From the inception of joint work, the Presidential Secretariat attacked the government and the Prime Minister, who kept her patience and didn’t respond until September. Meanwhile, the fight between Our Ukraine and Yediny Tsentr for certain positions dragged on. Yediny Tsentr tried to deprive Our Ukraine of the party organizations in the regions. Even the withdrawal of two MPs from the bloc (one of which was Yuriy But, member of People’s Self-defense) and President Yushchenko’s appeals to cling together could hardly contribute to consolidation of the bloc. A protracted conflict had gradually arisen between the People Self-defense and the head of the Presidential Secretariat, who mostly talked and refused to listen to the opinions of others during those few meetings held by the bloc.
Incidentally, everything had become clear by the end of the last summer: Bankovaya [Kyiv’s street where the Presidential Secretariat is located] has changed its priorities. Its representatives preferred to communicate with Kolesnikov and Akhmetov rather than with the first person on OUPS’s list, Yuriy Lutsenko. None of the MPs was happy about this except for Yediny Tsenr, which made no secret of its intention to cooperate with a “similar to it” group of the Party of Regions.
August brought news about the Presidential Secretariat actively working on the creation of a coalition comprised of OUPS, the Party of Regions and Lytvyn Bloc. However, it didn’t come to pass as BYuT had beaten them to the punch. The Georgian crisis and the refusal of BYuT to accuse the Russians of aggression against Georgia as well the joint voting of BYuT with the Party of Regions gave Bankovaya grounds to accuse their partners from the coalition of betrayal (by the way, Our Ukraine and Yediny Tsentr are now doing the same). In that situation, Yushchenko needed Vyacheslav Kyrylenko even more than Yediny Tsentr, because Kyrylenko enjoyed the support of the majority from Our Ukraine and the Ukrainian National Party of Yuriy Kostenko, and Yediny Tsentr was ready to support the dissolution of the coalition anyway. Afterwards, using telephone voting and having received the blessing of the President of Ukraine, the coalition of democratic forces was destroyed. That event split OUPS since the votes for the coalition and against it were almost even
From Nasha Ukraina to United Center
The old presidential party bloc OUPS seems to be on its final legs, with more time now available before the next election the president is cultivating his new party of power, United Center. The bloc has now fragmented and now the possibility that United Center could be a viable partner for a new coalition even if its not yet a official Rada faction. Below is an interesting excerpt from DT concerning the demise of the bloc.
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