Courtesy photoAs the Post went to press on April 11, tens of thousands of demonstrators supporting Yanukovych’s pro-Russian majority coalition, and crowds backing the president, continued to converge on the center of the nation’s capital.
The day before, Yushchenko and Yanukovych, who had fought for the presidency in front of international television audiences during the country’s much-touted Orange Revolution of 2004, met once again to try to find a way out of their deadlock.
Following Yushchenko’s April 2 decision to disband parliament, the country’s media, courts and offices of executive power have served as chaotic political battlegrounds, while major foreign powers watch with interest. Yushchenko accused Yanukovych, whom the president himself nominated for office following last year’s parliamentary elections, of trying to monopolize executive power through unconstitutional Cabinet decisions and the luring of opposition lawmakers into the coalition.
Tymoshenko, whose political ambitions have been derailed by Yushchenko despite that fact that she vehemently supported him during his rise to the presidency, is once again rallying Ukrainians to back him in his latest battle for power. Unlike in the past, the president is standing strong against Yanukovych, vowing to stick to his decision to disband parliament and hold early elections, which are currently scheduled for May 27. Nevertheless, during a meeting with foreign media on April 10, the president hinted that he may be willing to give in a little by postponing the snap elections to a later date.
“Dates are one of those issues that can be decided during negotiations,” he said.
“The most important thing is that we find a constitutional formula in the issue of the dates so that they can’t be subject to revision.”
Unlike during the Orange Revolution of 2004, Yushchenko has less supporters on the streets and, more importantly, no decision in his favor from the country’s high courts.
The Constitutional Court has been asked by Yanukovych’s team to decide whether the dismissal of the parliament was legal, but justices have so far avoided a ruling. What’s more, they appear to be using every excuse from ill health to accusations of political pressure.
Tymoshenko, who rallied public support in 2004 and popular votes during the 2006 parliamentary elections, has been consistently defiant of backroom deals, demanding that new elections be held immediately.
Garnering far more votes than Yushchenko’s Our Ukraine faction during the last parliamentary election and continuing to rise in public opinion polls, Tymoshenko has every reason to support new parliamentary polls in preparation for a presidential bid in 2009. Yushchenko, on the other hand, is finding it increasingly difficult to stare down Yanukovych, the strongman from Donetsk. Yanukovych’s Regions party and their leftist allies in the Rada have refused to fund the snap elections and threatened the president with impeachment. Short of using the security services to arrest the coalition lawmakers and their supporters in the government, Yushchenko is virtually powerless to enforce his will.
Ukrainian political analyst Oles Dony said the president and the premier are nearing a compromise that could entail moving the election back a few months. According to Dony, Regions wants elections at the end of the year, to give it more time for campaigning, while the president is offering early June. Dony said a likely compromise would be early fall, thereby allowing both sides to save face and wage campaigns. The public images of the president, the premier, the parliament and especially the courts have suffered greatly as a result of the standoff, Dony added.
“It doesn’t matter who wins, as long as the situation continues where lawmakers are allowed to sell their votes to the faction willing to pay the most.”
Vadym Karasyov of Kyiv’s Institute of Global Strategies also thinks a compromise between Yanukovych and Yushchenko is likely. Such a move could sideline Yulia Tymoshenko’s Byut again, but she could also remain in a strong win-win-win situation, rising in the polls further ahead of 2009 presidential elections as the only alternative to the longstanding infighting between the two male leaders.
“The current situation is least harmful for Byut,” he said, referring to the continuing standoff between the president and the premier.
“Neither of them (Yushchenko or Yanukovych) has a decisive advantage to get a compromise on their terms.”
Karasyov said Byut could even come out much better in one of three non-compromise scenarios: if Yushchenko pushes forward with snap parliamentary elections, if the coalition impeaches Yushchenko and a presidential poll is held, or if no elections are held at all.
Following Yushchenko’s sacking of Tymoshenko as premier in September 2005, the fiery femme fatale came back to get 22 percent of votes in the March 2006 parliamentary elections, surprising both Yanukovych and Yushchenko, whose blocs did worse than expected. Tymoshenko, who hails from eastern Ukraine but espouses a policy popular in the west, picked up votes during last year’s election in the Yanukovych-dominated east and south.
While Yanukovych and Yushchenko were arguing at home over issues of power that climaxed with Yushchenko’s recent dismissal of the parliament, Tymoshenko was warmly greeted in Washington DC as the next possible leader of Ukraine’s democratic movement. More recently, Tymoshenko has been supporting the president – at a safe distance – in his battle against Yanukovych. Tymoshenko announced solidarity with Yushchenko’s Our Ukraine party in its campaign to reclaim the parliament but dismissed speculation of forming a single electoral bloc. Going it alone preserves a strong launching pad for Tymoshenko into the 2009 presidential elections.
“We are going to the elections as two [separate] powerful streams,” she said during an April 10 press briefing, rejecting the suggestion that fresh elections could be delayed. “Putting off the elections is practically impossible, as Article 77 of the Constitution envisages that early elections must be held within 60 days, and the law on elections envisages that the elections must be held on the last Sunday of that 60-day period.”
While Yanukovych and Yushchenko continually drag each other into the mud at home and abroad, Tymoshenko’s rating has steadily grown. A recent poll shows Tymoshenko’s bloc would get 25 percent of the popular vote in a snap election, just two percentage points behind Yanukovych’s Regions Party.
Late last year, as Yushchenko continued to have his authority wrestled away from him by Yanukovych, his Our Ukraine bloc appeared to be on the verge of a split, making it likely that part of the pro-presidential party would join Tymoshenko. Indeed, fired as premier in 2005 and then passed over for the position a year later – in favor of Yanukovych – Tymoshenko owes the president nothing.
Dmytro Vydryn, a lawmaker in the Tymoshenko faction, said that any attempt to reach a compromise between Yushchenko and Yanukovych would make the president look worse.
“It will cause a shift in popularity favoring [Tymoshenko’s] Byut or other democratic parties,” he added.
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