Ukraine's leading English-language newspaper since 1995

Rather than playing musical chairs, Tymoshenko is best off finishing what she started.

y being characterized as a political success, with lackluster economic results.

Among her successes are removing the shady intermediary UkrGazEnergo while pushing for the ouster of RosUkrEnergo from the natural gas trade. She’s fulfilled campaign promises of returning bank deposits lost in the Soviet collapse, as well as forced pre-term Kyiv mayoral elections.

The strategy has worked, with the Tymoshenko Bloc now surpassing the Party of the Regions of Ukraine as the most popular political force in recent polls.

Tymoshenko’s success dispels the repeated criticism that we’ve heard for years about her populism. She is playing the game of democracy, in which polls, popularity and election results are the paths to success.

But there’s substance behind the populism. Once again Ukraine’s iron lady is weeding out tax evasion schemes by Ukraine’s biggest conglomerates, much like she did in 2005, when budget revenues surged.

Not everything’s perfect.

Her critics point out her social spending has contributed to the government’s biggest economic problem — inflation.

Tymoshenko has deftly shifted the blame to the preceding government, assuring the public inflation will be tamed by summer.

With inflation unlikely to improve and the state budget in a ballooning deficit, Tymoshenko is now eyeing the Kyiv mayoral chair, a much more comfortable position.

Rather than playing musical chairs however, Tymoshenko is best off finishing what she started.

Her economics team would do well in taking the advice offered by Ukrainian policy expert Anders Aslund, published on this page. As the markets revealed last week, the hryvnia peg to the US dollar is no longer defensible. Perhaps the US economic crisis may offer that needed push to enable Ukraine to float their currency.

Given quotas on grain and sunflower oil exports have had limited success in keeping prices down as well, such administrative economic approaches deserve to be reconsidered.

As for politics, Tymoshenko ought to go a little easy on President Viktor Yushchenko. He’s a lame duck president, commanding limited authority, even among his party members.

Allowing the final stages of his political decline to run its course, rather than swinging away with a sledgehammer, is an approach that would be more effective and win new allies.