YUSHCHENKO AND TIMOSHENKO: ON THE HOMESTRETCH AGAIN

So, the sixth convocation of the Supreme Rada has been dissolved after all. Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko announced this on 8 October. Under Ukrainian law, the early elections should be scheduled for 7 December 2008. Yushchenko made his decision after the dissolution, on 3 September, of the ruling "Orange" coalition of the Yuliya Timoshenko Bloc (BYuT) and the pro-presidential Our Ukraine-People's Self-Defence bloc (NU-NS). The NU-NS withdrew from the coalition when deputies from BYuT and the opposition Party of Regions voted for a number of draft laws which limited the President's powers. In addition, the BYuT parliamentary group refused to support an NU-NS statement in which Parliament was advised to condemn "Russia's aggression against Georgia."

According to the Ukrainian Constitution, a new ruling majority had to be formed within one month, otherwise the President was entitled to dissolve Rada. Yushchenko himself said that, he had not received any proposals by 8 October from any of the political groups on the formation of a coalition of 225 members of Rada. Let us remind readers that the sixth convocation of the Supreme Rada had five parliamentary groups: the Party of Regions (175 deputies), BYuT (156 deputies), the NU-NS bloc (72 deputies), Ukrainian Communist Party (27 deputies) and Litvin's Bloc (19 deputies).

"The situation which no one controls..."

The dissolution of Parliament was no surprise, but the different political forces in Ukraine reacted to the development in very different ways.

For example, representatives of the Party of Regions generally approved of the idea of early elections. Rada member Boris Kolesnikov called the decision the best way out of the political crisis. The party leader, however, was harsher and said that Yushchenko's decision was a bell that "tolls for the incumbent government" which had brought the country to the "verge of bankruptcy."

In the BYuT, the decision is seen as an unconstitutional act. Representatives of the bloc say that the one-year ban on a dissolution of Parliament (under the Ukrainian Constitution, the sixth convocation of Rada, which was elected in early elections, could not be dissolved for one year) had not expired yet. This is why it is possible that BYuT will go to court. As for responsibility for the political crisis, Andrey Portnov, deputy head of the parliamentary group laid it entirely at the door of the President. In the deputy's opinion, "early elections are needed to enable Yushchenko to consolidate his power over the next few months and to get one more chance to consolidate his position before the presidential election." Earlier, Portnov had said that his party would not vote for an allocation of funds from the national budget for the holding of early parliamentary elections if the President calls them. Rada must indeed make amendments to the budget to finance the electoral commissions. According to preliminary estimates by the Ukrainian Central Electoral Commission, about $75 million is required.

Right after the announcement of the dissolution of Rada, Timoshenko's supporters also raised the issue of whether or not she should remain Prime Minister. "It is a difficult situation: imagine, how can the Prime Minister work if she has no levers, she cannot influence anything and will be held accountable for a difficult situation which no one controls," said Deputy Parliament Speaker Nikolay Tomenko (BYuT). President Yushchenko himself, who was in Italy when he made the announcement, said that Yuliya Timoshenko's government should continue to work until a new cabinet is formed.

In the mean time, the People's Self-Defence movement, which is headed by Ukrainian Internal Affairs Minister Yuriy Lutsenko, said that it had no intention of taking part in the early elections with the presidential Our Ukraine Party. It seems that Viktor Yushchenko was not particularly disturbed by the news - he plans to create a bloc of his own. Local political analysts who are close to the secretariat of the head of state have already identified the top five members of the new bloc, which presumably includes, apart from Yushchenko himself, Ukrainian Security Council Secretary Raisa Bogatyreva, who until recently was one of the leaders of the Party of Regions, Parliamentary Speaker Arseniy Yatsenyuk, NU-NS parliamentary group leader Vyacheslav Kirilenko and Deputy Prime Minister Ivan Vasyunik. The full picture will become clear after the Our Ukraine congress which is scheduled for late October. Most probably, a right-wing party will be created, to advocate nationalism and accession to NATO and the EU. However, many analysts are certain that the political crisis in Ukraine will have a negative effect on Kiev's chances of joining the NATO Membership Action Plan (MAP).

Game with zero outcome

So, political struggle in Ukraine has come full circle and begins anew. However, the interests of the various groups are so complex and mutually dependent that drawing clear conclusions from this "mess" is going to be difficult. After all, both the words and deeds of Ukrainian politicians are quite often only remotely related to their real intentions and expectations.

For example, when he announced the dissolution of Rada, Yushchenko stressed specifically that, by 8 October, he had received no proposals on the creation of a coalition from any of the political groups. However, it had been reported a few days earlier that Timoshenko had met all Yushchenko's conditions for the restoration of the "Orange" coalition. In particular, BYuT recalled its signatures to the laws which limited presidential power and voiced its support for the statement on the developments in Georgia which had been published earlier by Yushchenko. In that document, Ukraine and the EU reaffirmed the inadmissibility of all types of armed confrontation, support for Georgia's territorial integrity and stated that any territorial claims on Georgia were to be condemned and the conflict should be regulated on the basis of the Sarkozy-Medvedev plan.

Incidentally, the media came up with a few interesting ideas as to why BYuT had suddenly decided to yield its positions. According to one of them, the President and the executive departments under the President's control have received, or are about to receive, some compromising materials on Timoshenko, which might frighten her. At the same time, a number of political analysts said that the Prime Minister was simply pretending that she would continue to fight to the very end for the "democratic" coalition. Yet another curious aspect is whether or not BYuT will conclude an official alliance with the Party of Regions because, if it does, Timoshenko will have to forsake her image as first lady of the Orange Revolution.

In general, however, the trajectory of Timoshenko's political interests is a big secret. During the August conflict between Moscow and Tbilisi, Yushchenko supported Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, whereas Yuliya Timoshenko was nowhere to be seen or heard during that tense period. Later, the promise Timoshenko made against the backdrop of the situation in Georgia, that she would now allow Ukraine to become embroiled in conflicts between different countries, sounded like a downright hint. The Prime Minister supports the idea of Kiev's accession to NATO, although not so ardently as Yushchenko. Neither is her position on the Russian Black Sea Fleet's base in Crimea as strong. And shortly before Rada's dissolution, Timoshenko went to Moscow to meet Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. During the talks with her Russian opposite number, the head of the Ukrainian cabinet tried to extract a guarantee of relatively low prices for natural gas imports from Russia.

The meeting with Putin was held in an emphatically friendly atmosphere, but the only thing that Moscow was able to promise was that there would be no dramatic or sudden price hikes. After Timoshenko's visit to Moscow, the Ukrainian economy was given a three-year period during which the price of natural gas would be gradually increased to European levels. No specific numbers were mentioned. The price for 2008 has not yet been set. The Kremlin is openly waiting for the outcome of the political struggle in Ukraine.

Yushchenko, however, certainly did not want Timoshenko to become the country's saviour before what meteorologists say will be a cold winter. He even took over the Prime Minister's aircraft, but Timoshenko was so determined that she took a chartered flight to Moscow. So, both the absence of open criticism of Moscow by Timoshenko and her tactical alliance with the Party of Regions, together with her trip to Moscow, seemed to indicate that Moscow does influence the political situation in Ukraine. Timoshenko herself categorically denies this and Vladimir Putin called these sorts of assumptions "ranting." But nonetheless, people talk about it. During his televised speech on the dissolution of Parliament, Yushchenko pointed out that there were some "imported trends" and "un-Ukrainian scenarios." "We can see another foreign trend - attempts to cause a rift within the national democratic forces. This is a nail deliberately driven into the body of our country," the president said.

In the mean time, Russia has its own opinion about the dissolution of Parliament. As Russia's permanent representative to NATO, Dmitriy Rogozin, said, "Yushchenko provoked the parliamentary crisis himself and decided to disband the Supreme Rada because he fears the report by the parliamentary commission on the investigation of Ukrainian arms sales abroad." Let us remind our readers that Russia accuses Ukraine of arming Georgia. A special commission was created in Rada to look into this issue, and the commission head, Valeriy Konovalyuk, said earlier that some of the Ukrainian weapons which had been sold to Georgia had been removed from combat service. In addition, most of the funds received from these transactions did not make it to the national budget. The Ukrainian Security and Defence Committee refuted the report by the parliamentary commission, so the issue remains undecided for now. So, the former allies in the "Orange" coalition are still forcing the entire country to play their game of "who is the boss here?"

"To hell with them!  We are fed up..."

It is hard to predict the outcome of the political crisis in Ukraine. The decision to dissolve the Supreme Rada again might prove to be a problem for Yuschenko, Timoshenko, or both. Viktor Yanukovich observes the struggle between the President and the Prime Minister with interest. The Party of Regions, which often criticized the President for his plan to dissolve the Rada, supports early elections. The party sees the shuffling as its chance to come to power again. According to proposals which have been voiced many times already, should BYuT form an alliance with the Party of Regions, Yanukovich could become Prime Minister under a potential President Timoshenko. On the other hand, Yanukovich has a chance to score an even greater victory if his party wins the elections and is able to form a government on its own or in coalition with smaller parliamentary parties, for example, the Communists.

However, the most aggrieved party to the political war in Ukraine seems to be the national economy - after all, Ukrainian passions reached a peak during a global financial crisis...

There is also another factor to be reckoned with - Ukrainian voters are simply tired.

Let us remind our readers that this is the second time during Yushchenko's presidential tenure that he has dissolved Parliament. The first time he did it was on 2 April 2007 - there was a parliamentary crisis back then too. BYuT and Our Ukraine deputies gave up their seats voluntarily after disagreements with the coalition of the Party of Regions and Aleksandr Moroz's Socialist Party. Those elections were held only one year ago, on 30 September 2007. "There is political chaos here... However, in principle, no one pays attention any more because everyone is so used to it now. One might say that we do not even notice what is going on... We only watch the news on TV - when we watch them... To hell with them!  We are fed up..." - this was precisely how one Kiev resident expressed her views about the latest developments in her country to the author of this article. No comment, as the saying goes...

In the opinion of experts, the distribution of seats in Parliament will probably not change much after the elections, and talks to create a ruling coalition will not become any easier. The latest opinion polls show that the Party of Regions has the largest approval ratings, from 22 to 26%, BYuT has 18-25%, and the already non-existent pro-presidential NU-NS bloc, Communist Party and Vladimir Litvin's bloc will attract only 3-5% of supporters.