A Guide to Tymoshenko’s Pragmatic Theism and Electionphobia

As her party goes forum-shopping to overturn the snap election, a practice to which Yushchenko responds with court-crushing, she makes a few more noteworthy statements:

Reporter: A non-political question. Yulia Volodymyrivna, what superstitions do you have?

PM Tymoshenko: Huh, dear friends, frankly speaking, I neither have time for superstitions nor for faith in them. I’m a rather pragmatic person and I also believe that superstitions contradict normal faith in God, and so I don’t have any superstitions. One should just live with faith in God in one’s soul.

PM Tymoshenko: Dear friends, it’s not black, it’s blue. It’s not that bad [giggles]. I think that we should do some fighting for the operation of this parliament. Snap elections are a disaster for the country, and therefore financing from the emergency fund is illogical. From the emergency fund, we finance disaster relief, not disaster creation itself.

Where one stands depends on where one sits.

In 2007, while campaigning for snap elections in a bid to unseat Yanukovych, Tymoshenko made the following statements (h/t Ukrayinska Pravda):

Snap elections — there’s no tragedy in this. In America, they have elections every two years. Or take Israel — the world’s smartest state as they say — you gather 100,000 signatures and, adios, you get snap elections.

Sept. 18, 2007

The only solution in the current situation is to fear not snap elections and to get a confirmation of the mandate of trust from the people. If we hold snap elections, the country will spend 300 million hryvnias. But leave the mafia in power and we’ll lose tens of billions of dollars.

Apr. 3, 2007

Snap elections are the price we have to pay to save Ukraine for its new, democratic and European future. It’s a fairly modest price.

Apr. 6, 2007

I want to say that snap elections are not a whim of the President. It’s just that the country can’t live with this level of politics. And whatever ruling the Constitutional Court makes, this state [of affairs] will be of no consequence to the rejection of Yanukovych policies by his henchmen.

Apr. 16, 2007

She probably meant that no matter how the Constitutional Court ruled, Yanukovych henchmen would stick to their guns. Alas, in September 2008, she found it hard to stick to her promise not to do business with the Party of Regions.

That’s when Yushchenko rained her parade. He wants to do business with the PRU just as badly.

They all talk stabilnist: stabilnist this, stabilnist that. They all sing from the same status quo hymn sheet, as if saying: “L'État, c'est moi; après moi le déluge.”

In 2007, Tymoshenko tried to convince Ukrainians that “not all politicians are alike.” I trusted her. Will I trust her again?

Sources:
http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2008/9/30/81995.htm
http://ua.pravda.com.ua/news/2007/9/18/64056.htm
http://ua.pravda.com.ua/news/2007/4/3/56812.htm
http://ua.pravda.com.ua/news/2007/4/6/57042.htm
http://ua.pravda.com.ua/news/2007/4/16/57513.htm
http://www.wz.lviv.ua/pages.php?ac=arch&atid=57698

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Life Outside the Verkhovna Rada

I shot these in Mariyinsky Park, which adjoins the Mariyinsky Palace and our parliament, the Verkhovna Rada. Date: sunset of Sunday, October 12, 2008.









The skaters, the bicyclists and the rollerbladers reminded me of political Ukraine. And so did the sky.

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?

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Yushchenko Dissolves Parliament, Blames Tymoshenko (Updated)

In a televised address at 9 p.m. local time Wednesday, President Viktor Yushchenko announced his decision to dissolve Ukraine's parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, due to what he described as "the ambition of one person" and the "prevalence of personal interests over national ones."

He also blamed PM Tymoshenko for inflation and populism.

His decision brings an end to a monthlong drama of rocky relations within the Orange coalition and following its demise, in which Tymoshenko's BYuT and Yushchenko's NUNS sought advantage over each other. Influenced by their leaders and power brokers, the two Orange coalition parties flirted with the Party of Regions with an eye toward the 2010 presidential election.

The situation deteriorated after the Russo-Georgian conflict. Unlike President Yushchenko, PM Yulia Tymoshenko showed little support for Georgia. In addition to that, the Presidential Secretariat accused Tymoshenko of treason, alleging that the PM had held secret meetings with the Russians.

On September 2, Tymoshenko's BYuT entered into an ad hoc alliance with the Party of Regions, voting to curtail Yushchenko's powers and make Russian a second official language for public servants.

Recently, BYuT reversed its decision in an apparent attempt to stem the fall of its approval ratings in western Ukraine. Nevertheless, attempts at resurrecting the Orange coalition have failed, giving the President the right to dissolve Parliament.

New elections will be held on December 7. Previous elections were held on March 26, 2006 and September 30, 2007.

Sources: President Yushchenko's address on Channel 5

BYuT MP: Rebuke Russia No, Prepare for Elections Yes

So here's how it goes:

MP Ivan Kyrylenko, leader of the BYuT parliamentary faction: A third party has emerged. Sign the same coalition agreement? We support it, we haven’t denounced it.

MP Roman Zvarych, NUNS: Are you ready, are you ready to condemn Russia over [the Georgian invasion]…
MP Ivan Kyrylenko: No way, no way!

Reporter: So your talks are just a façade for the fact that everybody’s gearing up for elections?
MP Ivan Kyrylenko: Absolutely right, absolutely right!

Reporter: Mr. Roman?
MP Roman Zvarych, NUNS: Well, based on what I’ve just heard, that’s right.
MP Ivan Kyrylenko: I stand by the words that everybody’s gearing up for elections.

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