The era of Victor Yanukovych began with Ukraine’s fourth president vowing to keep all his promises, fight corruption, reduce bureaucracy, modernize the economy and remain neutral between the West and Russia.
Victor Yanukovych was sworn in as president on Feb. 25, a turn of events unimaginable five years ago by millions of Orange Revolution participants who withstood freezing temperatures to overturn the fraud-marred presidential vote in his favor.
But his 2010 victory satisfied the 12 million voters who sided with him on Feb. 7 in putting an end to five years of chaotic leadership. Yanukovych, 59, eliminated the democratic revolution’s hero and heroine one-by-one – first ex-President Victor Yushchenko in the Jan. 17 first round of the election, then Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko in the Feb. 7 runoff.
While Yanukovych’s coming to power is widely recognized nationally and internationally, his vanquished rivals skipped the inauguration. Yushchenko met with Yanukovych later in the president’s office, while Tymoshenko said she doesn’t recognize Yanukovych as the nation’s legitimately elected president.
Yanukovych, a former mechanic who spent some three years in prison for theft and assault more than three decades ago, has now risen from the depths of society to head one of Europe’s largest nations.
Where will he lead Ukraine?
After being inaugurated during an extraordinary session of parliament, Yanukovych pledged big changes in a 15-minute speech that set out his goals. He also made a number of key appointments.
“I know what to do and how to do it,” he said.
He said the nation will have a new Cabinet of Ministers, he will renew the fight against corruption and tame the country’s unwieldy bureaucracy. He pledged less government intrusion in business.
And he promised to keep all of his promises.
“The primary objective here is reforming the system of governance, and, first of all, the Cabinet of Ministers and its transformation it into a team of professionals rather than “political waiters,”” the president said.
Yanukovych asked lawmakers to support his efforts to create a transparent system of executive authority capable of working in tandem with the president. In a mainly symbolic gesture, he sharply cut his presidential salary and pledged to reduce the presidential office workforce by 20 percent.
Yanukovych enters office with the backing of Ukraine’s wealthiest business oligarchs, including Ukraine’s richest man Rinat Akhmetov, and, reportedly, gas trading tycoon Dmytro Firtash, as well as others who earned fortunes in Ukraine’s crony capitalist economy. Yanukovych took a slap at those days, saying he will move Ukraine from its “wild capitalism” in the 1990s and first decade of this century to a modern, post-industrial society.
Yanukovych said he is starting in a hole.
“The country is in a very difficult situation: there is no current year’s state budget, the foreign borrowings are huge, there is poverty, the economy is in ruins, there is corruption; this list of troubles that make up the Ukrainian reality is far from complete,” Yanukovych said.
On the foreign policy front, Yanukovych said neutrality is the nation’s best option.
“Ukraine will choose such a foreign policy that will allow the state to get the maximum results from the development of equal and mutually advantageous relations with Russia, the European Union, the United States and other governments,” Yanukovych said, in making a break from his predecessor’s strong push for Western integration and membership in the NATO military alliance.
Despite his controversial background, Yanukovych’s victory in an election considered to be democratic has been well-received by both Russia and the West.
The inauguration ceremony was attended by international dignitaries, including European Union foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton, U.S. National Security Advisor James Jones and Boris Gryzlov, speaker of the Russian parliament. The presidents of Armenia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Montenegro, Moldova and Belarus also showed up.
But Tymoshenko and her ministers did not attend the inauguration and have not submitted their resignations, as requested by Yanukovych, who is attempting to form a new majority coalition in parliament to replace the premier.
Tymoshenko continues to claim the Feb. 7 vote, like the one on Nov. 21, 2004, that triggered the Orange Revolution, was again rigged. But she has dropped her legal challenge of the election results. The Central Election Commission and foreign and domestic observers disagreed.
In another symbolic gesture, Yanukovych will make his first trip abroad on March 1 to Brussels, the seat of the European Union government, just days ahead of his March 5 visit to Moscow. How he navigates his desire for a free-trade pact with the EU and a customs union with Russia and Belarus will be watched closely.
Yanukovych’s first presidential decree is bound to rattle people, including Tymoshenko.
He appointed Serhiy Lyovochkin as head of his presidential office. Lyovochkin, 39, is the son of Volodymyr Lyovochkin, who ran the country’s prison system under ex-President Leonid Kuchma. The younger Lyovochkin has been linked to two intermediary companies in the lucrative business of supplying natural gas to Ukraine from Russia and Central Asian producers: Hungarian-registered Eural Trans Gas and, more recently, Swiss-registered RosUkrEnergo. Last year, Tymoshenko claimed to have cleaned up the gas trade by cutting out RosUkrEnergo, which is co-owned by Russia’s Gazprom and Ukrainian billionaire Dmytro Firtash, who also owned the now-defunct Eural Trans Gas and is reportedly a backer of Yanukovych.
Europe is watching to see if Yanukovych can stabilize the nation’s politics and improve its economy, which suffered a 15 percent drop in gross domestic product and was nursed along by a $16.4 billion credit line from the International Monetary Fund. The fund froze lending at $11 billion because the government didn’t keep its pledges of fiscal restraint.
The inauguration ceremony had a touch of humor.
As presidential guards successively presented Yanukovych with the presidential symbols of power – a golden chain with Ukraine’s coat of arms, a presidential seal and a “bulava” – a scepter-like symbol of authority of Ukrainian Cossacks in the 15th-17th centuries – Yanukovych took the last item, his presidential identification card. Instead of placing it back on the pillow held by one of the guards, Yanukovych coyly stuck it in the inside pocket of his jacket, smiling boyishly.
Kyiv Post staff writer Peter Byrne can be reached at [email protected]and Mark Rachkevych can be reached at [email protected].
