringing on the president's authority, the coalition government demonstrated it doesn't understand how democracy works, and only understands governing on authoritarian terms, said Yurii Kostenko, leader of the Ukrainian People's Party.

He joined the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc in calling on the president to dismiss the government and hold pre-term elections.

"(Coalition government forces) can't understand that they are supposed to act only within its own purview and that democracy is the division of authority and responsibility between branches of government authority," Mr. Kostenko said.

The bipolar government is likely to continue battling over the foreign ministry post until the Constitutional Court finally makes a ruling, Mr. Lozowy said.

However, it will get worse for the Yushchenko camp, he said. The Party of the Regions will attempt to push as many pro-Western leaders out of government as possible, including President Yushchenko himself, he said.

When asked by The Weekly whether he thought the Universal of National Unity with the Party of the Regions was a mistake, Mr. Tarasyuk responded, "no."

"When the Supreme Council was almost four months in crisis, and the activity of the legislative branch was paralyzed, the president made the only right choice," he explained.

"He invited all political forces represented in the Verkhovna Rada to a roundtable with the goal of overcoming the crisis. Unfortunately, this logical and correct attempt of the president was used like a throw by his opponents. It was used to satisfy their interests, and then they began ignoring the Universal of National Unity Declaration."

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