Some history
Yulia Tymoshenko made vast sums of money playing the gas game, as the president of United Energy Systems she was the intermediary between Russia and Ukraine in a trade worth billions of dollars. Apparently, Ukraine and Russia could not simply have bilateral state level relations like Russia has with European Union member states, for example, or, like Ukraine now has with Russia, for example.
Russia has used these intermediaries over the years as a way of funneling funds to political projects that kept Ukraine in Russia’s “sphere of influence” and as well as these projects having cost the Ukrainian state and therefore the Ukrainian taxpayer enormous sums of money these projects have also, always, worked against the interests of an independent Ukraine.
Tymoshenko’s claims that her business broke no laws at that time are true. How much money she made as the appointed intermediary, how she maneuvered herself into this position, these are things we don’t know.
As political fortunes (including literal fortunes) changed, Tymoshenko found herself out of the gas “business” (if just collecting cash for basically doing nothing can be called a business) and suddenly in opposition politics. This was in the run-up to what became the 2004 Orange Revolution, and as an opposition politician she necessarily became the champion of the ordinary people, a rather strange position for a billionaire to be playing. The Orange Revolution was successful, in part because of her, and then what followed was an utter failure, in part because of her.
People who were observing Ukrainian politics at that time suggested that the Viktor Yushchenko – Tymoshenko tandem was one of political expediency and that the relationship was one of convenience, they united against a common enemy and not for a common position. This became startlingly clear when, literally one week after Yushchenko was sworn in and in turn appointed Tymoshenko as his first prime minister, discussions about re-privatization showed the difference in their thinking.
When Yushchenko stood in front of a room full of investors (he was late, by the way) and told them that a half dozen of the most disgraceful privatization shams (state entities sold to buddies in rigged tenders at well below market value) would be reviewed, like Kryvorizhstal, Tymoshenko responded by saying that her list of cases she wanted reversed had hundreds of names on it. Want to know the very best way of scaring off investors? Make property rights uncertain. Any decent adviser would have told her that pursuing such a course of action was not in Ukraine’s interests. She persisted anyway.
Was this policy intended to portray her, ironically, as a champion against sweet insider deals? Whatever the reasoning, investors got very scared, and Ukraine missed a golden opportunity to start moving in the right direction because of that. Was her divisiveness deliberate? This is another thing we will never know but it resulted in her sacking and in the fall out from that very unsavory deals were made to get parliamentary backing for her replacement, Yuri Yekhanurov. People who had been frozen out (funny to imagine someone freezing in Monaco) of Ukrainian politics for six months reappeared in Kyiv, suddenly no longer afraid of being in Ukraine. That was the direct aftermath of her stint as prime minister.
The 2010 presidential campaign, and after
Just before the runoff between Yanukovych and Tymoshenko, I overheard a conversation taking place between some local businessmen. They were discussing who they would vote for and, to a man, they agreed they would have to vote for Yanukovych. Astonished, I asked how they could even think about voting for him. They explained that they didn’t want to vote “for” him at all, but they believed that a President Yulia would be an absolute disaster for Ukraine.
Eventually she lost by the narrowest of margins and in the years that followed she became a cause celebre because of the grounds of her post-election imprisonment, but just like in eastern Ukraine today an opinion against some of the actions of the central authorities does not automatically equate as a stance for Russia or the “separatists” they direct, nor is standing up against selective justice the vote of support for Tymoshenko that she seemed to think it was. I am glad that she has recovered from the back problems that plagued her time in prison though.
Today and the future
In an interview with the British newspaper “The Independent” the braided one has put forward her thoughts on the state of current affairs in Ukraine. She is as entitled to her opinion as anyone else of course, but, she is in a position of opinion leader and shaper, and so her words carry extra responsibility when we once again return to the central question of acting in the interests of Ukraine.
From that interview: “Ms Tymoshenko says she is best placed to understand the hardship ordinary Ukrainians are facing … “having lived in poverty” most of her life.” My wife, reading those words over my shoulder, commented “give me a fucking break” in response.
Commenting about oligarchs, Tymoshenko states “I have worked 15 years battling such clan interests” and this is probably correct, from a certain perspective. While those words may technically be correct, a battle for money and power between rival clans is nowhere near the same thing as battling against the overall system of oligarchic clan interests that – still – influence Ukrainian politics.
When Tymoshenko lists the issues that, in her opinion, are the greatest concerns for ordinary Ukrainians, she highlights “corruption, living standards, Russian aggression, and increased gas tariffs” and while she may well be formulating policy addressing each of these issues, I have not seen it, merely naming them is just stating the obvious and that is quite significantly different from coming up with any substance.
Is corruption a concern? Yes
Serhiy Leshchenko of the the bloc of President Petro Poroshenko went as far as naming names and giving details of amounts and dates of alleged corrupt activity on the Savik Shuster show just a few days ago. A parliament member from the Radical Party of Oleh Lyashko was arrested two weeks ago for what appears to be corrupt activity. Tymoshenko doesn’t have a monopoly on championing this cause.
Living standards are an issue, but Tymoshenko has been in Ukrainian politics for 19 years, having first been elected to parliament in 1996. What has she been doing to address living standards in the last 19 years? What is her record of putting forward initiatives in this area and what are the measurable successes she can claim? 19 years is a long time.
Russian aggression
Yes, agreed, this is an issue. Once again Tymoshenko does not have a monopoly on championing this cause. The illegally imprisoned Ukrainian pilot Nadiya Savchenko was asked under interrogation (while still in Ukraine, before being illegally transferred to Russia) how many people were behind her, her captors wanted to know how many soldiers were in her unit but due to the ambiguity of the question she responded, correctly, “the whole of Ukraine is behind me.”
Tymoshenko has been accused of being a populist, whether or not her decision to make Savchenko number one on her party list for the post-EuroMaidan elections should be branded as a populist measure is a matter of opinion. But to paraphrase Savchenko, the whole of Ukraine is united against Russian aggression. Tymoshenko’s words on this matter are a footnote, the heroes are Savchenko and the other patriots that make up Ukraine’s armed forces.
Increased gas tariffs
Despite Tymoshenko’s in-depth knowledge of the gas business it is surprising that she cannot simply understand the following. Naftogas cannot sell gas at a price lower than it pays to buy gas. Moving gas prices to market prices is a necessity, and it is something that, despite initial pain, will result in many beneficial outcomes for the state as well as the environment.
Heavy industry will have to become more efficient, less wasteful. Homes will be made more energy efficient. A gas market based on free market principles and not on solely relying on Russian gas (a situation that made some people very very rich, remember) means that Ukraine now has numerous suppliers offering gas to the country at better prices. Bemoaning these changes as if they are bad is a cynical exploitation of the real challenges actually facing many people, and the people who are most affected by this issue will be compensated through subsidies to ease the burden, because that’s actually the most sensible answer to what was a very acute problem that Tymoshenko herself did nothing to address.
What Ukraine needs now is to move past the old generation of political players, they spent almost a quarter of a century playing their personal interests ahead of the interests of the state and the citizens of Ukraine. We have had revolutions, two, now we have to carry on with the evolution of Ukrainian politics, a resurgent Tymoshenko is a step backwards, who wants that? Who wants to go back to what we had?
Link to article quoted: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/yulia-tym…
