How Tymoshenko Got Fired

Ukrayinska Pravda recaps Tymoshenko’s ouster, with video from the Rada Channel.


Would-be PM Azarov rips outgoing PM Tymoshenko


PM Tymoshenko strikes back


Speaker Lytvyn puts her to a vote
Yea:
PRU, 172
BYuT, 7
NUNS, 15
CPU, 27
LyB, 19

Sources:
http://www.pravda.com.ua/articles/2010/03/3/4827934/
http://www.rada.gov.ua/~dtrp/

Tymoshenko Praises Herself Before Rada Fires Her

When your economy contracts 15% in one year, who do you praise? Tymoshenko praises herself. She did her best.

She stuck to her oligarchs, laughed at Putin’s jokes and paved the way for a Yanukovych win. She borrowed, lied and lost. And she’s not sorry.

PM Tymoshenko: And I can tell you that if today a vote is passed to fire the government, our government will vacate its offices right that moment. Right that moment our political force will go into opposition and, in the opposition, will be clearly forming a united democratic team, will be doing everything so that such actions — which I have just talked about and cited examples of — so that they will be impossible in our state. I now want every person that hears me to know that we will protect Ukraine from this new misfortune that has arrived — we will protect it for sure. And if Yanukovych thinks that a week from now he’ll be safely playing gold and tennis and his entourage will be bagging the state’s strategic property on the quiet, then I can say that today his golf and tennis are coming to an end, and every day he will be reporting to the country, to the opposition. Every day, we will keep our hand on the pulse.

9:46-10:21

Because our team has lived by, lives by and will live by only one value: Ukraine above all.

11:56-12:05

In other words:

She’s good — he’s evil;
She’s pro-Ukrainian — he’s anti-Ukrainian;
She mothers entrepreneurs — he fathers oligarchs;
She’s clean — he’s corrupt.

Joan of Arc meets the Virgin Mary.

Video embedded from: http://censor.net.ua/go/offer/ResourceID/151116.html
Original source: http://www.rada.gov.ua/~dtrp/

Yanuk Blasts Oranges, Woos Voters, Promises Stabilnist

For Yanukovych new elections mean new opportunities. So there he goes again, wallowing in his voters’ pain, sugarcoating his stewardship of the economy, peddling the idea of his comeback.

Viktor Yanukovych, speaking in Russian: The bell tolls for the current government. The government has driven the country to the brink of bankruptcy. Determining which one of the Oranges is more guilty doesn’t make sense. The entire team is guilty. They are all guilty. In less than a year of the two Orange governments’ stay in power, the state has twice lost the high economic growth rate.

During the short-lived stay in power of the current government, citizens have also been twice fooled: First, they crashed the dollar, then they advised people to hold their savings in the national currency. After that, they crashed the hryvnia. Millions of ordinary Ukrainians suffered. Their hard-earned savings lost their value. People living in the countryside suffered most because crop problems added to the preexisting ones. The profiteers and murky dealers under the wing of the current government robbed the farmers, robbed the state, and the efforts of hundreds of thousands of people yielded paltry results. Having led the country into ruin, the current government, for a second time, has pushed society toward another pre-term parliamentary election. The Party of Regions stood against it. We do not agree with such policy and do not share such approaches.

We offered to reach consensus, not over positions but over improving the lives of people, developing the economy. However, the Oranges were only interested in seats. They need so many seats in government that a whole furniture factory can’t produce. As a responsible political power, we hereby state that we that we will unite society not around partisan colors but around a program of improving the lives of people. I repeat: The Party of Regions doesn’t care who is more guilty in the Orange coalition’s collapse. That question should be addressed to someone else. They took responsibility before the people, now let them report to the people. What we care about is how to improve people’s lives, build a strong state, and unite society. It is with this in mind that we — faced with the test of new elections — look into the future and ponder ways to improve the lives of citizens, to create a situation of stabilnost* and peace in the country, and to implement the kind of effective policy that would win the world’s respect for Ukraine.

We are confident of our ability, and we are ready to assume the task of rebuilding the country again — without any ultimatums to our potential partners, without empty promises to achieve the unachievable. There will be no empty talk. There will be order and stabilnost.* There will be work for the benefit of the state and the Ukrainian people. So help us God.

*Stabilnost (стабильность) is Russian for stabilnist (стабільність). In the vocabulary of Ukrainian politicians, stabilnist denotes stability, but connotes the status quo.

So, Mr. "Hemingway," if it hurts so bad to have new elections, why does it feel so good?

Video uploaded from: http://censor.net.ua/go/offer/ResourceID/98736.html
Original Source: http://kanalukraina.tv

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

Orange Coalition Declared Dead

At today's session of the Verkhovna Rada, Speaker Arseniy Yatsenyuk said this: "I officially pronounce the disbandment of the coalition of democratic forces in the Verkhovna Rada, created by NUNS and BYuT on November 29, 2007, period."

"Anybody want to observe a moment of silence? Okay, let's skip this part," Yatsenyuk quipped. He then added:

Today is the day we turn a page of Ukraine's political history and open a new one. I wouldn't call this a political apocalypse. Yes, it's yet another challenge for democracy, but I hope that, together, we'll meet this challenge, too. It's not a case when they didn't let us. It's a case when we didn't make it and didn't succeed.

The end of the Orange Coalition marks the beginning of a 30-day interregnum during which the parties represented in Parliament should form a new coalition. Failure to form a coalition gives the President the right to disband Parliament

Sources:
http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2008/9/16/81299.htm

Adminresurs, Astroturfing Redux As Oranges Near Divorce

Sparks are flying in the Orange coalition endgame — sparks of Kuchmism.

With the nasty fight getting nastier and the country holding its breath in disgust, the Ukrainian media draws parallels between today’s crisis and pre-Orange Ukraine. Here's a small glossary:

Adminresurs refers to the autocratic use of government resources (local authorities, law enforcement, state-run media, etc) for campaign purposes;

Astroturfing refers to the public relations technique (popular in the USSR and the US) of imitating grassroots support for a political party/politician.

And here’s a short battlefield report:

Last week, United Center, the pro-Yushchenko loyalists, rounded up college students and public employees in Zakarpattya oblast for an anti-Tymoshenko human chain rally along the highway. Watch footage of the event.

Голова Перечинської РДА Михайло Данча 2

Скачать видео

The two videos feature Mykhailo Dancha, head of Perechynsky rayon (county), presidential appointee and “community organizer” who exudes self-confidence and swears profusely. (H/t Obkom)

Meanwhile, friends of Tymoshenko have plastered the Cabinet’s Web site with a plethora of rave reviews from "ordinary Ukrainians" containing boilerplate language from the Kuchma era. (H/t Ukrayinska Pravda)

According to some sources, the Lytvyn Bloc has agreed to join the coalition in a last bid to reunite the Orange camp and stave off a snap election that may throw the fence-sitting LB back to wilderness. The reports have yet to be confirmed.

Most experts believe that Tuesday’s session of the Verkhovna Rada will see the final collapse of the Orange tandem and the creation of a PRU-BYuT coalition.

Sources:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhHWMMlhxY4&e
http://obivu.net/play14332
http://obkom.net.ua/news/2008-09-13/1315.shtml
http://pravda.com.ua/news/2008/9/12/81204.htm
http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2008/9/15/81245.htm
http://www.zaxid.net/newsua/2008/9/13/130541

Cheney Visits Ukraine

U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney on Thursday arrived to Kyiv on a cheerleading tour that has already taken him to Georgia and Azerbaijan and will end in Italy.

A staunch supporter of NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia, Cheney enjoyed a warm reception from like-minded Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko. Security and energy dominated the meeting agenda.

Cheney also held talks with PM Yulia Tymoshenko, leader of BYuT, whose parliamentary coalition with Yushchenko’s NUNS appears to have collapsed after he accused her of pro-Russian conspiracy and she crossed coalition lines to pass legislation trimming his powers.

Undoubtedly, the outgoing Bush administration wants to send a welcome message to Kyiv.

But given the lame-duck status of both Cheney and Yushchenko, Ukraine’s accession into NATO hinges on the outcome of the presidential election in America no less than it does on Ukraine’s own presidential election in 2010.

Besides, the collapse of the ruling Orange coalition, unless reversed, will probably lead to snap parliamentary elections within weeks.

Video embedded from: http://rutube.ru/tracks/983963.html?v=0247e2c4dcf308ce0b948a7d2b83e24d

Oops!... She Did It Again

NUNS Vows to Quit Orange Coalition After BYuTney Sides With PRU, CPU

Allegations of Tymoshenko’s treason have materialized. At least, that’s how NUNS, the spurned party, may think. On Tuesday, the Orange Coalition failed to pass a resolution on Georgia, and instead saw an ad hoc alliance between BYuT, the Party of Regions, and the Communist Party. The three joined forces to simplify the impeachment procedure and strip President Yushchenko of key prerogatives.

Orchestrated by PM Tymoshenko of BYuT, the move may outbitch President Yushchenko’s own not-so-secret ambition: a grand coalition between his loyalists and a PRU splinter group — his reelection elixir.

If so, it marks the coming out of the closet for a love and hate triangle in which BYuT and NUNS, perpetually on the verge of divorce, always gave the Party of Regions the glad eye.

That gives us the following Kodak moment of the battleground: Tymoshenko, BYuT, Medvedchuk, and the majority of the PRU, and the Communists on one side, and Yushchenko, NUNS, Baloha, and Chernovetsky on the other. The angels must be weeping at the sight of such “pragmatic” matches made in…Hollywood!

In this divine comedy, Kuchma's chief of staff Medvedchuk plays the “missing link” role connecting Immaculate Tymoshenko and the infernal forces of the Kremlin, as many evolution theorists believe. Lyubov Sliska, Vice Speaker of the Russian Duma, has praised Tymoshenko’s evolution, saying that if she stays the course, she will become president. What a heartbreaker for silly fools like me who supported her in parliamentary elections.

BYuT claims it “sees no alternative to the Orange Coalition.” Echoing this love ballad, some optimists dismiss yesterday’s vote as a one-night stand, noting the fact that unholy alliances in the Rada featuring Tymoshenko have appeared before.

Meanwhile, that same night, NUNS held an emergency meeting and decided to pull out of the Orange Coalition. The decision will take effect 11 days after it was made.

With the notable exception of Interior Minister Lutsenko, Cabinet ministers representing NUNS did not attend the Wednesday meeting of the Cabinet. Lutsenko blames the crisis on Baloha’s brinkmanship and believes that the only way to save the Coalition is to fire Baloha, Yushchenko’s chief of staff.

As NUNS and BYuT exchanged recriminations, Yushchenko came to the Rada to announce that a de facto coalition has been formed between BYuT, the Party of Regions, and the Communist Party. He accused Tymoshenko of setting up a dictatorship and gave the Verkhovna Rada 30 days to finalize the freshly minted coalition or face dissolution.

In a UP article on the BYuT-PRU-CPU hookup, Serhiy Leshchenko and Mustafa Nayem quote a BYuT MP who calls it “safe sex.” Safe for whom? It may be safe for prima domina Tymoshenko, but is it safe for Ukraine?

Sources:
http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2008/9/3/80670.htm
http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2008/9/3/80701.htm
http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2008/9/3/80679.htm
http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2008/9/3/80700.htm
http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2008/9/3/80670.htm
http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2008/9/3/80699.htm
http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2008/9/3/80702.htm
http://trinixy.ru/2007/02/26/britni_atakuet_zontikom_18_fotografijj.html
http://www.tymoshenko.com.ua/ukr/export/#wallpapers

Straight Talk on Shyrka

MP Andriy Shevchenko, BYuT: I think the time has come when a very clear stance should be taken by the President of Ukraine, Viktor Yushchenko. We haven’t heard a clear stance during the last couple of weeks, and I’m sure that everything that’s been going on with the Coalition could be completely resolved if the President so desired. Let me say this again: It’s enough for Viktor Yushchenko to so much as move a finger to have, for instance, [defectors] Rybakov and But vote together with the Coalition. This [the Orange Coalition’s near-disbandment] wouldn’t have happened without the stance currently taken by the Presidential Secretariat. That’s why I very much expect, I very much hope, that the President will not remove himself from this process. If this Government, this Coalition, really matter to him, then there should be support. Right now, this support is needed. If not, then maybe the President should honestly say that he has opted for a grand coalition with Viktor Yanukovych. And I think Yulia Tymoshenko will then have the full moral right to start her own personal presidential campaign and to call on all the people who voted for Yushchenko in 2004 to support her.

Video uploaded from: http://censor.net.ua/go/offer/ResourceID/88255.html

Chechetov Can’t Wait for the Orange Coalition to Die

MP Mykhailo Chechetov, PRU: It’s…it’s over! The Coalition’s gone! It…it has died! Forget about the Coalition! It’s gone. It has already died. It’s just agony, death throes, and last convulsions. But they all end in the corpse being removed.

Looks like we have a case of death fetishism here — a political one — and a lot more histrionic than Donnie Pfaster’s.

Video uploaded from: http://censor.net.ua/go/offer/ResourceID/88033.html

Orange Coalition Nears Disbandment As Two MPs Quit

Early on Friday, MP Ihor Rybakov of BYuT and MP Yuriy But submitted statements canceling their membership in the Orange Coalition. Technically, their move cuts the life support of the ailing BYuT-NUNS enterprise, a “game over” predicted by analysts and desired by fans of shyrka, or the grand coalition with the Party of Regions.

In his statements, MP Rybakov cites government corruption and failures, while MP But blames internal divisions and the coalition’s disconnect with President Yushchenko’s policies. Yushchenko’s chief of staff, Viktor Baloha, whom the media also believes to be the chief shyrka ideologist, reportedly has close relations with MP Ihor Rybakov.

Baloha has claimed no knowledge of the developments. "I haven't heard that the Coalition is disbanding. Disbanding the coalition requires that a meeting of the faction be held and that a majority decide that they are quitting the coalition," Baloha was quoted as saying.

"If we talk about the Constitution, it should be passed in Parliament by 450 votes, that is, it has to suit both the President, the Prermier and all political forces. It will be a grand coalition or a narrow vision," Baloha added.

Sources:
http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2008/6/6/77116.htm
http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2008/6/6/77113.htm
http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2008/6/6/77126.htm

NUNS MP Seeks Apology From Ukrainians Amid Specter of Shyrka

MP Kseniya Lyapina NUNS: To all viewers and listeners, to all citizens who have experienced stress during the last month, let me apologize on behalf of our entire coalition, our team mates, that we, unfortunately — intentionally or unintentionally — have created, via this adolescent democracy of ours — so immature — that we have created so much stress for society. We Nasha Ukrayina believe that we must overcome this state of adolescence, find political will, lay aside personal fears and concerns, and proceed with fulfilling the tasks you laid out before us. Moreover, I’m confident that we are able to fulfill them.

Lyapina, who ran the Council of Entrepreneurs at the Cabinet of Ministers, comes across as a true-Orange lady.

She steers clear of scandals and turf battles. She does not appear to have a hidden agenda, which puts her in stark comparison with Baloha’s shyrka squad, aka United Center.

The mouth-watering specter of a grand coalition with the Party of Regions — in the name of stabilnist — both seduces and scares Yushchenko. On the one hand, it raises a thin hope of re-election via complex bargaining; on the other hand, it carries the risk of burying whatever approval ratings he has left.

So, realizing that Tymoshenko’s unemployment in 2008 would only boost her employability in 2009, Yushchenko limits himself to a dietary shyrka, or informal grand coalition, as Stepan Havrysh put it. The deputy chief of the National Security and Defense Council used this term in describing the present modus operandi.

Indeed, the extramarital affair with the Party of Regions preserves the formal coalition with BYuT and keeps the Cold War in the Orange camp below its boiling point until further course of action.

As always, everybody wants to rule the world, and that includes both Yushchenko and Tymoshenko.



That’s why Lyapina’s calls for working out a détente, and working for the public good, sound like a cry in the wilderness.

Video uploaded from: http://censor.net.ua/go/offer/ResourceID/86216.html

The End of Maidan, According to Shufrych

As the Orange kolkhoz grows ripe for divorce, the vultures are salivating, expecting to reap a huge harvest.

MP Nestor Shufrych, PRU: Somebody has to be held responsible for what’s happening in this country today. Let’s make a scapegoat out of someone, let’s sacrifice him and hide ourselves. I want to say that it’s not going to happen this way. It will start with Lutsenko and everybody will have to pay. But this will not merely be the end of the Orange team; it will also be the end of Maidan.

Video uploaded from: http://censor.net.ua/go/offer/ResourceID/85627.html

Lutsenko Claims Persecution, Accuses President of Shyrka Plans

Speaking outside the Office of the Prosecutor-General, where he was summoned for interrogation, Minister of the Interior Lutsenko said this:

They haven’t invented anything new. I’m being asked why I flew on vacation, together with my family, to the Crimea and back. They also have reconfigured the Chernovetsky case from simple battery, which, according to Ukrainian law, does not carry criminal penalties, to abuse of authority. Now that’s something new. One might just as well reconfigure it to cruel treatment of animals.

Now that NUNS has fizzled out in the recent Kyiv municipal election, Lutsenko speaks with his tongue untied. Later in the day, the Minister of the Interior minced no words at his press conference.

I lost Kyiv elections to Baloha. I’m an honest politician and that's why I always call a spade a spade. I lost to the Secretariat of the President, which has managed to completely destroy the Kyivites’ support for NUNS.

It’s a heavy blow for me personally and for the future electability of Narodna Samooborona, but first and foremost, the bell tolls for Nasha Ukrayina.

Today, we’re witnessing an obvious coup d’etat taking place during the last month. It’s absolutely positively evident that President Yushchenko supports the Baloha-Kolesnikov plan of destroying the democratic coalition elected by the people in 2007, which formed a majority in parliament.

The plan is very simple: Baloha and Kolesnikov have convinced the President that if Chernovetsky has managed to buy the not-to-poor and quite educated Kyiv, then the Donetsk clan can easily buy the not-so-prosperous Ukraine.

Already, in early May, during a meeting with the President of Ukraine, attended by his Chief of Staff, Speaker of Parliament, and NUNS representatives, I was confronted with two requirements: to consent to a grand coalition in the Verkhovna Rada and to a coalition with Chernovetsky in the Kyiv City Council. And, second, to stop pursuing those who are being protected (and whose criminal cases are being soft-pedaled) by the Donetsk clan and the Secretariat of the President.

The President’s response was, quote, “Yura, cut all this cop crap. Remember, as long as I’m President, everyone who comes to my office wearing a tie will not land in jail.” It was a challenge to me, to everything that I did in 2005.

If the plan to destroy the democratic coalition is stopped, if the President states that there will be no grand coalition, and that he will discontinue any contact whatsoever with the Donetsk crime bosses, and will provide an opportunity to pursue any person, regardless of what party they belong to, then I have no objections.

The litmus test for the current government is the willingness to replace the Prosecutor-General, who has turned into a general graveyard of high-profile cases on high-profile people, and into a vehicle of political persecution in overblown cases against others.

I categorically deny the allegation that in 2005 I traveled by air twenty times, let alone with my family. This matter was looked into after my first suspension in 2006; there was no evidence to prove my guilt. Today, they’re trying to dig out this old and supposedly already dead dog and to hang it on me.

Standing procedure circulated by the Ministry of the Interior allows the families of personnel to travel in any direction for leisure or other purposes.

There were such options. For example, I was invited by Lviv authorities and by the state leadership to participate in city festivities together with my wife, so we went together. As for the naval forces festivities, the Commander and the Minister of Defense also invited me and my wife. We went there, too. I flew to Israel on an official invitation, together with my wife, as required by protocol. I guess we went to Greece, too.

Is this a case of Lutsenko's backstabbing or Yushchenko's backsliding? Let's wait and see.

At any rate, the fortunes of Georgian-born Davyd Zhvania, the man who reportedly bankrolls Narodna Samooborona, too, have changed dramatically. Once a friend of the Yushchenko family, he now faces the prospect of having his Ukrainian citizenship revoked.

While authorities cite violations of immigration law, Zhvania alludes to undeserved reprisals from Yushchenko.

According to some media reports, Yushchenko may suspect Zhvania of having a role in his 2004 poisoning.

Sources:
http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2008/5/27/76565.htm
http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2008/5/27/76567.htm
http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2008/5/27/76569.htm
http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2008/5/20/76046.htm

+ =?

Fed up with the chronic turf battles and micromanagement in the Orange camp, BYuT blew a fuse Wednesday.

BYuT DEMANDS THAT PRESIDENT YUSHCHENKO STOP HIS ANTI-UKRAINIAN ACTIVITY

We demand that President Yushchenko stop his anti-Ukrainian activity.
The Bloc of Yulia Tymoshenko faction in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, seeking to preserve the democratic coalition and consolidate the democratic forces in parliament and society, has long ignored the aggressive and unfounded attacks of the Head of State and his Secretariat regarding the coalition Government, and specifically regarding the Prime Minister and the democratic coalition.

However, todays’ confrontation between the President and his Secretariat on the one hand, and the Government and the democratic coalition on the other, has gone so far that one cannot remain silent.

Therefore, the Bloc of Yulia Tymoshenko faction in the Verkhovna Rada has the authority to state the following:

1. The President of Ukraine, Viktor Yushchenko, seeking to preserve a thin hope of re-election, has resorted to complete destruction of the beginnings and initiatives of the democratic Government;

2. The President of Ukraine has blocked all the anti-corruption programs of the democratic government (namely, in the area of land trade); the Head of State has virtually become a guarantor of corruption schemes. The Secretariat has also blocked the implementation of certain items of the coalition agreement (namely, building a professional army, combatting corruption and entitlement, etc);

3. The President and his Secretariat are knowingly and deliberately fanning the hysteria and panic surrounding the country’s inflation, as if without knowledge (or perhaps, on the contrary, with full knowledge) that a mere mention of inflation by the Head of State already raises prices by several percentage points;

4. The President of Ukraine is blocking and stalling a civilized privatization process, thereby destroying the state budget of Ukraine and crippling the social policies of the Government;

5. The President of Ukraine and his Secretariat are trying to take under their wing the shadowy schemes in the natural gas industry and secure “third-party interests” in this area at the cost of Ukraine’s national interests.

6. As in the year 2005, the President of Ukraine has turned the National Security and Defense Council into a stronghold of confrontation vis-à-vis the Government. The National Security and Defense Council is staffed by people who profess separatist ideas and stand for, or stood for, the partition of Ukraine; are infusing society with provocative ideas, such as making Russian an official language; and stand against Ukraine’s integration into Europe;

7. The President of Ukraine and his Secretariat have taken under their wing the corrupt management of the State Property Fund and of the Kyiv City Hall;

8. The President of Ukraine has consolidated around him yesterday’s leaders of clans and oligarch financial groups, which under the cover of charitable activity, are trying to return to power;

9. The President of Ukraine and his Secretariat are knowingly fomenting discord within the democratic coalition, and by putting nonsensical items on the parliamentary agenda, are trying to block the work of parliament;

10. The President of Ukraine, V.A. Yushchenko has systematically disgraced the Ukrainian State by making statements that denigrate Ukraine the world over.

In the current situation, the Bloc of Yulia Tymoshenko faction is demanding that the President of Ukraine stop his ANTI-UKRAINIAN activity and refrain from destroying the opportunity for democratic development of the Ukrainian State. We demand a stop to the cynical destruction and wreckage of the democratic coalition, which is being carried out today in the name of Yushchenko’s victory in the next presidential election. We demand that the President immediately rescind all the decrees and directives that are blocking the work of the democratic Government, and let this Government finally work. We demand that the Ukrainian agenda be restored to the National Security and Defense Council and that this organization be cleared of mismatches.

Today, amid the global economic crisis and the revival of aggressive anti-Ukrainian developments abroad, Ukraine is facing formidable challenges which it should meet adequately. We find it unfortunate that in this difficult situation the activities of the President of Ukraine pose one of the major threats to the independence of Ukraine and its sovereignty.

We also warn that whatever adventures are being masterminded in the Secretariat of the President, such as direct presidential rule and a summary referendum on the Constitution, they will receive an adequate response.

Our statement regarding the President of Ukraine in no way concerns our colleagues and friends in the democratic coalition, from the bloc of Nasha Ukrayina-Narodna Samooborona. We will do everything in our power to preserve the democratic coalition, and we will not let anyone destroy the opportunity for civilized, democratic development of Ukraine.

We believe that in the current situation there is only one civilized and legitimate solution: amending the Constitution in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, which will put a stop to the lawlessness and disorder and will put the country back on the track of democratic development in the interests of all its citizenry.

Bloc of Yulia Tymoshenko faction

Sources:
http://www.byut.com.ua/ukr/news-5767

Yanuk Smells Shyrka

As the Orange Coalition bursts at the seams, amid finger-pointing, double-crossing, and runaway inflation, the shyrkoid hyenas are licking their lips:

Opposition leader Viktor Yanukovych: In some four months they’ve managed to force down the economy of Ukraine like that. Four billion hr…ten billion hryvnias is the number by which Ukrainians’ have become poorer in four months — due to inflation. Patience knows no boundaries, but it’s got to end somewhere, as they say. I believe that this end will come very fast. But if you’re able to rectify the situation, we will applaud you — with pleasure — and so will the entire Ukrainian people.

Опустити (to force down, to lower, etc) is also prison slang for forced sex. Not a very surprising word choice for someone who served two terms.

Video uploaded from: http://censor.net.ua/go/offer/ResourceID/82365.html

PRU Losing Ground to BYuT, NUNS Losing Members

A recent poll by the Razumkov Center gives the following approval ratings:

BYuT 30.2%
PRU 23.1%
NUNS 10.1%
KPU 5.1%
LyB 3.7%

Analysts attribute the stellar — 19% in the east, 33% in the south — surge in the BYuT base to the paltry yet popular $200 compensation payments for Soviet savings. Some 18 percent of Yanukovych supporters have reported an improved opinion of Tymoshenko.

Nationwide, Tymoshenko's approval ratings have climbed a staggering 35 percent.

The numbers look good. But will they be any good if the Orange Coalition falls apart before it changes the electoral equation in any significant way? Citing micromanagement by party bosses, six NUNS MP abandoned membership in Nasha Ukraina on Tuesday, without vacating their parliamentary seats.

A few days earlier, presidential chief of staff Viktor Baloha had resigned from the ranks of Nasha Ukraina to pursue a future in a party of his own making. Interestingly enough, one can find friends of Baloha among the six NUNS dissenters.

Considering these migrations, I'd prefer not to count my Regions before they’re hatched.

Instead, I’m watching this beautiful video.

Sources:
http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2008/2/16/71710.htm
http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2008/2/19/71817.htm
http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2008/2/19/71844.htm
http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2008/2/19/71850.htm
http://plakat.censor.net.ua/pic/posters/very_big/1203420677.jpg
http://eggs.net.ua/news.php?sid=1009

How Tough Is Tymo?

She’s back. But is she tough enough?

Aside from Putin's history class, one of the major events I missed while being out of town was Tymoshenko’s peace voyage to Donbas. In a move highly reminiscent of the maiden voyage she had pulled on the eve of the Dec. 26, 2004 rerun, weeks before being catapulted to her first PM term, she started her second PM term on a soft, conciliatory note.

With a stronger personal support and a stronger opposition — both in and outside of the Orange Coalition — she faces a reality very much different from the euphoric landscape of the early 2005. The Orange Revolution is now history, but another presidential election is just a dream away. And there she is, ready to make that dream come true, ready to make history. So, the first thing she does as PM — her suitcase full of presidential ambitions — is beard the lion in his own den.

And she seems to have brought some pacifist Kitekat with her, Donbas being a region full of growth opportunities crucial to her nascent presidential campaign.

Judging from the soundbites that she spilled down the mineshafts of our minds, she is picking her battles carefully. She demonstrated a willingness to strike a deal with neutral Regionalist factions, a nonaggression modus operandi that would win allies and keep her focused on the coveted presidential prize.

Meeting with the victims’ families at the Zasyadka Mine, she echoed Donetsk Mayor Lukyanchenko, who embraced Zvyahilsky’s theory that shutting down the Zasyadka Mine may cause methane buildup with a far greater explosive potential. Below are some of the noteworthy statements she made there, a mishmash of activism and appeasement:

We believe that the Zasyadka Mine should not be closed. Instead, it should be developed, using sophisticated safety systems. We are to build a system of quality control in support of the safety system that will never again allow for such tragedies.

Despite grave violations of the leasing agreement, we can’t just shoot from the hip. It is necessary to carefully sort out things, and only then should we make decisions.

I want to uncover every fact, every detail.

In the next couple of days, I will set up a working group answerable to the Vice-Premier that will work on the legislation.

We will conduct a full-scale checkup of how the mine equipment was procured, of what funding was used in the procurements, and of how, basically, all the cash flows are moving. We will not leave anything unchecked.

We will set up a special housing commission that will analyze the living conditions of each of you.

After a while, once we’ve put in some work, we’ll meet in the same arrangement as now, perhaps as soon as a month from now.

We need to do things. Whoever wants to keep on struggling, let them struggle. I want to do practical things and bring order to the country, so let elections be on someone else’s mind.

We’ll be working further, and will make it so that being a miner in our country will be fancied by youths and children.

Just how many Cabinet members’ kids will want to become miners? Is she absolutely positively sure those safety systems will work? If methane buildup indeed happens to be the case, should we burn off the gas, or should we burn off the miners’ lives?

As long as these questions remain unanswered, they beg the question of whether the Prime Minister should endear herself to the miners at the cost of endangering their lives.

Meanwhile, PM Tymoshenko appears to have quietly abandoned her widely publicized campaign promise of abolishing conscription as early as 2008. Her burying the hatchet on this issue can be seen as an attempt to lessen friction with the slow-paced NUNS coalition partners, who control the military.

For people on the front lines, the status quo comes at a high price. A conscript died recently in a bullying incident, followed by the death of another miner at the Zasyadka Mine.

When you try to be all things to all people, you may eventually become president, but more people may die along the way.

Sources:
http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2007/12/23/68888.htm
http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2007/12/23/68880.htm
http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2007/12/23/68867.htm
http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2007/12/23/68878.htm
http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2007/12/23/68875.htm
http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2007/12/23/68874.htm
http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2007/12/23/68873.htm
http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2007/12/22/68866.htm
http://bayki.com/im/lica/timoshenko_matrix.jpg

Tymoshenko Voted In As PM

In a 226-224 vote, the minimum required majority, the Orange Coalition today confirmed Yulia Tymoshenko's nomination for the post of Prime Minister of Ukraine. The opposition refused to participate.

MP Yuriy Yekhanurov, NUNS, who was considered an undecided, stole a round of applause for saying yes. MP Ivan Plyushch, NUNS, a proponent of the Grand Coalition, abstained. MP Ivan Spodarenko, NUNS, was absent.

In his bilious valedictory speech, outgoing PM Viktor Yanukovych predicted that the Orange Coalition will deepen instability and wreck the economy. The promise of better living will not be realized, he said. In an apparent attempt to project a sense of relief, he wished Tymoshenko good luck, saying "it feels good to lay responsibility" for what is going on in the country.

The Party of Regions will be in the opposition, and will stand on guard against populism and efforts to destroy the economy, Yanukovych concluded.

Source: Rada Channel

P.S. Goodbye Yanuk! Don't forget to take stabilnist with you.

Yatsenyuk on the ‘What If’ Scenario




Yatsenyuk: In the event of a roll call vote, I see no possibility for Yulia Tymoshenko not to become Prime Minister.

Interviewer: And what if Yulia Tymoshenko is not elected Prime Minister, will you quietly lay down your Speaker’s — what should I call it — mandate, and, bluntly put, will you resign from the Head of the Verkhovna Rada post?

Yatsenyuk: I guess that will be the right thing to do.

http://censor.net.ua/go/offer/ResourceID/70312.html