Blue &Yellow: Politics and Economics in Ukraine

Another piece from BBC, this time on the president's attitude toward members of his party who accepted the new coalition with BYuT and Lytvyn.  As some may remember it was his party which bolted the coalition in early September. No new election materialized after that because of the economic crisis and strong opposition from BYuT. Instead a majority of this party's members (which is an umbrella for 9 small parties) accepted a new coalition; with the addition of Bloc Lytvyn whose leader is now speaker of the Rada. The president feels they should be punished for going against the party's decision to be in a coalition with BYuT. He also said that the only reason for creating a new coalition was to keep the prime minitership with Tymoshenko. 

The Eurasia Daily Monitor's recent issue (Volume 5, Issue 239) on the new coalition casts light on the fractures within party and how weak his position in the party is right now.  While the president sees treachery with those members who violated the decision, members may simply be tired of his leadership and his decision to create a new party. 

Lytvyn’s election as speaker was only made possible by the 27-member Communist Party faction, which supported the vote (www.pravda.com.ua, December 9-10). Only 40 of the 72 OU-PSD deputies supported his election. The larger orange coalition cannot remain stable if it has to rely on the votes of the Communists, who would never support many of the anti-crisis measures that Ukraine is being forced to adopt as part of the IMF stand-by loan negotiated in October.

 Of the nine parties in the OU-PSD, five did not support the OU-PSD’s withdrawal in September, and this month six supported joining the larger orange coalition. It is interesting how many of the deputies have fallen out with Yushchenko. Only 30 of the 72 OU-PSD deputies attended a meeting with the president on December 15.

The president does not favor the larger orange coalition and holds out hope for a technocratic government (www.president.gov.ua, December 15); but this is unrealistic in a parliamentary democracy, as the position of prime minister will always go to the leader of a political party.