Yushchenko returns to kuchma era tactics against his opponents
23 June 2008
Published in Ukraine Analyst
The daily attacks on the Yulia Tymoshenko government are bringing a sense of de ja vu to Ukrainian politics. The attacks increasingly resemble those undertaken in 2000-2001 against the then Viktor Yushchenko government whose deputy prime minister for energy was Yulia Tymoshenko.
The twin parallels are not only within the realm of policies and methods used by the Leonid Kuchma regime and that of the Yushchenko administration. The same neo-Soviet vitriolic rhetoric has again been revived to denounce the government as was used eight years ago to denounce the Yushchenko government.
Recent attacks on the Tymoshenko government accusing it of ‘fascism’ and ‘populism’ are a direct copy of the rhetoric used in the infamous February 2001 open letter signed by Kuchma, Prime Minister Yushchenko and parliamentary speaker Ivan Pliushch against the anti-Kuchma protests led by Tymoshenko. Pliushch, elected in 2007 within President Yushchenko’s Our Ukraine-Self Defence bloc, has always refused to sign the orange coalition accord. Pliushch has also refused to apologize for the 2001 infamous open letter arguing it was correct to denounce the anti-regime protests.
Today’s Pliushch is presidential secretariat head Viktor Baloga who has hurled insults against the Tymoshenko government reminiscent of the 2001 open letter. As many Ukrainian commentators and politicians, including from within the orange coalition, have stated the presidential secretariat is increasingly resembling Kuchma’s presidential administration not only in policies and rhetoric but also in the use of selective law enforcement against its opponents, this time Yuriy Lutsenko and Davyd Zhvannia.
Another analogy with the regime’s tactics used eight years ago is the use of the National Security and Defence Council (NRBO) against its domestic opponents. During the 2000-2001 Yushchenko government the NRBO was used to undermine the Yushchenko-Tymoshenko government, particularly over its anti-corruption policies in the energy sector.
The daily attacks on the Yulia Tymoshenko government are bringing a sense of de ja vu to Ukrainian politics. The attacks increasingly resemble those undertaken in 2000-2001 against the then Viktor Yushchenko government whose deputy prime minister for energy was Yulia Tymoshenko.
The twin parallels are not only within the realm of policies and methods used by the Leonid Kuchma regime and that of the Yushchenko administration. The same neo-Soviet vitriolic rhetoric has again been revived to denounce the government as was used eight years ago to denounce the Yushchenko government.
Recent attacks on the Tymoshenko government accusing it of ‘fascism’ and ‘populism’ are a direct copy of the rhetoric used in the infamous February 2001 open letter signed by Kuchma, Prime Minister Yushchenko and parliamentary speaker Ivan Pliushch against the anti-Kuchma protests led by Tymoshenko. Pliushch, elected in 2007 within President Yushchenko’s Our Ukraine-Self Defence bloc, has always refused to sign the orange coalition accord. Pliushch has also refused to apologize for the 2001 infamous open letter arguing it was correct to denounce the anti-regime protests.
Today’s Pliushch is presidential secretariat head Viktor Baloga who has hurled insults against the Tymoshenko government reminiscent of the 2001 open letter. As many Ukrainian commentators and politicians, including from within the orange coalition, have stated the presidential secretariat is increasingly resembling Kuchma’s presidential administration not only in policies and rhetoric but also in the use of selective law enforcement against its opponents, this time Yuriy Lutsenko and Davyd Zhvannia.
Another analogy with the regime’s tactics used eight years ago is the use of the National Security and Defence Council (NRBO) against its domestic opponents. During the 2000-2001 Yushchenko government the NRBO was used to undermine the Yushchenko-Tymoshenko government, particularly over its anti-corruption policies in the energy sector.
The unconstitutional use of the NRBO role in
undermining governments was revived four years ago
today the NRBO continues to be used in such a manner.
In 2005 the NRBO was headed by the arch
anti-Tymoshenko Petro Poroshenko and since December
2007 the NRBO has been headed by Party of Regions
parliamentary faction leader Raisa Bohatiorova. Both
Poroshenko and Bohatiorova have been used by the
President through the NRBO to undermine Ukraine’s two
Tymoshenko governments since the Orange Revolution.
A direct return to Kuchma era tactics to undermine the government could be seen in the appointment of Yevhen Marchuk as presidential adviser on the 19 May. During the 2000-2001 Yushchenko government Kuchma used Marchuk’s position as secretary of the NRBO to undermine Tymoshenko’s energy and anti-corruption policies and thereby the Yushchenko government. The government’s energy policy was closing illegal profits to Ukrainian oligarchs involved in energy corruption. It is no coincidence that the NRBO’s growing criticism of the Tymoshenko governments energy policy comes after Marchuk’s recent appointment as presidential adviser.
Marchuk was deputy chairman of the Soviet Ukrainian KGB in the Mikhail Gorbachev era and chairman of the Security Service of Ukraine under President Leonid Kravchuk in the first half of the 1990s. During the 2000-2001 Yushchenko-Tymoshenko government, then NRBO secretary Marchuk used the NRBO to denounce government policies in the energy sector as these policies were undermining massive corruption in the energy sector. It is therefore somewhat ironic that President Yushchenko has rejuvenated Marchuk’s career because of the threats emanating from the Tymoshenko governments struggle to bring transparency to Ukraine’s energy sector and the governments battle against deeply entrenched corruption therein.
When asked about the Tymoshenko governments energy policies, Washington-based Ambassador Keith Smith confided, “Criticism of present government’s efforts on energy is surprising. Indeed, Prime Minister Tymoshenko’s efforts appear to have been directed at bringing greater transparency and less corruption to the country’s energy relations with Russia and Central Asia, and even within Ukraine”. Indeed, Ambassador Smith believes that, “From my perspective, she has been the most committed to breaking the hold of unnecessary and non-transparent intermediary companies. With energy prices increasing rapidly, Ukraine needs the more open system that rewards real entrepreneurship and greater domestic production that she has publicly supported.”
Ambassador Smith explains that the energy policies pursued by the Tymoshenko government have been praised by Western governments and international organizations. While President Yushchenko has defended the non-transparent RosUkrEnergo intermediary that the Yuriy Yekhanurov government introduced as part of the January 2006 gas deal, the Tymoshenko government has sought to remove all corrupt intermediaries. As Ambassador Smith notes, Western governments have supported the governments attempts at removing corrupt intermediaries from the Russian-Ukrainian gas relationship: “Starting with her efforts to negotiate directly with Moscow on gas prices and remove rent-seeking middlemen such as RosUkrEnergo, she has attempted to provide transparency to the energy dealings of her country, a policy that would significantly benefit the rest of Europe”.
On the controversial 2007 Vanco contract supported by President Yushchenko but the government has described as a second RosUkrEnergo and seeks to cancel, Ambassador Smith said, “Indeed, although her actions in the Vanco affair are controversial, they appear to me to be another example of her insistence that the natural resources of Ukraine be exploited in the most transparent manner possible. Despite the political turmoil around the affair, the Prime Minister’s policies may be the most workable way of resolving the situation so that Vanco can be a serious energy investor in Ukraine and not a tool of less transparent companies.”
Ambassador Smith also believes that the Tymoshenko government had consistently pursued the correct policies with regard to the state-run Naftogaz Ukrayiny company: “As to the state-run companies, one need only look at the present government’s backing of Naftogaz, which was virtually bankrupt and in debt to foreign lenders when it took office – this was debt acquired from previous Ukrainian governments who may have looted the company for private gain. I believe that the Prime Minister has moved more quickly than her predecessor to provide sovereign guarantees which in effect protected the overall debt rating of Ukraine. This was a decisive executive action without which there would have been grave consequences.”
The return of Marchuk to Ukrainian politics sends a signal that the President is willing to return to Kuchma-era policies to remove the Tymoshenko government and remove her a political threat. As Ambassador Smith says, “Using energy as a political tool against the government only allows corrupt interests, both domestic and foreign interests to hold the country back”. The Tymoshenko government is not only faced with the use of energy pressure from Russia but from within Ukraine – in a repeat of policies used eight years ago – launched by the President through the NRBO and Marchuk.
The return to Kuchma era tactics and return of Marchuk to politics begs the question of how far is President Yushchenko willing to go to remove Tymoshenko whom he sees as his main obstacle to be re-elected for a second term. The semi-authoritarian Kuchma regime failed to subdue protests and, although imprisoning Tymoshenko for one month in February 2001 in the same month as the infamous open letter, numerous trumped up criminal charges failed to remove Tymoshenko as a leading opposition leader. In the young but still democratic Ukraine the President’s attempt to return to Kuchma era tactics are even more doomed to fail than were those used by Kuchma. As former Defence Minister Anatoliy Hrytsenko recently warned, the return to such policies will only return as a boomerang to undermine the President himself. The President’s ratings have declined to critical levels of 6 percent not achieved by Kuchma until his second term. Returning to Kuchma era tactics will merely reduce these further. In undermining the Tymoshenko government the President is also undermining his own support for Ukraine’s Euro-Atlantic integration that rests on unity of the orange coalition.
A direct return to Kuchma era tactics to undermine the government could be seen in the appointment of Yevhen Marchuk as presidential adviser on the 19 May. During the 2000-2001 Yushchenko government Kuchma used Marchuk’s position as secretary of the NRBO to undermine Tymoshenko’s energy and anti-corruption policies and thereby the Yushchenko government. The government’s energy policy was closing illegal profits to Ukrainian oligarchs involved in energy corruption. It is no coincidence that the NRBO’s growing criticism of the Tymoshenko governments energy policy comes after Marchuk’s recent appointment as presidential adviser.
Marchuk was deputy chairman of the Soviet Ukrainian KGB in the Mikhail Gorbachev era and chairman of the Security Service of Ukraine under President Leonid Kravchuk in the first half of the 1990s. During the 2000-2001 Yushchenko-Tymoshenko government, then NRBO secretary Marchuk used the NRBO to denounce government policies in the energy sector as these policies were undermining massive corruption in the energy sector. It is therefore somewhat ironic that President Yushchenko has rejuvenated Marchuk’s career because of the threats emanating from the Tymoshenko governments struggle to bring transparency to Ukraine’s energy sector and the governments battle against deeply entrenched corruption therein.
When asked about the Tymoshenko governments energy policies, Washington-based Ambassador Keith Smith confided, “Criticism of present government’s efforts on energy is surprising. Indeed, Prime Minister Tymoshenko’s efforts appear to have been directed at bringing greater transparency and less corruption to the country’s energy relations with Russia and Central Asia, and even within Ukraine”. Indeed, Ambassador Smith believes that, “From my perspective, she has been the most committed to breaking the hold of unnecessary and non-transparent intermediary companies. With energy prices increasing rapidly, Ukraine needs the more open system that rewards real entrepreneurship and greater domestic production that she has publicly supported.”
Ambassador Smith explains that the energy policies pursued by the Tymoshenko government have been praised by Western governments and international organizations. While President Yushchenko has defended the non-transparent RosUkrEnergo intermediary that the Yuriy Yekhanurov government introduced as part of the January 2006 gas deal, the Tymoshenko government has sought to remove all corrupt intermediaries. As Ambassador Smith notes, Western governments have supported the governments attempts at removing corrupt intermediaries from the Russian-Ukrainian gas relationship: “Starting with her efforts to negotiate directly with Moscow on gas prices and remove rent-seeking middlemen such as RosUkrEnergo, she has attempted to provide transparency to the energy dealings of her country, a policy that would significantly benefit the rest of Europe”.
On the controversial 2007 Vanco contract supported by President Yushchenko but the government has described as a second RosUkrEnergo and seeks to cancel, Ambassador Smith said, “Indeed, although her actions in the Vanco affair are controversial, they appear to me to be another example of her insistence that the natural resources of Ukraine be exploited in the most transparent manner possible. Despite the political turmoil around the affair, the Prime Minister’s policies may be the most workable way of resolving the situation so that Vanco can be a serious energy investor in Ukraine and not a tool of less transparent companies.”
Ambassador Smith also believes that the Tymoshenko government had consistently pursued the correct policies with regard to the state-run Naftogaz Ukrayiny company: “As to the state-run companies, one need only look at the present government’s backing of Naftogaz, which was virtually bankrupt and in debt to foreign lenders when it took office – this was debt acquired from previous Ukrainian governments who may have looted the company for private gain. I believe that the Prime Minister has moved more quickly than her predecessor to provide sovereign guarantees which in effect protected the overall debt rating of Ukraine. This was a decisive executive action without which there would have been grave consequences.”
The return of Marchuk to Ukrainian politics sends a signal that the President is willing to return to Kuchma-era policies to remove the Tymoshenko government and remove her a political threat. As Ambassador Smith says, “Using energy as a political tool against the government only allows corrupt interests, both domestic and foreign interests to hold the country back”. The Tymoshenko government is not only faced with the use of energy pressure from Russia but from within Ukraine – in a repeat of policies used eight years ago – launched by the President through the NRBO and Marchuk.
The return to Kuchma era tactics and return of Marchuk to politics begs the question of how far is President Yushchenko willing to go to remove Tymoshenko whom he sees as his main obstacle to be re-elected for a second term. The semi-authoritarian Kuchma regime failed to subdue protests and, although imprisoning Tymoshenko for one month in February 2001 in the same month as the infamous open letter, numerous trumped up criminal charges failed to remove Tymoshenko as a leading opposition leader. In the young but still democratic Ukraine the President’s attempt to return to Kuchma era tactics are even more doomed to fail than were those used by Kuchma. As former Defence Minister Anatoliy Hrytsenko recently warned, the return to such policies will only return as a boomerang to undermine the President himself. The President’s ratings have declined to critical levels of 6 percent not achieved by Kuchma until his second term. Returning to Kuchma era tactics will merely reduce these further. In undermining the Tymoshenko government the President is also undermining his own support for Ukraine’s Euro-Atlantic integration that rests on unity of the orange coalition.