A Year to Forget

By Walter Kish

For Ukraine, 2008 was certainly a year to forget.  Seventeen years into independence, Ukraine’s sorry bunch of politicians have proven without a doubt that they are unfit to manage the smallest selo (village) or khutir (hamlet), never mind a country striving to find its rightful place in Europe and the world.

Although blame can be spread widely to virtually all the major players that make up the government and public administration, President Yushchenko stands out as being the major obstacle towards Ukraine achieving stability and responsible government.  The man seems to be living in a world divorced from reality.  After Yulia Tymoshenko succeeded once again in assuming the Prime Minister’s position, despite the President’s best (or should I say worst) efforts, he did everything he could during 2008 to sabotage her government’s efforts.  It seemed that his chief priority was to break up her tenuous coalition and kick her out of office. 

There are those that credit most of the blame for these Machiavellian machinations to the President’s Secretariat Chief of Staff, the odious Victor Baloha, known to some as the “Monster from Mukachevo”.  However, as Yushchenko once said, “You should listen to what Victor Baloha says. Baloha is me.”  Yushchenko, for all his faults, is not a weak-willed milquetoast being manipulated by an eminence grise (grey eminence) in the form of Baloha.  He knows full well what he is doing and should be held accountable for it.  His antipathy for Yulia Tymoshenko is so pathological that it has overwhelmed both his common sense and his ability to govern in the best interests of the country.

There was a telling example recently of his irrational state of mind.  After having caused the collapse of Tymoshenko’s coalition several months ago, he subsequently accused her of treason for having discussions with Yanukovich on the possibility of forming a new coalition.  Apparently, it had slipped his mind that when he did exactly the same a year previously. He explained it as an act of pragmatism and statesmanship.

It was therefore no surprise that when Yulia recently announced the formation of a new coalition that included her bloc, the Presidential Our Ukraine – People’s Self Defence (OU-PSD) faction and the Volodymyr Lytwyn Bloc, the President made no bones about his strong opposition to it.  How he can justify opposing a coalition that includes most of the original political forces that brought him to power during the Orange Revolution is not only beyond me, but apparently most Ukrainians as well.  The latest polls shows Yushchenko’s popularity  has sunk to low single digits and is within striking range of what my cousin Hryts would say “figu z makom.”

What is more incomprehensible is that the President continues his destructive and destabilizing personal vendetta against Tymoshenko at a time when Ukraine can least afford it.  The Ukrainian economy is in a shambles. The value of Ukraine’s currency, the hryvnia, has fallen by a half over the past few months. Industrial output tumbled some 20% in October and almost 29% in November.  The banking sector is in deep trouble with large bankruptcies looming on the horizon.  One of the country’s largest banks, Prominvestbank, is already in receivership after a run on its deposits.

Although officially the government is forecasting a virtually zero rate of growth in the GDP for 2009, experts predict a negative growth of at least -5%. The crush of economic problems forced Ukraine to go begging and in November, it received a $16.5 billion bailout from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).  To aggravate the situation even further, the New Year saw Russia cutting off gas supplies to Ukraine in what has become an annual tradition.  

With the country being overwhelmed by economic problems and the President continuing his senseless and unjustifiable feud with Prime Minister Tymoshenko, Ukrainians have very little to be hopeful about as they enter 2009.

I was on the Maidan in Kyiv when Yushchenko was inaugurated as President in 2005 after the Orange Revolution.  It was a time of great hope.  There is very little of that left now.