Ukraine's leading English-language newspaper since 1995

In the USA, they sell a beer called “Budweiser Lite.” As Budweiser is already a very “lite” beer, I usually say when I am in an American bar that the concept of a “Budweiser-light” is scientifically impossible and ask the waiter or waitress to bring me “real beer.”

Don’t get me wrong: America has great micro-beer and brew pubs that beer aficionados like myself love to drink. In fact, although I am a British patriot, I actually prefer American real ales (i.e. “micro-beers” in American parlance) to British flat and warm ales. Perhaps other Brits do as well, which explains why most British pubs have more lager taps than real ale ones.

But, back to the scientific question: How can any beer be “liter” than Budweiser?

In a similar vein, is it scientifically possible to find a “Yushchenko-Light,” as Yulia Pushko writes in the Kyiv Post [June 12, “Hello gridlock, my old friend: Sun not likely to rise soon on political horizon; http://www.kyivpost.com/opinion/op_ed/43224.]

Maybe Arseniy Yatseniuk will prove that science is wrong and that a “Yushchenko-Light” is a real possibility and that he – as seen by his silence and inability to answer questions as to his platform or views on key issues -- is its Ukrainian incarnation?

Yulia Pushko outlined three scenarios this year for Ukraine. She described the second scenario as following: “Insiders say that former parliament speaker Arseniy Yatsenyuk is sponsored by oligarchs, including embattled RosUkrEnergo owner Dmitry Firtash. With the massive media resources of the Firtash-controlled Inter TV channel, Victor Pinchuk’s three channels and lots of loyal newspapers, the young Yatseniuk might have enough resources to capture the public’s imagination.”

Yulia Pushko continues: “The problem with this ‘new face’ is that he does not have a dedicated support base – 90 percent of all his supporters would be the remnants of Our Ukraine and other disillusioned Yushchenko allies and possibly a few votes from BYuT [Bloc of Yulia Tymoshenko]. That may mean that the fresh choice turns out to be Yushchenko-Lite, complete with the attendant intrigues and domestic battles for influence. Further, he’d be beholden to the oligarchs and their interests.”

It is true that Yatseniuk has been surprisingly quiet of late and has not used the collapse of the coalition of national unity negotiations to gain political dividends for his presidential election bid. His silence reinforces the growing and widespread view in Ukraine and in the West that he has no program or team.

The head of a well-known Kyiv think tank told me in May that he had proposed assisting in a consultancy capacity in establishing a regional network for Yatseniuk’s Front for Change virtual political party. But Yatseniuk declined the offer. Yatseniuk was more interested, as my confidant told me, in establishing election headquarters rather than his political force.

Yatseniuk’s lack of program and ideological amorphousness came out during his recent visit to Germany. Somebody closely involved in organizing the visit told me that the visit became progressively embarrassing, “because he was not able to answer any single conceptional question.” When asked what he thought about the European Union’s Eastern Partnership unveiled in May in Prague, which Ukraine signed, Yatsenyuk replied: “Well, you know, I am very much in favor of any kind of partnership.”

Now, that was a very “lite” answer.

Most embarrassing of all was when Yatseniuk was asked by his German hosts what would be “the three key messages he would give to the Ukrainian people?” as a presidential candidate. There was simply a long silence.

It is not only Washington that is skeptical, but also Western Europe. European Council on Foreign Relations senior fellow Andrew Wilson told Radio Svoboda on June 8 that “we have no idea who Mr. Yatseniuk is. At the moment, he has great PR, but he has still not shown his true colors. He is consistent but there is a lack of content behind him.” Wilson argues that Mr. Yatseniuk “cannot be always against everybody, without his own program.”

Another problem Wilson outlines is that it remains unclear who is financing him. Many businessmen stand behind him, some with, and some without, good reputations. Fundamentally, “it remains unclear if he is a new generation project - as he represents himself - or to a certain extent a safety net for some of his supporters,” Wilson said.

A constitution is the fundamental law of a country. Yet, voters do not know whether Yatseniuk stands for a parliamentary or for a presidential system? We can only infer that because Yatseniuk belongs to Vyacheslav Kyrylenko’s For Ukraine group in the Our Ukraine-Peoples Self-Defense parliamentary faction that he is more inclined to favor President Victor Yushchenko’s preference for a presidential constitution (rather than a parliamentary one favored by BYuT and the Regions Party).

Yatseniuk may be unaware that parliamentarianism has proven to be the best system for democratization of post-communist countries. This is clearly seen in the contrast between parliamentarianism in democratic Eastern Europe and the Baltic states and presidentialism in autocratic Eurasia. The “pro-Western President Yushchenko” presidential constitution does not take Ukraine into Europe, but back into Eurasia.

Although Yatseniuk has denied that he is the president’s successor, the close inter-connection between Victor Yushchenko and Yatseniuk is there for anybody to see. One of the leaders of Yatseniuk’s election campaign is former Kyiv-Mohyla Academy Professor Rostyslav Pavlenko, who worked on the Winter Crop Generation (KOP), Our Ukraine and Yushchenko’s election campaigns. KOP was financed by Victor Pinchuk and many Ukrainian analysts see a close similarity to Pinchuk’s latest political project, Yatseniuk’s Front for Change. In 2005-2008, Pavlenko was head of the “analytical service” of the Presidential Secretariat; in other words, most of the time when the secretariat was run by Victor Baloha.

Pinchuk¹s political projects KOP and Viche failed, receiving only 2.02% and 1.74% in 2002 and 2006. Will the Front for Change also flop like KOP?

Yatseniuk’s propagation of himself as an agent of “change” and “Ukraine’s Barack Obama” is skeptically received in Washington, Brussels, Berlin and probably in Ukraine as well. Not only is Ukraine not Russia, as ex-President Leonid Kuchma famously wrote, but Ukraine is not America.