If that is the case, President Viktor Yanukovych is thinking angry thoughts and becoming an angry leader of Ukraine’s 45 million citizens.
A videotape of the Dnipropetrovsk event on Sept. 11 shows Yanukovych responded to Economy Minister Petro Poroshenko this way: “I’ll rip off your heads very soon – right after the elections – if you just talk and do not deliver.”
The outburst came in response to prodding of Poroshenko, a multimillionaire and a major automobile dealer, to have the government impose an import duty to protect domestic car sales. At the same forum, Yanukovych dressed down Deputy Prime Minister Valeriy Khoroshkovsky for not knowing the exact minimum subsistence wage and the minimum pension in the nation.
There appear to be deeper issues bothering Yanukovych. He seems to be making no headway in getting concessions from Russia, especially over expensive natural gas imports. Meanwhile, a backlash is building in the nation over Yanukovych’s monopoly grip on political power.
Polls show the ruling pro-presidential Party of Regions will be hard pressed to win the Oct. 28 parliamentary election honestly, no doubt a further cause for the outburst. Also, after spoiling relations with the West by imprisoning opposition leaders and rolling back on democratic freedoms, the administration appears to be once again scrambling to repair the damage.
The administration is sending a high-level delegation to Washington, D.C., next week to meet with various American officials and business leaders. Those making the trip include: Serhiy Arbuzov, governor of the National Bank of Ukraine; Ihor Kaletnik, head of the State Customs Service; Oleksandr Klymenko, head of the State Tax Service; Yuriy Kolobov, minister of finance; Mykola Prysyazhnyuk, minister of agriculture; and Eduard Stavytskyi, minister of ecology.
This may be too little, too late. The West, preoccupied with other issues, is tired of the Yanukovych administration saying one thing and doing another regarding democracy, the fight against corruption and improving the business climate in Ukraine. The backlog of unsolved problems just keeps growing.
A number of Party of Regions politicians trying to get into parliament have taken care to distance themselves from the government to improve campaign prospects. This option, however, is not available to Yanukovych.
A powerful president, with a solid grip over parliament and a loyal prime minister, he cannot disassociate himself from his record – no matter how much he shouts.
