Blue &Yellow: Politics and Economics in Ukraine

The situation rapidly deteriorated for Baloga on May 12 when a Kyiv court ruled that the deputy head of the Security Service (SBU) Tyberia Durdynets, could be lawfully arrested and his office and home searched. Durdynets was a close ally of Baloga's from his home region of Trans-Carpathia. It is widely believed that Durdynets had acted under the former chief of staff's orders when placing Ukrainian politicians and state officials under surveillance -including the deputy head of the prosecutor's office Renat Kuzmin (www.pravda.com.ua, May 12). The prosecutor's office had instructed the SBU and interior ministry to use force if necessary, to bring Durdynets to justice -he has since fled and has been placed on an Interpol wanted list. Another Baloga loyalist, the SBU deputy head Anatoliy Pavlenko, might also be charged for conducting illegal surveillance operations.

Baloga clearly viewed the court order as an indirect attack on himself, and felt betrayed that Yushchenko had not intervened to support "his man," Durdynets. He also warned on local Trans-Carpathian state television on May 17 that if he was the next target, he intended to reveal damaging inside information on Yushchenko.

The Ukrainian political consultant Vasyl Baziv, believes that Baloga possesses substantial kompromat on Yushchenko, and that his resignation will have serious repercussions within Ukrainian politics (www.zik.com.ua, May 18). A presidential secretariat insider told EDM that as chief of staff, Baloga had developed a close relationship with the two rival wings within the Party of Regions: the Donetsk old guard led by the "ideologist" Boris Kolesnikov, a close associate of the oligarch Rinat Akhmetov, and the "gas lobby" linked to RosUkrEnergo (RUE) co-owner Dmitriy Firtash.

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Yushchenko remains convinced that he will revive his political fortunes and enter the second round of voting. On May 21 the pro-Yushchenko PR specialist Myron Wasylyk, suggested in the Kyiv Post: "Yushchenko is in the midst of picking a new team to complete his policy agenda for the last months of his first term. He is looking for a group of political managers who work well together as he begins his most important political journey - reconnecting with the millions of voters who were his electoral base, in the hope of winning re-election in 2010." Yushchenko might be competing against three "orange" candidates - Tymoshenko, Yatseniuk and Anatoliy Grytsenko - within western and central Ukraine in what will be a difficult contest. In contrast, Yanukovych will enter round two, facing little competition within southeastern Ukraine. Some of Yatseniuk's support might also return to Yushchenko by focusing on his two achievements -democratization and nation-building. He has positioned himself in the nationalist and anti-communist, rather than in the centrist niche (Segodnya, May 18).

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