Volodymyr Horbulin, an adviser to several Ukrainian presidents, told the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine in 2006 that current President Viktor Yanukovych’s party is partly composed of “pure criminals,” according to a recently leaked diplomatic cable.
In the cable, released recently by whistleblower website WikiLeaks, then U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine John Herbst described Horbulin, who was an adviser to then-President Viktor Yushchenko in 2006, as “perhaps Ukraine’s foremost strategic thinker.”
He went on to describe how Horbulin in the Jan. 31, 2006 conversation – which took place several months before a parliamentary election – bluntly said that Yanukovych’s Party of Regions included partly “criminal and anti-democracy figures,” as well as some “progressive businessmen who wanted the party to become more modern and democratic.”
“Acknowledging that he might be a ‘great optimist,’ Horbulin added that, while the Party of Regions included some ‘pure criminals,’ it was not just a collection of corrupt individuals,” the cable reads.
Contacted by the Kyiv Post, Horbulin refused to comment.
Party members reject such claims.
Lawmaker Mykhailo Chechetov, deputy head of the party’s faction in parliament, insisted that the Party of Regions is composed of the nation’s “elite.” He pointed to fellow Regions lawmaker Rinat Akhmetov, the nation’s richest man, as an example of part of the nation’s business elite.
Akhmetov rose to prominence in Donetsk in the 1990s, an era widely described as “gangster capitalism,” in which assets and great wealth were up for grabs and violent struggles over the ex-Soviet spoils were common.
Chechetov disputed the alleged words of Horbulin quoted in WikiLeaks that the party is partly composed of “criminals.” He described such reports as nothing more than a “septic tank.”
According to the U.S. ambassador’s recording of Horbulin’s observations, the Regions Party in 2006 “was united, had decided not to join other opposition forces, and enjoyed deep pockets, being largely financed by billionaire Donetsk boss Akhmetov.”
The analyst also said that the party chose the right strategy of criticizing the “Orange [Revolution] team” and predicted that Party of Regions would win the elections in 2006, which subsequently happened.
The party has remained a dominant force in Ukraine politics since then, thanks in part to its backing from Ukraine’s all-powerful oligarchs, as well as leadership from Yanukovych, who won the 2010 presidential election. Yet with Yanukovych’s popularity plunging during his first two years in office, an Achilles heel has emerged that could plague the party’s future success.
With just 10 months to go before parliamentary elections, the party’s popularity has plunged. And the party is struggling to find new faces and leaders that could win back popular support.
“The problem is in choosing someone to head the party list: [Ukrainian Premier] Mykola Azarov has low rating and no charisma, [there is the] non-public Andriy Klyuyev, and the public but very peculiar Borys Kolesnikov won’t do either. Who else is there?” political analyst Volodymyr Fesenko said at a recent press conference.
Vadym Karasiov, head of the Institute of Global Strategies said there are no charismatic leaders in the political grouping.
“The Party of Regions has turned into a clan party, the ruling party, and turned the state into a clan state, closed and without public people,” Karasiov added.
Kyiv Post staff writer Oksana Grytsenko can be reached at [email protected]
