She did it to Ohrzyko. Who’s next?
PM Tymoshenko: March is the deadline I set during which I will skin every minister alive, make no mistake. I don’t care what political powers you came from to the government. I don’t care what difficulties you have in connection with the crisis. The first thing I will do, in case of wage delays, is the entire ministry will go without pay. If that doesn’t help, then a letter will be forwarded to the Verkhovna Rada advising that the minister be dismissed.
Strangely, BYuT voted overwhelmingly Friday to confirm Valentyn Nalyvaichenko as SBU director, despite the Naftogaz standoff.
I wonder what tradeoffs the vote involved and whether it had something to do with Tymoshenko allegedly requesting 4.5 bcm of “technological gas” from the EU.
UPDATE
Enjoy the letters:
Didn't she reassure us that the deal she had signed with Russia would supply Ukraine with enough technological gas to facilitate gas transit to the EU?
Video uploaded from: http://censor.net.ua/go/offer/ResourceID/115177.html
Original source: http://5.ua
Sources:
http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2009/3/6/90915.htm
http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2009/3/6/90907.htm
http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2009/3/17/91497.htm
8 comments:
Taras - you're going to have to explain why Nalyvaichenko's appointment was unusual or somehow suspect - would you mind?
Skinning ministers - well, I thought this was the 21st century, and things like that were no longer done.
Like the foreign affairs minister, the SBU director reports directly to Yushchenko.
For BYuT to confirm Nalyvaichenko, there had to be certain inducements.
In Ukraine, the 21st century gets stuck in a time warp of corruption. That’s why some of those ministers/officials/judges etc do actually deserve to be skinned, literally.
It’s just that Tymoshenko skins them verbally, not literally.
For real corruption fight to start, the leather for her Louis Vuitton handbags should start coming from Ukraine.
This would improve Ukraine’s investment outlook, create jobs, and boost the economy.
Let me see if I can take a stab at this, Taras.
As you can see, it's not my original thought, but it makes sense.
Nalyvaichenko is not from BYuT.
As you said, the prez does indeed control SBU, where Khoroshkovsky, fearless protector of Firtash and RosUkrEnergo, and instigator of a Gesptapo/KGB raid on Naftohaz, is deputy minister.
If Tymo and BYuT failed to support Nalyvaichenko for minister, the fear was that Khorovhskovsky would have been elevated to Minister, with the support of the Party of Regions, where Khoroshkovsky is a member.
And the Khoroshkovsky would unleash further raids and havoc throughout the country of Firtashiya.
http://zik.com.ua/en/news/2009/03/08/172411
Thus is the way of Byzantine politics in Firtashiya.
There is no moving from A to B in Firtashiya.
And there is no government in Ukraine.
It's just a collection of oligarchs fighting for spoils.
And there are some other people that stand on the sidelines and try to stay out of the way.
As someone said in a comment on Ukrainian Pravda, there are 2 countries in Ukraine, both of which happen to be on the same territory.
And I will add - but neither one of them has a government.
All hail Firtashiya!
Slava Firtashiyi!
OK, Taras, let me take yet another stab at it - except this time, it's from the Eurasia Daily Monitor, and it's even more bizarre.
Ukrainian government is not a government - it's a collection of psycho schizophrenics. It's an insane asylum, without any guards or doctors or nurses or medications, whatsoever.
http://www.jamestown.org/programs/edm/single/?tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=34688&tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=27&cHash=b8e36c09d4
Excerpt:
This was a surprise vote decided by the BYT, which changed its mind overnight after threatening to reject Nalyvaychenko. He had been rejected by parliament several times in the past; but since Yushchenko was adamant, Nalyvaychenko headed the SBU as acting chief since December 2006 when parliament approved the dismissal of his predecessor, Ihor Drizhchany. It was probably Nalyvaychenko's unclear status that made him especially loyal to Yushchenko who could have dismissed him as acting chief of the SBU at any time, without consulting either Tymoshenko or parliament.
Unlike his predecessor Leonid Kuchma, who had all the law-enforcement agencies under his control, Yushchenko, weakened by the constitutional reform of 2004-2006, can rely only on the SBU. The police are supervised by Tymoshenko's ally Interior Minister Yury Lutsenko, while Prosecutor General Oleksandr Medvedko and especially his deputies gravitate toward the Party of Regions. In addition, the Supreme Court is chaired by Vasyl Onopenko, another Tymoshenko ally.
By legitimizing Nalyvaychenko's status, Tymoshenko should make him more institutionally independent from Yushchenko. It is interesting that Yushchenko withdrew Nalyvaychenko's nomination on January 18 after submitting it to parliament on January 16 (UNIAN, March 5). First Deputy Prime Minister Oleksandr Turchynov, who is Tymoshenko's right-hand man, opined that Yushchenko had recalled the nomination "in order to have a powerless person and not to have an officially appointed head of the SBU, as the SBU head should be appointed and dismissed by parliament" (Ukrainska Pravda, March 4).
Yushchenko submitted Nalyvaychenko's nomination again on March 5, a day after the SBU had stormed the premises of the Naftohaz Ukrainy national oil and gas company and arrested customs official Taras Shepitko for giving Naftohaz customs clearing for gas that had earlier belonged to RosUkrEnergo. Tymoshenko protested against the arrest and the search, which she alleged were organized to defend the interests of RosUkrEnergo's co-owner Dmytro Firtash (Interfax-Ukraine, March 4; see EDM, March 6). Russia's Gazprom, which owns 50 percent of RosUkrEnergo's shares, authorized Naftohaz to take that gas from underground storage facilities in lieu of payment for gas transit in 2009, according to Tymoshenko. Firtash, however, insists that the gas belongs to RosUkrEnergo and is destined for consumers in the European Union. President Yushchenko backed the SBU's actions.
Thank you for the updates, Elmer!
I suggest we call it Yushitymoyanukstan!
I think the second letter was an appeal to the EU to analyze the gas contracts entered into by Ukraine, in order to counter the accusations by Yushchenko that her (Tymoshenko's) conduct was "criminal" and that the contracts entered into with Russia were "criminal."
In other words, in typical "Ukrainian third way" fashion, she wanted to bring in a third party into the middle of a fight between herself and Yuschhenko.
I forget whom Yushchenko wanted to bring into the fight.
If we proceed from Tymoshenko's earlier assertion that Ukraine has all the technological gas it needs, then this letter is not worth the paper it's written on.
The first letter is indeed rather odd, as Ukraine, through its Prime Minister, places a - demand - for certain volumes of gas from the EU.
"Demand" is a rather strong term to use when one is making a request to another party. It smacks of so-called "demand letters" that assorted collection agencies use to demand that a debt be paid.
The letter also calls for some sort of monitoring arrangements.
The second letter trumpets "how well the meeting went."
The EU decided, wisely, not to get into the middle of the fight between Yushchenko and Tymoshenko.
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