Tymoshenko Campaign Kicks Off (Officially) With Rally in Kyiv

Thousands of people, but not as many hopes.

That’s how I’d compare fall 2004 Yushchenko rallies to fall 2009 Tymoshenko ones, which seek to mobilize the same electorate.










North Donbas for Yulya!

Her “They’re talking. She’s working. She’s Ukraine!” campaign boils down to one real selling point: “They’re worse.” (And she often fails to prove it.)

Her real selling point doesn’t imitate Yushchenko’s 2004 slogans: “The rich will help the poor!” and “The bandits will be sitting in jail!” (Hahaha!) Nor does it emulate her party’s 2006 and 2007 slogans: “Justice does exist. It’s worth the fight!” and “She did it back then. She’ll do it again!” (Really?)

To counter these voter doubts, she armed herself with a panoply of endorsers and performers. On Saturday, they royally descended on Maidan, the heart of Orange Revolution.

Coming from all walks of life that lead to Tymoshenko, dignitary after dignitary waxed eloquent and lavished accolades on their president of choice. A cornucopia of promises, memories and sales pitches flooded a Maidanful of people, many of whom had traveled to Kyiv as party delegates by bus or train from all over Ukraine.

(Tymoshenko’s main rival had unleashed his yanucopia on Friday, delivering a just-name-it-and-claim-it stump speech at a Party of Regions convention. One can compare Yushchenko’s and Tymoshenko’s 2004 and 2009 open-air stump speeches to Yanukovych’s 2004 and 2009 members-only ones.)





Yulya Will Win!




Endorser: Oleksandr Ponomayov


Mariupol
Ukraine Will Win






Endorser: former foreign affairs minister Borys Tarasyuk


Ukraine Will Win!


Tymoshenko collected two endorsements from the European People’s Party (EPP): from Wilfried Martens and Antonio Lopez-Isturiz.








Endorser: Ruslana



Endorser: Borys Paton, 91, chairman of the National Academy of Sciences

The funniest one came from our former president Leonid Kravchuk — an ardent endorser of Yanukovych in 2004! For some reason, Tymoshenko decided that the man who had pissed away our nuclear arsenal, presided over hyperinflation and endorsed Yanukovych would be an asset to her campaign.




Endorser: former president Leonid Kravchuk

Finally, the Queen of the Night steals the show, in a vyshyvanka coat. Her speech, emotionally charged and long-winded, electrifies but a few souls.

At the opening, she credits herself with the blessings of Pope Benedict XVI and the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem. A prayer, sung by Nina Matviyenko, follows.



After praying, Tymoshenko pays tribute to Ukraine’s heroes, thanks her team, recalls the Orange Revolution and calls for unity.



Then, she blasts Yushchenko and his hobbies. Later, she blasts Yanukovych and his oligarchs. She blames obstruction and corruption. She blasts and blames this and that. She forgets about her aborted grand coalition plans. She sidesteps her Draconian gas deal with Russia. She keeps mum on the Pedogate scandal. She pretends there’s no corruption in her own camp.

What struck me as novel amid these otherwise routine rhetorical escapades was her likening disenchanted voters to special needs people who still can win. Like Olena Yurkovska, the Ukrainian Paralympic biathlon champion who won four gold medals in Turin in 2006. What a nice analogy and pep talk! Coach Tymoshenko dissociates herself from her job, associates me with her failures and inspires me to push the envelope. (And push yet another ballot down her ballot box!)

It’s like saying, “Yeah, I screwed up. I didn’t deliver. But it’s all your fault anyway so shut up and take courage! Your disenchantment cripples you. Just vote for me one more time and you’ll be all you can be!”

She launches into an us-against-them diatribe and proceeds with a massive deja-vu stereotype-busting attack: Don’t think that all politicians are alike. They're not. She’s not like them! She’s moral and can be trusted!

To inject the masses with her “She’s Ukraine!” slogan, she levels with them:

• Small business owners — fed up with red tape and bribery (while running her own small business in Dnipropetrovsk, she had to deal with bureaucracy and extortion);
• Homebuyers — hard-hit by dollar-denominated mortgage loans (she hates the exchange rate);
• Students — suffering from joblessness and homelessness (born and bred in a khrushchyovka, she knows how it feels; while a student, she jockeyed tires “twice my height” at night and, if elected, will make housing affordable, at low interest rates.)

What did I miss? Oh, yeah, she also talked about how she:

• Handed out those Hr. 1,000 worth of Soviet savings to 6.5 million people;
• Reined in the energy and payments crises as vice premier in 2000-2001 crisis;
• Ended up in jail for upsetting Kuchma’s cronies;
• Kicked RosUkrEnergo’s and Vanco’s asses;
• Boosted coal reserves;
• Doesn’t care about approval ratings;
• Cares about stabilnist only;
• Loves the Ukrainian language;
• Will feed the world with Ukrainian agriculture;
• Will make Ukraine the most energy-efficient country in the world by relying on coal;
• Will make Ukraine a full-cycle nuclear fuel state (no kidding, Uncle Sam!)
• Will offer 10-year tax breaks to renewable energy producers;
• Will restore justice;
• Will build a Europe within Ukraine and maintain friendly relations with neighbors;
• Will protect Ukraine’s national interests;
• Will deliver everything she promised;
• Expects winning the respect of future generations;
• Has a dream like Martin Luther King’s;

And guess what? Her dream is to make other peoples’ dreams come true. (With other people’s money?)

She misspoke on the energy issue: “And everyone should know that if we burn coal instead of gas, we’ll triple the cost of heating and hot water for the people.”

She also burnished her idea of “dictatorship,” couching it in Putin’s “dictatorship of law” terminology.

Censor.net.ua offers a full Channel 5 video of her stump speech.

PM Yulia Tymoshenko [final words]: And that’s why this election is a struggle for our Ukraine’ preservation, and not a struggle between politicians. And I know that it is Ukraine that will win this presidential election and it is she that will gain what she’s been waiting for for hundreds of years. And we all will be serving this right and truthful cause. And that’s why I want God to be with Ukraine. I want God to be with every one of you. And that’s precisely why, with great pride, I say: Glory to Ukraine!

I didn’t stay for the concert. I went home, along with throngs of other rally-goers. While not depressed, we were nowhere as cheerful as five years ago. Nobody had the heart to scream “Ty-mo-shen-ko!” again and again like we screamed “Yush-chen-ko!”


She's working. She's Ukraine!

Tarasyuk Walks

Foreign Affairs Minister Tarasyuk resigned this Tuesday, ending a monthlong tug of war between Yushchenko and Yanukovych to the benefit of the latter, Ukrainian news agencies report.

Earth to Yu, earth to Yu! Please feel free to refer to yourself as “we, the Queen of Ukraine.” An internship with Buckingham Palace would be a plus.

Frozen Affairs
Embattled Foreign Affairs Ministry Faces Funding Freeze

This winter may by the warmest the world has known in the last 500 years. Not for the Ukrainian Foreign Affairs Ministry. The Ministry, headed by the President’s protégé Borys Tarasyuk, remains the last stronghold of resistance to pro-Russia PM Victor Yanukovych in his war for complete control over the Cabinet.

Yanuk, emboldened by the viagracious cornucopia of power, knows no stopping. Even though it’s only been a week since the Treasury cut off funding, employees have already missed their paychecks. Beyond that, the conflict at hand could also disrupt timely payment of membership contributions owed by Ukraine to international organizations.

We should have seen it coming. Having spent the last few millennia chasing universals of national unity, Yushchenko crash-lands on what looks like the Planet of the Apes, or should we say Planet of the PRU?

Anyway, neither the funding freeze nor the EU’s cold-shoulder treatment of Ukraine’s aspirations has prevented Minister Tarasyuk from continuing on the job.

P.S. Rejoice! As of Tuesday, the Ministry’s funding has been renewed, with the only exception being Minister Tarasyuk himself. That ends the mystery of Yanukovych’s job title. It’s Partially Merciful!

Once Upon a Time in the Land of the Free
How the Don of Donbas Told Gringos What They Wanted to Hear and Dodged the Diaspora

I'd lie for you and that's the truth
Move mountains if you want me to
I'd walk across the fire for you
I'd walk on the wild for you
If you'd just believe in me...

Meat Loaf “I’d Lie For You And That’s The Truth”

He whose name conjures up reports of election fraud in Ukraine came to the land of the free neither sorry-assed nor empty-handed. He came cool, calm, and collected, with a smorgasbord of promises and reassurances — if only you could look into his eyes and see his soul and maybe reevaluate your preexisting beliefs.

He knows you like 'em Orange. But the tables have turned: The Orange plantation has all but perished due to a fungus culture of incompetence and special interests that thrived untrammeled there. So there he is, the old kid on the block, ready to do business with you.

Only by negating the ironclad association that ties him to foul play would he see that happen. It appears unlikely that the Don of Donbass took to the task unaided. Most probably, the task force of American spin doctors that helped him drug 32 percent of Ukrainian voters with BLT in the spring parliamentary campaign reported for duty again. Thus, a reputation laundering bid kicked into gear. Their positioning strategy against Yushchenko, in a nutshell:

• Personality Type — position client as a born-again, true Blue type of leader, easily contrasted with a maladaptive shrinking Orange
• Status in the Hierarchy — position client as the guy in charge, not in a coma; on centerstage, not on the edge
• Knowledgeability — position client as the guy who knows the whens, whys and hows, not the guy who can’t figure out how many ministers he has under direct command
• Management Style — position client as a doer — the doer — not a dreamer; a guy who makes things happen, not a guy who watches things happen or wonders what the hell happened

Once in Washington, that meant wearing a certain mask and weathering geopolitical spelling bees. Target behaviors and verbalizations included the following:

• aggressively picking up the rusty baton of democracy and political stability
• wholeheartedly lighting up the torch of ambitious energy projects
• generously reopening the floodgates of grain exports
• tirelessly patronizing American investment and free trade

Yanukovych did just that. And, with the notable exception of the ongoing wrangle over Tarasyuk, he picked no fights with Yushchenko. The Don of Donbas knew he had a lot to prove. In promoting his own agenda, he went by the book, skillfully feigning respect for Yushchenko’s authority and injecting a positive emphasis into every soundbite that fell from his lips. As much as he wanted to gloat over the removal of his rival from sacred cow status in Washington, Yanukovych fully realized the wind would still be blowing in his face. No one would swallow the bait unless he did his fishing in calm waters.

If he ever outperforms Yushchenko, most likely he will do so in the theater of voter deception. Hordes of comparison shoppers are already giving the Yanukovych campaign a stronger deception rating. Winter of 06/07 may well become a litmus test for the two political systems, pre-Politreforma and post-Politreforma. Once the family budgets of Ukrainians with the lowest income bracket get frostbitten by the snowballing costs of living, the PRU’s “Better living today” will stir a higher degree of emotion than NSNU’s “Don’t fail Maidan!”

Despite the risk of a Katrina-like crisis hovering over the dilapidated utilities sector of urban Ukraine, the Don of Donbas had no qualms about dumping megatons of promotional materials on Washington and New York. Naturally, in the land of the free, some friends of Russia might feel intrigued by those rosy reports, as many did during the Great Depression while reading Walter Duranty’s. But they would certainly explode with disgust once they learned how perfectly “Better living today” matches “Read my lips: no new taxes.” Of the two giant hoaxes, the Ukrainian one involves far greater social stakes, since most Ukrainians neither boast as long a lifespan nor as much of an income. That’s why the American one reads like a funny bumper sticker and ours like a funny toe tag.

So far, breakthroughs in the international arena have eluded Yanukovych. As of today, many observers consider Georgia and Russia on a faster track to NATO and the WTO, respectively. While shrugging off the former has become a sport for Yanukovych, missing the train on the latter could get him in hot water. Whoever gets to the WTO first will hold all the cards, and Regs, who hold the lion’s share of Ukrainian industry, would rather take a crash course in Ukrainian than let themselves be outrun by Russia.

A crowd pleaser only in his native region, the Don of Donbas entertained no illusions about charming the million-strong Ukrainian American community. Hardly a soul needed a primer on his persona. Before Premier Victor Yanukovych set foot on American soil, Askold Lozynsky, President of the World Congress of Ukrainians, called on Ukrainian Americans to boycott the visit. He defined Yanukovych as the Kremlin’s fifth column. Even so, some diaspora organizations pursued the Ukrainian Premier, seeking straight answers regarding his unflinching espousal of Russian as a second official language and his business-as-usual ignorance of the Holodomor and UPA. Faced with a potentially embarrassing situation, the head of the Ukrainian delegation chose not to make himself available.

Minimizing the bad publicity from the anathema turned out to be a task of extreme proportions for the Yanukovych posse. The Don of Donbas pounced on the Holocaust Memorial, as if trying to blow smoke in America’s eyes and thus obscure his Holodomor denial. One must admit that playing the Holocaust off against the Holodomor opens up a whole new chapter in public relations. Should we expect its canonization by the Russian Orthodox Church?

The U.S. media had more luck getting in touch with Ya. In interviews, he related to the Orange Revolution as Ukraine’s major achievement. Far from pronouncing it dead, he went on to point out that, insofar as the Orange leaders have left a lot undone, the Revolution continues to this day. Taken at face value, that virtuoso statement of his might give the impression that current penetration of Ukrainian society by freedom has been an orgasmic experience for Yanukovych, philosophically speaking.

In a classic make-your-enemy-your-ally maneuver, he spoke of the OR gracefully, noting that the country had been ripe for change. He blamed the system, forgetful of his own sins. He took pains to detach himself from the bad boy image. He objectivized the Orange Revolution with a devotion that could profile him as a double agent. One more soundbite — and presto the antagonist we always loathed transmogrifies himself into the protagonist we never knew.

Hopefully, denizens of the land of the free had the eyes to see. Using Yushchenko’s blunders and the blessings of the Politreforma as the propellant for graduating from caterpillar to butterfly, the Don of Donbas made an art out of messing with your minds.

Cosa Regio Nostra Fires Lutsenko, Tarasyuk

Cuius regio, eius religio. Whose rule, his religion.

Coming straight from the Middle Age, this proverb is right on the money. It perfectly illustrates the Armageddon in Ukrainian parliament that has culminated in the ouster of Yushchenko-centric Interior Minister Yuriy Lutsenko and Foreign Affairs Minister Borys Tarasyuk.

Well done. The Yanukovych-centric Anticrisis Coalition certainly deserves praise for having positioned itself as something of a Cosa Regio Nostra/Holy Inquisition. Among the demoralized Orange Revolution vets, these two had a faint image of Robocop/Copernicus-like figures. (The only remaining martyr on death row is Defense Minister Hrytsenko.)

Whether by error of omission or commission, Bankova made their dismissal look like a foregone conclusion. Before the voting even started, President Yushchenko, for one, had discontinued his rumblings about the protectorate he held over them as accorded by the Constitution. The general impression is that Yushchenko has retired to his cell to deicide on further course of action. So far, he is holding himself incommunicado.

Such constitutional collisions, the hallmark of the post-Politreforma political landscape, add to Yanukovych’s confidence only to the extent that they embolden Yushchenko to go through with his referendum promise — once public outrage reaches a critical point: On the one hand, the three can only be appointed by the President, a status which makes them exempt from coalition considerations. On the other hand, because the Rada claims jurisdiction over them, the coalition has the power to fire them.

To expedite the public’s digestive process, the coalition had released enzymes detailing the trio’s misdeeds.

A parliamentary probe had found Lutsenko guilty of misappropriating several gift guns. (While there is no justifying the practice, the report did not provide comparison tables for Lutsenko’s predecessors.)

Multiple counts of financial wrongdoing had been uncovered in Defense Minister Hrytsenko’s realm of responsibility. (Here, due to the campaign’s fixation on financials, the rampant issue of military bullying went neglected.)

Foreign Affairs Minister Tarasyuk had been slapped with sabotaging Yanukovych’s meeting with Terry Davis, Secretary General of the Council of Europe — not without the latter’s consent, as many believe. (As for Tarasyuk, my suggestion would be “breach of security, espionage, accepting bribes from Bush, kidnapping plot to fly Yanukovych to the NATO Summit in Riga.”)

Yanukovych had no problems with the Yushchenko-centric trio as long as he expected Yushchenko to do the wild thing with him. By the time that expectation proved to be overoptimistic, it had almost halved NSNU’s approval ratings.

The debris from these unmet expectations touched off a vicious vendetta. Lutsenko, along with the other two “untouchables,” stuck out like a sore thumb on the Yanukovych Cabinet uh Cupola. Day after day, they refused to take orders from it. Their blatant disregard for authority and crass insubordiNATiOn was nothing but trouble for Yanukovych.

Following an unsuccessful attempt on Thursday, Yanukovych-centric agenda-benders regrouped and stroke again — this time quite victoriously, ending a monthlong cliffhanger in Lutsenko’s law enforcement stint of 22 months.

The timing of the ouster evokes grim parallels. Not only does the ouster come on World AIDS Day, as if accentuating the fact that Yanukovych’s native Oblast of Donetsk ranks first in AIDS spread, but it also comes on a day that marks the 15th anniversary of Ukraine’s independence referendum.

Variable numbers of BYuT “leprechauns” (from 2 to 18) partook in the three voting rounds of the Lutsenko lynching. Obviously not happy with his robocopic watchfulness, these individuals customarily shun publicity and represent a BYuT equivalent of the lyubi druzi, that is, petty oligarchs who came to parliament to make money.

Tymo, who had used every opportunity to trash Lu as a PRU collaborationist, should have covered her bases first: The voting record pertaining to the ouster clearly lumps her entourage together with the Cosa Regio Nostra. Collaboration starts at home, doesn’t it?

Of course, the priestess immediately issued a statement saying that she holds herself to a higher standard and regrets what happened. Two “leprechauns” were banished from the BYuT temple.

Lessons learned:

1. Taking gold-diggers on board can make a captain cry bitter tears.

2. Somehow, the Lutsenko she had painted — one possessed by the demons of Donetsk — could not save his ass from burning at the stake.

A checklist for Yanukovych:

1. What could be more stupid than firing the No. 1 cop in the country who shouts from the rooftops of the Rada he’s onto something — something implicating your buddies?

2. What could be more self-incriminating than doing it when crime rates are down 15 percent?

3. Would this help do away with the stereotype that crime is encapsulated in the DNA of Donetsk Oblast, a region with the highest murder rate in Ukraine?

4. Does giving the axe to a pro-Western foreign policy guy lend credentials to your upcoming visit to the U.S.?

If making his X-file even more complicated was the goal, Yanukovych has surely succeeded. Or was this hardball assignment part of his recertification in Moscow?
In any case, the political exsanguination of Lutsenko and Tarasyuk strikingly reminds us of the vampirism of the Kuchma-controlled Rada in spring 2001 — when Premier Yushchenko was fired on lack of team play thinking, as it was phrased.

Given Ya’s DUI and Yu’s LID (Living in denial), somebody with a clean record has to stop this unhealthy thing.