Yulia Returns as PM, Forms New Government

By Zenon Zawada

Ukraine’s government realigned itself on a decidedly pro-Western course after its parliament voted December 18 to return Yulia Tymoshenko to the prime minister chair by the slimmest of margins.

After her election, Tymoshenko reaffirmed her intention to radically reform the Ukrainian government; a plan that includes reducing bureaucracy, revamping the 2008 Budget and reorganizing the opaque natural gas sector.

In the same session parliament approved by two votes Tymoshenko’s Cabinet of Ministers, which includes a foreign affairs minister who favours NATO membership and a physics professor and university rector as education minister. In divvying Cabinet posts, the Tymoshenko Bloc gained control of the economic sphere, Our Ukraine-People’s Self-Defence received humanitarian posts and the Presidential Secretariat was given the armed forces. The first moves declared by Tymoshenko included cutting bureaucracy in the government’s ministries.

The opposition, led by former Prime Minister Victor Yanukovych and the Party of Regions, predicted doom for the new government, insisting it won’t be able to fulfill its campaign promises, dismissing them as populist and unrealistic. Yanukovych struck a particularly nasty tone in his outgoing speech before Parliament, stating the Orange forces ruined Ukraine’s stability this year and their policies will only make life worse in Ukraine next year.

During the parliamentary election campaign, Tymoshenko made promises that observers and even her own coalition members regarded as unrealistic. Among them was returning $120 billion in bank deposits lost during the devastating hyperinflation between 1991 and 1995.

Another ambitious campaign promise already appears doomed – ending mandatory military service by January. To make matters more difficult, Tymoshenko is inheriting an economy that has inflation approaching 15 percent and no approved budget for the 2008 fiscal year. If a budget isn’t passed by New Year’s Day, the government will by required to operate according to the prior year’s budget. Tymoshenko said amending the “deceitful” budget of the Yanukovych government and passing a new one is her government’s top priority at the moment. Helping her is Finance Minister Viktor Pynzenyk, who has served in various capacities in Ukraine’s government since independence, and Economy Minister Bohdan Danylyshyn, a lifelong academic.

Aside from reshaping the budget, Tymoshenko vowed to reform the natural gas sector, particularly the role of shadowy middleman company RosUkrEnergo, which is in the multi-billion-dollar business of reselling blue fuel to Ukraine from Central Asian producers. She called for meetings with Gazprom, which controls the business in the region, and repeated her goal of eliminating RosUkrEnergo, whose role she and US officials have described as corrupt.

Tymoshenko’s fight against RosUkrEnergo is expected to shake up relations with Moscow and business interests in Ukraine that benefit from the current supply arrangement.

As with any significant political event in Kyiv, Moscow was quick to weigh in, albeit, indirectly. In a letter to President Victor Yushchenko, Russian President Vladimir Putin criticized Kyiv’s humanitarian policy, particularly with respect to historical remembrance. The Kremlin attacked Yushchenko for elevating deceased Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) Chief Commander Roman Shukhevych to Hero of Ukraine, waging war with the nation’s Soviet monuments, discriminating against the Russian language and encouraging a schism within the Orthodox Church.

“These unfriendly steps already darken the atmosphere of relations between our countries. Moreover, they can cause serious damage to bilateral cooperation in various directions,” the letter stated.

Yushchenko encouraged Tymo-shenko to pursue European standards in all spheres. US Ambassador William Taylor and US Chamber of Commerce President Jorge Zukoski were both in Parliament for Tymoshenko’s election.

In her speech before the vote, Tymoshenko struck her standard fiery, defiant tone, warning of repeated subversions of the vote and accusing the current government of plundering the nation’s wealth. Though the parliamentary coalition consists of a two-vote majority, Deputy Ivan Pliushch abstained from the vote, and 76-year-old Ivan Spodarenko remained hospitalized, creating drama that the vote would fail again. When Yekhanurov raised his hand and declared “for” during the voting for Tymoshenko, the parliament’s session hall erupted in fierce cheers of triumph, as it did when Chairman (Speaker) Arseniy Yatsenyuk cast the last vote, making Tymoshenko Prime Minister. Regions deputies immediately declared “fierce control” as its main goal in the opposition. The next day, Yanukovych called on the opposition forces to unite into a shadow government.

Tymoshenko has promised the opposition adequate opportunity to monitor the government, as well as 12 chairmanships of 26 committees, far more than what the Anti-Crisis Coalition offered the Orange forces, having kept the budget and regimen committees that traditionally go to the opposition.

Selections for parliamentary committee chairs and vice chairs are expected in subsequent sessions.

Excerpts from an article that appeared in the Kyiv Post, December 19, 2007