Rada Fires Yekhanurov

Ukraine's parliament today voted to dismiss Defense Minister Yuriy Yekhanurov, a pro-Yushchenko figure, amid intense power struggle and allegations of corruption.

The firing of Yekhanurov comes on the eve of the expected birth of a new coalition, between the Party of Regions and Bloc of Yulia Tymoshenko, one that would be fiercely opposed to President Yushchenko.

The Coalition of Unity and Revival, as the two would-be coalition partners call it, plans to rewrite the Constitution and abolish direct presidential elections.

The vote breakdown:

PRU, 161
BYuT, 152
NUNS, 4
LyB, 19
CPU, 27

Sources:
http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2009/6/5/96047.htm

Parliament Sacks Ohryzko (Updated)

The Verkhovna Rada Tuesday fired Volodymyr Ohryzko, Ukraine’s foreign affairs minister, who had recently reprimanded Russian ambassador Viktor Chernomyrdin for meddling in Ukraine’s internal affairs.

The move gathered 250 votes: 174 from the Party of Regions, 27 from the Communist Party, and 49 from the increasingly pro-Russian BYuT.

“First, let them think and then talk, and not wag their tongues,” Ambassador Chernomyrdin was quoted as saying, reflecting on Ohryzko’s note of protest.

Tymoshenko resented Ohryzko’s direct reporting relationship with President Yushchenko. “As Minister, Ohryzko radically did not suit me. It's a person that is not professional, a person who systemically engaged in provocations against the government.”

To hell with political correctness! It's about time Tymoshenko appointed Сhernomyrdin Ukraine's foreign affairs minister!

Sources:
http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2009/3/3/90614.htm
http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2009/3/3/90620.htm
http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2009/3/3/90657.htm
http://www.ukranews.com/eng/article/181238.html
http://gska2.rada.gov.ua/pls/radac_gs09/gol_karta_zal3?g_id=5277

Tymoshenko Backtracks As Voters Flee in Panic

After her September fling with the Party of Regions shook her electoral base, the sweetness turned sour. The prodigal PM appears to have scurried back to the salt mines of Orange coalition-rebuilding, even if nothing gets rebuilt in the end.

Before flying off to Moscow yesterday to discuss gas supplies, she abandoned support for legislation that shook Yushchenko’s throne and made Russian a second official language for civil servants.

PM Yulia Tymoshenko: I just saw and I see…uh…here it says ‘spiraling into crisis,’ right? Here it is, with the portrait at the background, with the Premier’s interview at the background. I want to tell you, first of all, it’s an outright manipulation of your mind when the screen now says ‘spiraling into crisis.’ I’m just reading, there’s a display before my eyes. So I want to say that when the President…

Channel 5 host Svyatoslav Tseholko: That the crisis is spiraling into Ukraine, isn’t it true?
Yulia Tymoshenko: Not at all! Don’t push it. It’s absolutely not true.

Svyatoslav Tseholko: I can ask them to pull this subtitle.
Yulia Tymoshenko: Now you see how easy it is to put away the manipulation of people’s minds and scaremongering and certain psycho phenomena.

Svyatoslav Tseholko: The producers are telling me that they’ve changed the subtitle and put it this way:
Yulia Tymoshenko: ‘Ukrainian Renaissance,’ can you see that?
Svyatoslav Tseholko: With a question mark. Could this really be possible?

Yulia Tymoshenko: Well [giggles], it’s not every day that I can be in your studio changing subtitles. Only the chaos in politics is preventing the country from being remarkably successful.

Amen to that, my fair lady. Chaos is stabilnist without makeup.

Video uploaded from: http://censor.net.ua/go/offer/ResourceID/98041.html
Original source: http://5.ua

Tymo Thanks Paralymic Team for ‘Victory Over Russia’

She obviously doesn’t want to lose her western Ukrainian voters.

So she picks Ukraine’s Paralympic score — #4 in the world — and starts waving it in front of the Russian bear. At least, that’s how she wants to be perceived:

PM Yulia Tymoshenko: Ukraine was at her best, and the victory over Russia was also stellar. We thank you very much for your victory, guys!

Still, actions speak louder than words. BYuT recently co-sponsored a bill that requires civil servants to be proficient in Russian, thus cementing decades of Russification from which Ukraine has not yet fully recovered. Two BYuT dissenters, MPs Andriy Shevchenko and Yevhen Suslov, have made a motion to strike out the requirement.

Meanwhile, the Party of Regions has announced a temporary halt in its coalition talks with BYuT until former Orange coalition partners sort things out.

Video uploaded from: http://censor.net.ua/go/offer/ResourceID/96970.html
Original source: http://5.ua

Sources:
http://ua.proua.com/news/2008/09/25/125339.html
http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2008/9/25/81812.htm

The Birth of a PRU-BYuT Coalition, Sexually Speaking

Here’s a quote from a guy who couches the mechanics of coalition-building in obstetric and medieval terms.

MP Mykhailo Chechetov, PRU: There’s a…a fo-fo-folktale that if a woman is expecting, then, until she gives birth to a child, she doesn’t buy…she doesn’t even buy diapers, right? Once the child is born, only then does she start buying everything — not to spoil things. Here’s the same case: If we give birth to this healthy and good child — to the so-called “new coalition format” — then it will be possible to talk about how the negotiations went, write memoirs, and so on.

Are Chernomyrdin and Chechetov talking about the same woman?

Some pundits have already Christened the would-be coalition "ПРіБЮТ," which sounds like приб’ють (pry-byut’), meaning "they'll nail us."

Maybe we should buy those diapers right away, before the ПРіБЮТ lovechild is born?

Video uploaded from: http://censor.net.ua/go/offer/ResourceID/97108.html
(original source: http://inter.ua)

Tymoshenko, Yatsenyuk Trade Barbs, Ponder Plans

PM Yulia Tymoshenko: The government and I as Prime Minister — we do not belong to a herd of sheep where there’s a custom that if one sheep jumps off the cliff, the rest will jump off the cliff, too. We will not jump off the cliff and instead will maintain the country’s stabilnist at a very high level.

Acting Speaker Arseniy Yatsenyuk: I’m not a big scholar of zoology, but as far as I know, sheep don’t jump off the cliff. If they are going somewhere, they follow the paths that the herd uses to pass and bypass one cliff or another. There’s a good proverb: They say that the halo looks very good on the Devil’s horns. I think it’s a principle that Ukrainians don’t share. We should be honest and candid. If a decision was made regarding the coalition’s disbandment, we should carry this issue to its logical conclusion, perhaps form a new coalition and follow a new process, including cabinet appointments.

When Yatsenyuk stepped down as Speaker in the aftermath of the Orange coalition’s collapse, he hardly expected a chain reaction of resignations.

The last person to resign is Tymoshenko. Faced with a dilemma, she sticks to her guns, unsure what to do: (a) Jump in bed with the Party of Regions (aka “abduction by aliens”) and lose many voters, or (b) agree to a snap election and lose her PM job.

So there she is: the champion of stabilnist, the enemy of the herd mentality — all dressed up and nowhere to go.

Meanwhile, Yatsenyuk reportedly had talks with Akhmetov over plans to launch his own party. (If true, that makes Yatsenyuk a very “honest and candid” guy.)

If any of you angels does business with the Party of Regions, you can shove your stabilnist where the sun don’t shine.

Videos uploaded from:
http://censor.net.ua/go/offer/ResourceID/96616.html
(original source: http://ictv.ua)
http://censor.net.ua/go/offer/ResourceID/96961.html
(original source: http://inter.ua)