Recent NYT article on Ukraine
As Ukraine Staggers, Its Leaders Quarrel (Tavernise, NYT)
Tuesday, November 4, 2008; A6
New York Times
By Sabrina Tavernise
KIEV, Ukraine — Four years ago this month, hundreds of thousands ofpeople took to the streets of this capital city to take back anelection they saw as stolen. That outpouring, called the OrangeRevolution, brought fresh hopes for freedoms and for a release fromthe country's Soviet past that few other former republics had everexperienced.
The early promise of those days frayed in recent years, buteconomically times were good, and the country always seemed to manage.
But now, confronted by the global financial crisis, the new Ukraine isfacing the single biggest test of its stability, and its leaders, bymost accounts, seem to be close to failing.
Yulia V. Tymoshenko, the prime minister, and Viktor A. Yushchenko, thepresident, onetime political allies, are now locked in a bitter powerstruggle that has paralyzed the state, leaving it without a leader atprecisely the time it most needs one.
Even as the West bends to help it, with the International MonetaryFund pledging an emergency $16.5 billion loan last month, it barelypulled itself together to meet the conditions for the money. Mr.Yushchenko, intent on getting rid of Ms. Tymoshenko, is trying toforce early elections for December. To make sure the elections comeoff, his party spent most of last week trying to slip a campaignfinance clause into the legislation that was required for the loan.
On Monday he relented and signed the crisis legislation into lawwithout the clause. But his administration continued to insist thatthe elections proceed.
"It is a crime to conduct elections in this situation," said YuliaMostova, a prominent writer at Dzerkalo Tyzhnya, a weekly newspaperpublished in Kiev. "The chain of authority in Ukraine is broken. It'sat war with itself."
Ukraine's paralysis raises difficult questions for the West. It is acountry of 46 million in a strategic spot between European Unioncountries and Russia, and its stability is crucial to the region.
Mr. Yushchenko has taken a combative approach toward Russia, whichdemonstrated a new willingness to settle disputes by force in Georgiathis summer. He has pushed for Ukraine to join NATO, an agenda notparticularly popular among Ukrainians, 17 percent of whom are ethnicRussians. And he has vowed not to renew a contract that allowsRussia's Black Sea fleet to dock in a Ukrainian port. On Saturday, aban on Russian cable television programming took effect.
For Ukrainians, the fears are more about their immediate future. Atone point last week, their currency hit its lowest point since it wasintroduced in 1996, and securities that insure Ukrainian governmentdebt are trading at near-default levels. But perhaps their greatestdisappointment is over their leaders, whose energies are focused noton ways to lift the country out of crisis, but instead on what iswidely seen as a selfish struggle over power.
"People feel let down to the point of tears," Ms. Mostova said. "Manyfeel they've been used. Ukraine had a chance for a qualitative,civilized jump forward, but it wasn't taken."
Ukraine's economy is particularly vulnerable. About 40 percent of itsforeign currency earnings come from the sale of industrial metals,which have plunged in price in recent weeks. And while its governmenthas borrowed responsibly, its banks have not, having taken billions ofdollars in foreign currency loans. With global credit markets dryingup, those loans will be difficult to refinance. Ukraine's central bankhas already had to bail out one, Prominvestbank, the country's sixthlargest.
Despite the turmoil, Mr. Yushchenko's main focus in recent weeks hasbeen on attacking Ms. Tymoshenko. He has issued presidential decreesblocking the majority of her decisions since she became prime ministerfor the second time in December. When a judge in Kiev ruled that hisdecree to dissolve the Parliament and call elections was illegal, Mr.Yushchenko disbanded the court.
"Yushchenko thinks he is God," said Mikhail Pogrebinsky, a politicalanalyst at a research and polling center in Kiev, pointing to Mr.Yushchenko's visit last week to Istanbul, where he gave PatriarchBartholomew I of the Eastern Orthodox Church a specially minted coinwith his image on it, while at home his country's currency plummeted.
Ms. Tymoshenko is also capable of political magic tricks. Last yearshe colluded with Mr. Yushchenko, withdrawing all her deputies fromParliament to give him legal justification for dissolving it andcalling new elections.
Neither has ever liked the other. Ms. Tymoshenko, a former gasindustry executive whose head is wreathed in a signature blond plait,is Ukraine's political celebrity.
Mr. Yushchenko, a former banker whose own popularity has plunged, haslashed out. There are even hints of the political fight in Mr.Yushchenko's infamous poisoning episode, which left his facepockmarked and ravaged in 2004: His political opponents have beencalled in for questioning in the case.
Ms. Tymoshenko came from Ukraine's business world, where quick witsand bare knuckles made fortunes in the 1990s. But her aim appeared tobe less money than power, and she later joined the government. She andMr. Yushchenko led the revolution in 2004 with the motto, "bandits toprisons," but they soon grew beholden to yet another set of wealthymen.
Oleg O. Zarubinsky, a member of Parliament from an opposition party,put it bluntly: "Our political parties aren't funded by membershipfees."
Oleksandr S. Donii, a Ukrainian lawmaker who led a popular studentmovement against the Soviet regime in 1990, compared Ukraine'sfirst-generation businessmen to divers dizzy with the bends. "TheUkrainian business elite was born too quickly," he said, adding that"there was no sense of social responsibility."
The country's current predicament is not entirely the fault of itsleaders. It runs much deeper, into the roots of Ukrainian society.Communism pitted citizens against one another, leaving peopledistrustful and incapable of the collective action that holdsgovernments accountable in developed countries.
"We trust our brother, son, father, mother and godfather, but no one else," said Ms. Mostova, the writer. "That's our problem."
That is why the Orange Revolution was so important: It seemed to breakthat pattern.
"People found their backbones," Ms. Mostova said. "They cried in frontof strangers."
But after the protests ended, there was little follow-up. The crowdcame together and then broke apart.
Still, the fact that it happened at all was a big step forward forUkraine, which has been independent for only 17 years, and is nowgoing through a period that Mr. Pogrebinsky compares to the tumultuouslate 18th century in the United States, during the ratification of theConstitution.
The economic crisis, for all its pain, may also be a catalyst.Financial turmoil has swept out governments in Indonesia, Turkey andRussia in recent history, and even, many argue, the Soviet Union.Today's Ukraine may be similarly susceptible.
Ms. Tymoshenko seems to realize this. In a television talk show aboutthe economic crisis on Friday night, she extended a hand to Mr.Yushchenko. "Let's for once not get into these political dogfights andcome together as a national team with a united program, like thepresident said," she declared. "Be a team in the face of this bigglobal challenge."
Mr. Yushchenko did not return the favor. He accused Ms. Tymoshenko'sgovernment of accumulating debts from energy purchases "like fleas ona dog," and of allowing inflation to rise.
"Who did it?" he railed. "The world crisis? Lies! The crisis issitting right here."
Tuesday, November 4, 2008; A6
New York Times
By Sabrina Tavernise
KIEV, Ukraine — Four years ago this month, hundreds of thousands ofpeople took to the streets of this capital city to take back anelection they saw as stolen. That outpouring, called the OrangeRevolution, brought fresh hopes for freedoms and for a release fromthe country's Soviet past that few other former republics had everexperienced.
The early promise of those days frayed in recent years, buteconomically times were good, and the country always seemed to manage.
But now, confronted by the global financial crisis, the new Ukraine isfacing the single biggest test of its stability, and its leaders, bymost accounts, seem to be close to failing.
Yulia V. Tymoshenko, the prime minister, and Viktor A. Yushchenko, thepresident, onetime political allies, are now locked in a bitter powerstruggle that has paralyzed the state, leaving it without a leader atprecisely the time it most needs one.
Even as the West bends to help it, with the International MonetaryFund pledging an emergency $16.5 billion loan last month, it barelypulled itself together to meet the conditions for the money. Mr.Yushchenko, intent on getting rid of Ms. Tymoshenko, is trying toforce early elections for December. To make sure the elections comeoff, his party spent most of last week trying to slip a campaignfinance clause into the legislation that was required for the loan.
On Monday he relented and signed the crisis legislation into lawwithout the clause. But his administration continued to insist thatthe elections proceed.
"It is a crime to conduct elections in this situation," said YuliaMostova, a prominent writer at Dzerkalo Tyzhnya, a weekly newspaperpublished in Kiev. "The chain of authority in Ukraine is broken. It'sat war with itself."
Ukraine's paralysis raises difficult questions for the West. It is acountry of 46 million in a strategic spot between European Unioncountries and Russia, and its stability is crucial to the region.
Mr. Yushchenko has taken a combative approach toward Russia, whichdemonstrated a new willingness to settle disputes by force in Georgiathis summer. He has pushed for Ukraine to join NATO, an agenda notparticularly popular among Ukrainians, 17 percent of whom are ethnicRussians. And he has vowed not to renew a contract that allowsRussia's Black Sea fleet to dock in a Ukrainian port. On Saturday, aban on Russian cable television programming took effect.
For Ukrainians, the fears are more about their immediate future. Atone point last week, their currency hit its lowest point since it wasintroduced in 1996, and securities that insure Ukrainian governmentdebt are trading at near-default levels. But perhaps their greatestdisappointment is over their leaders, whose energies are focused noton ways to lift the country out of crisis, but instead on what iswidely seen as a selfish struggle over power.
"People feel let down to the point of tears," Ms. Mostova said. "Manyfeel they've been used. Ukraine had a chance for a qualitative,civilized jump forward, but it wasn't taken."
Ukraine's economy is particularly vulnerable. About 40 percent of itsforeign currency earnings come from the sale of industrial metals,which have plunged in price in recent weeks. And while its governmenthas borrowed responsibly, its banks have not, having taken billions ofdollars in foreign currency loans. With global credit markets dryingup, those loans will be difficult to refinance. Ukraine's central bankhas already had to bail out one, Prominvestbank, the country's sixthlargest.
Despite the turmoil, Mr. Yushchenko's main focus in recent weeks hasbeen on attacking Ms. Tymoshenko. He has issued presidential decreesblocking the majority of her decisions since she became prime ministerfor the second time in December. When a judge in Kiev ruled that hisdecree to dissolve the Parliament and call elections was illegal, Mr.Yushchenko disbanded the court.
"Yushchenko thinks he is God," said Mikhail Pogrebinsky, a politicalanalyst at a research and polling center in Kiev, pointing to Mr.Yushchenko's visit last week to Istanbul, where he gave PatriarchBartholomew I of the Eastern Orthodox Church a specially minted coinwith his image on it, while at home his country's currency plummeted.
Ms. Tymoshenko is also capable of political magic tricks. Last yearshe colluded with Mr. Yushchenko, withdrawing all her deputies fromParliament to give him legal justification for dissolving it andcalling new elections.
Neither has ever liked the other. Ms. Tymoshenko, a former gasindustry executive whose head is wreathed in a signature blond plait,is Ukraine's political celebrity.
Mr. Yushchenko, a former banker whose own popularity has plunged, haslashed out. There are even hints of the political fight in Mr.Yushchenko's infamous poisoning episode, which left his facepockmarked and ravaged in 2004: His political opponents have beencalled in for questioning in the case.
Ms. Tymoshenko came from Ukraine's business world, where quick witsand bare knuckles made fortunes in the 1990s. But her aim appeared tobe less money than power, and she later joined the government. She andMr. Yushchenko led the revolution in 2004 with the motto, "bandits toprisons," but they soon grew beholden to yet another set of wealthymen.
Oleg O. Zarubinsky, a member of Parliament from an opposition party,put it bluntly: "Our political parties aren't funded by membershipfees."
Oleksandr S. Donii, a Ukrainian lawmaker who led a popular studentmovement against the Soviet regime in 1990, compared Ukraine'sfirst-generation businessmen to divers dizzy with the bends. "TheUkrainian business elite was born too quickly," he said, adding that"there was no sense of social responsibility."
The country's current predicament is not entirely the fault of itsleaders. It runs much deeper, into the roots of Ukrainian society.Communism pitted citizens against one another, leaving peopledistrustful and incapable of the collective action that holdsgovernments accountable in developed countries.
"We trust our brother, son, father, mother and godfather, but no one else," said Ms. Mostova, the writer. "That's our problem."
That is why the Orange Revolution was so important: It seemed to breakthat pattern.
"People found their backbones," Ms. Mostova said. "They cried in frontof strangers."
But after the protests ended, there was little follow-up. The crowdcame together and then broke apart.
Still, the fact that it happened at all was a big step forward forUkraine, which has been independent for only 17 years, and is nowgoing through a period that Mr. Pogrebinsky compares to the tumultuouslate 18th century in the United States, during the ratification of theConstitution.
The economic crisis, for all its pain, may also be a catalyst.Financial turmoil has swept out governments in Indonesia, Turkey andRussia in recent history, and even, many argue, the Soviet Union.Today's Ukraine may be similarly susceptible.
Ms. Tymoshenko seems to realize this. In a television talk show aboutthe economic crisis on Friday night, she extended a hand to Mr.Yushchenko. "Let's for once not get into these political dogfights andcome together as a national team with a united program, like thepresident said," she declared. "Be a team in the face of this bigglobal challenge."
Mr. Yushchenko did not return the favor. He accused Ms. Tymoshenko'sgovernment of accumulating debts from energy purchases "like fleas ona dog," and of allowing inflation to rise.
"Who did it?" he railed. "The world crisis? Lies! The crisis issitting right here."
posted by Cosmic Stan at 5:05 PM
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