Ukraine News Update
AP
Ukrainian president accuses opponents of coup try, govt on verge of collapse
By MARIA DANILOVA
Associated Press Writer
3 September 2008
06:52
KIEV, Ukraine (AP) – Ukraine’s president ordered the creation of a new governing coalition Wednesday and threatened fresh elections, accusing his rival prime minister and opposition parties of attempting a “constitutional coup.”
Viktor Yushchenko’s statement, broadcast live on national television, came shortly after his allies in parliament pulled out of the governing coalition, putting it in the brink of collapse.
Ukraine’s Western-leaning government has long been marked by bitter feuding between rivals and even allies. But this latest crisis comes as the country faces growing uncertainty in its ties with Moscow, after Ukraine condemned Russia’s war with Georgia last month.
The Tuesday night walkout came after lawmakers loyal to Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko sided with opposition parties to pass a law weakening presidential powers and boosting those of the prime minister.
“Yesterday, a political and constitutional coup began in parliament,” Yushchenko said in his speech. “I consider the events in the Ukrainian parliament a formal beginning of the formation of a new parliamentary coalition.”
He ordered lawmakers to form a new coalition and threatened to call early elections if no coalition is formed on time.
The Cabinet will continue working up to 60 days until a new coalition is formed.
Yushchenko and Tymoshenko, possible rivals in Ukraine’s 2010 presidential elections, have been engaged in a tug-of-war ever since Tymoshenko returned as prime minister late last year
Financial Times
Ukraine’s coalition turns on itself
By Roman Olearchyk in Kiev
Published: September 3 2008 10:04 | Last updated: September 3 2008 10:59
Ukraine’s pro-western coalition descended into chaos on Wednesday as western leaders seek to demonstrate their support for Kiev following Russia’s intervention in Georgia.
Ministers backing President Victor Yushchenko walked out of a cabinet meeting on Wednesday after their Our Ukraine party threatened to quit a coalition with the bloc of Yulia Tymoshenko, the prime minister.
Addressing the nation, President Yushchenko accused Ms Tymoshenko’s bloc of plotting an ”anti-constitutional coup” by voting in tandem with communists and the Moscow-leaning Regions party in favour of legislation to cut the president’s authority. “Without a doubt, the collapse of the coalition was a well-planned action,” he said. He threatened to dissolve parliament unless politicians agreed a new coalition. The partners still have up to 40 days to try to reconcile their differences.
The west has been paying heightened attention to Ukraine because like Georgia it is a former Soviet republic keen to join both the Nato alliance and the European Union.
Russia’s military incursion in defence of the breakaway region of South Ossetia and occupation of large buffer zones in Georgia proper has raised fears that Moscow could next target Ukraine, a much larger country of 46 million where Russia and the West have also jostled for influence.
Moscow has denied suggestions it could challenge Ukraine’s territorial integrity, but has openly protested against the speedy westward integration drive adopted by Mr Yushchenko, including plans to join the Nato military alliance.
Ukraine’s latest bout of internecine political warfare comes ahead of a visit to Kiev this week by US Vice President Dick Cheney. Mr. Cheney is to stop off in Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Italy to rally pro-western support against Moscow.
Fresh political turmoil is unlikely to help Kiev’s bid for speedy integration with the EU and Nato. Kiev hopes to conclude an agreement on closer integration with the EU at a summit in Evian, France, on September 9. Ukraine’s president also hopes Nato will grant his country a Membership Action Plan in December, a move that would kick start membership preparations.
Olexiy Haran, a political science professor in Kiev, said the political standoff in Kiev was more rooted in the ambitions of Ukraine’s political elite, than in any plot by Russia to undercut Kiev’s pro-west path. But he warned that ”Moscow would try to capitalise on it”.
”If the coalition collapses, Ukraine’s pro-western drive will not change in the long term, but it will suffer short term setbacks. This scenario would complicate Ukraine’s efforts to integrate closer with Nato and the European Union in the near term,” he added.
The latest twist in Ukraine’s complicated and cut-throat politics, is the culmination of an escalating rivalry between Ms Tymoshenko and Mr Yushchenko, both of whom are expected to spar for the presidential post in a contest that kicks off in 2009.
Mr Yushchenko’s camp has accused Ms Tymoshenko of siding with the Kremlin by refusing to adopt a resolution sharply condemning Moscow for its actions in Georgia. The president’s party issued an ultimatum to Ms Tymoshenko warning it would quit the coalition if her bloc refused to support the Georgia resolution. Mr Yushchenko’s party also wants the premier’s bloc to drop legislation that would cut presidential authority.
Ms Tymoshenko has expressed solidarity with Georgia and claims the accusations from the president’s camp merely aim to discredit her.
Collapse of the coalition would set the stage for either snap elections, or a new coalition that would include opposition parties that lean towards Moscow.
Speculation has abounded that either Tymoshenko’s or Yushchenko’s party could join forces with the Regions party of former prime minister Viktor Yanukovich. All three are almost certain to run in the presidential election in about 16 months, and analysts have seen the arguments between Tymoshenko and Yushchenko as political manoeuvring ahead of the poll.
Several Our Ukraine members told radio stations they had agreed that the party would leave the coalition, but the party itself has made no official announcement. The two parties have 10 days to sort out their differences and revive the coalition.
If they do not, the constitution gives parliament 30 days to create a new coalition. If that does not happen, the president has the right to call a new election. Analysts have said, and polls have shown, that in the event of an election now, Our Ukraine would lose seats, while both Tymoshenko’s Bloc and the Regions party would gain.
The Washington Post
Editorial
Understanding Russia; Moscow’s aggression is aimed not at Georgia’s territory but at Europe’s new democracies.
2 September 2008
FINAL
A14
THERE WAS a telling juxtaposition of headlines from Russia yesterday. On one side you had President Dmitry Medvedev claiming a “sphere of influence” outside Russian borders and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warning the West not to arm Georgia. On the other side, you had the murder of Magomed Yevloyev, a journalist whose independence had angered the government. He was arrested, shot in the head by police while riding in the back of a police car, and dumped by the side of the road.
This is a moment for clarity in thinking about Russia, which is forcibly occupying sizable chunks of a neighboring country and claiming it has every right to do so. Some in the West are tempted to agree. After all, the United States and its allies invaded Iraq and attacked Serbia; why can’t Russia do the same to Georgia? Why can’t it have a NAFTA of its own?
Here’s why. The United States, Britain and other nations deposed the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein because he repeatedly violated his promises to the United Nations, after his earlier invasion of Kuwait, to rid himself of weapons of mass destruction and prove that he had done so. They invaded Serbia to protect the people of Kosovo from mass ethnic cleansing and destruction. In both cases, reasonable people can argue that it was wrong to act without U.N. authorization; they can make a case that the campaigns were unwise on many other grounds.
What they can’t argue is that the allies were motivated by a desire for conquest or occupation; as the presidential campaign has shown, the American people can hardly wait to pull their troops out and leave Iraqis to manage their own affairs. NAFTA, meanwhile, was freely entered into by three democratically elected governments. If Canada wants out, the United States will not seize Ottawa.
Russia, on the other hand, is seeking to overthrow a democratically elected government precisely because that government does not want to be subjugated to Moscow. Mr. Medvedev’s claim of a Georgian genocide, after his own government published casualty figures of 200 or so, is deliberately preposterous; he is mocking the very idea of humanitarian intervention. As Russia under president-turned-prime-minister Vladimir Putin has become less and less democratic, it has become increasingly aggressive toward neighboring democracies. The more democratic those neighbors become — see Ukraine, Poland, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia — the more hostile Russia becomes.
The brave Mr. Yevloyev, who returned to his hometown in the province of Ingushetia despite ample warning that Mr. Putin’s thugs were waiting for him, may seem like a footnote to all this. But his death — like the deaths of Anna Politkovskaya and so many other journalists and liberal politicians before him, like the death of the free press and open debate — is at the heart of the story. Mr. Putin is turning Russia into something very like a fascist state, and its natural inclination will be to replicate itself abroad. “The Cold War was clearly about ideologies,” Russia’s ambassador to the European Union, Vladimir Chizhov, noted yesterday, and then claimed: “We are living in a different world today. There is no ground for talk about a second Cold War.”
Judging by the E.U.’s feckless response yesterday to Russia’s aggression, many European leaders still want to believe Mr. Chizhov. But what is happening in Georgia is very much about ideology, and the longer the Europeans pretend otherwise, the greater the damage they will have to contain.
Eurasia Daily Monitor
September 2, 2008
PARTY OF REGIONS SPLITS OVER GEORGIA AND NATO
The Party of Regions expelled National Security and Defense Council (NRBO) Secretary Raisa Bohatyryova from the party’s senior decision-making body, the Political Council, and from the party itself on September 1. Until being appointed NRBO secretary in December 2007, Bohatyryova had been the leader of the Regions parliamentary faction.
The surprise decision quickly followed Bohatyryova’s support for Georgian territorial integrity and NATO membership during a luncheon held three days before at Washington’s Metropolitan Club by the U.S.-Ukraine Business Council (USUBC). Bohatyryova was on an official visit to the United States from August 24 to 30.
Bohatyryova’s remarks were in response to two questions posed by Jamestown and by Arieh Cohen of the Heritage Foundation. Asked whether she supported President Viktor Yushchenko’s support for Georgia’s territorial integrity or that of Regions leader Viktor Yanukovych in support of South Ossetian and Abkhaz independence, she answered that Yanukovych’s position did not reflect the party’s position and gave her strong support to Yushchenko.
Bohatyryova praised Yushchenko for attempting to unite politicians and Ukraine and criticized other political leaders for putting their personal interests above national ones. She added, “they frequently use foreign challenges for their party and electoral plans despite the risks of a threat to national security,” an oblique reference to Yanukovych and his stance on NATO (Ukrainian News Agency, August 31).
Bohatyryova ridiculed Regions’ official view on NATO as one that was in favor of NATO membership when the party was in power and against it when it was in opposition. She never raised the question of a referendum on NATO, a persistent Regions demand.
Citing the Kosovo precedent, Yanukovych has supported the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Two days after Bohatyryova’s remarks the Crimean branch of Regions appealed to the parliamentary faction to do the same (www.partyofregions.org.ua, August 26; www.prava.com.ua, August 28). The Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MZS) described Yanukovych’s call as “harming the national interests of Ukraine,” “provocative,” “irresponsible,” and “unpleasant” (www.mfa.gov.ua, August 29).
In a statement issued by the Regions faction, it did not support Yanukovych and the Crimean branch’s call for Ukraine to recognize the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Instead, the statement blamed the authorities for not staying neutral and dragging Ukraine into the conflict by supporting Georgia and unleashing a “massive anti-Russian propaganda campaign” (www.rada.kiev.ua, August 26).
The Regions faction demanded a return to good relations with Russia, constitutional changes that would transform Ukraine into a non-bloc (neutral) country, and a referendum on NATO membership. Regions’ call for the creation of a temporary parliamentary commission to investigative the delivery of weapons to Georgia and the participation of Ukrainians on the Georgian side echoed claims made by Russia about Ukraine’s alleged involvement in the conflict.
Ukrainian politicians and the media have pointed out that arms deliveries to Georgia began under Presidents Leonid Kuchma and Eduard Shevardnadze, not under Yushchenko and Mikheil Saakashvili. Ukraine also supplied arms to Georgia during Yanukovych’s government from 2002 to 2004.
Bohatyryova’s expulsion from Regions was propelled by Yanukovych’s anger that she had belittled his position as leader. Bohatyryova cited senior Regions leaders who condemned Russia’s occupation of Georgian territory and said that Yanukovych’s call for recognizing the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia was a “personal viewpoint” that did not reflect the collective leadership of the party.
Deputy Regions faction leader Oleksandr Yefremov disagreed, claiming that Yanukovych’s position was the outcome of a “consolidated point of view of the Political Council of Regions. It was not the viewpoint of one person” (www.pravda.com.ua, September 1).
Asked during the USUBC luncheon whether she would be advising her U.S. contacts of Ukraine’s support for a NATO MAP, she said, “There is a need to state loudly not only [its] importance but a rise of a threatening situation if a Membership Action Plan is not given to Ukraine” (www.pravda.com.ua, September 1). Bohatyryova’s backing for Yushchenko’s strong support for a NATO MAP is at odds with Yanukovych’s opposition to a MAP.
Since the crisis Ukrainian polls have shown a reversal of the downward trend in support for NATO membership that arose following the invasion of Iraq and anti-NATO media campaigns during Yanukovych’s 2002-2004 government and the 2004 elections (www.pravda.com.ua, September 1). Support for NATO membership has risen back to a pre-Iraqi invasion level of one third, while opposition to it has declined.
Bohatyryova stated unequivocally that the Black Sea Fleet would have to withdraw by 2017 and that the constitution forbade foreign bases, whether Russian or otherwise (a pointed reference to NATO or American bases). Supporting Russia’s stance, Regions has raised the question of extending the lease beyond 2017, even though this flatly contradicts Regions’ support for Ukraine’s neutrality, a status that rules out foreign bases.
Regions has split over the Georgian crisis and indirectly over NATO. Crimean Communist Party of Ukraine (KPU) leader Leonid Grach, an ally of the pro-Yanukovych faction in the Crimean parliament, has criticized Regions for its lack of a consolidated position on Georgia (Ukrainian News Agency, September 1).
Yanukovych’s support for the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia is unpopular as support for the country’s territorial integrity is as high in eastern as it is in western Ukraine. With many Ukrainians and Western observers looking to the Crimea as Russia’s possible next target, the pro-independence stance of Yanukovych and Regions will be unpopular and will be used, as it already has been by the MZS, to question their patriotism (see EDM, August 12).
The Georgian conflict has exposed long simmering divisions in Regions between its virulent anti-orange ideological wing headed by Yanukovych, to which many former KPU voters defected, and a pragmatic wing dominated by big business with which Bohatyryova is aligned. The split may significantly harm Yanukovych’s chances ahead of the January 2010 presidential elections and open up eastern Ukraine to further advances by the Yulia Tymoshenko bloc in the 2007 pre-term elections. Bohatyryova’s expulsion from Regions could be followed by Regions defectors to the president’s newly created United Center party (see EDM, July 28).
–Taras Kuzio
