Exactly what is going to happen tomorrow?
A Kyiv court has now ordered all political rallies scheduled for Saturday are....banned. Whilst the justification for this - that rival demonstrations might spark bloodshed - is reasonable, I can't help but wonder exactly who is winning from this situation. Yanukovych will now not have to risk the humiliation of his rally tomorrow being dwarfed by that of the Orange forces, so a big plus for him. A plus for Yushchenko as well? His party had been calling for protestors to gather tomorrow evening, but then as I mentioned above, a 180 degree turn from Poroshenko earlier may have cast OU's participation into doubt. With a party congress due tomorrow, is Our Ukraine on the verge of growing a spine, kicking people like Poroshenko (those purely interested in immunity from prosecution) and turning into the first real political party (in the Western sense) in Ukraine's history? Or is instead about to be kicked into touch by an ever weak Yushchenko?
These rallies may still go ahead tomorrow without the authorities permission, but with the OU Congress due, another crucial chapter in Ukraine's history is about to be completed.
I once more leave the final word to Our Ukraine faction leader Vyacheslav Kyrylenko;
“If we don’t take decisive steps and don’t hold early parliamentary elections, we will hardly have...elections in 2011. 101% citizens of every region will vote for what the government wants...the “anti-crisis” coalition is back to it's old corruption schemes in economics...Democracy and respect for people means nothing for them. Neither the government, nor the factions of the “anti-crisis” coalition have drawn conclusions after the Maidan events of 2004”.
2 comments:
it's pretty intense.
please keep us posted.
dlw
Hi Matt - Things are getting interesting. The president could make the point that a party [PoR] that received about 1/3 of the nation's votes last March may soon command 2/3rds of the votes in the VR - clearly not right. On the other had he has ridden roughshod over the consitition on many occasions himself since he became president.
His relationship with Tymoshenko could well be irredeemable having sacked her in 2005 as PM and then 'gone' with PoR rather than form a coalition with BYuT last year. BYuT supported the recent vote on the KabMin law to reduce the president's powers. In the event that BYuT were to become the leading party after any fresh elections, Yush's position as president could well continue to come under attack.
PoR may well be saying to Yush stick with us and we will support you in the next pres elections.
I will stick my neck out and say that at the moment the most likely scenario is a compromise between Pres and the national unity coalition NUC. The NUC have a solid majority anyhow and are firmly in power. A major crisis is not of interest to them, nor to their financial sponsors.
What has happened is that the oligarchic sponsors of NSNU and BYuT have realised that the current gov is solidly entrenched in power now, so may as well 'go with them'.
The problem for Yush is that last August he came to within a hair's breath of dissolving the VR and pulled out. If he pulls out again then he will be seen to be weak again.
I think that Yanuk and his advisers will back down - maybe agree to some sort of freeze on the drift of VR deputies to the NUC - he will then look a statesmanlike compromiser and still maintain a deal of power.
Still, as a former British PM said when asked what a politician should worry about, he replied, "Events dear boy, events."
Post a Comment