[Ohio UZO News] Ukraine: FT; RFE/RL(Reuters)

[Deychak, Orest]

The next mailing to this list will not be until April 8 at the earliest, as I will be in Moldova observing elections for OSCE.  OD

 

Financial Times

Yushchenko urges reforms as he reveals 25-30% drop in GDP

By Roman Olearchyk in Kiev 

Published: April 1 2009 

Ukraine's president Viktor Yushchenko yesterday called for urgent economic and political reforms in response to a huge drop in the country's output, and launched a bitter attack on the prime minister, his fierce rival, over her handling of the crisis.

In a state of the nation address to parliament, Mr Yushchenko claimed Ukraine's gross domestic product had plunged by an annual 25-30 per cent in January and February.

He urged lawmakers to press ahead with legislation to clear the way for an International Monetary Fund rescue and constitutional reforms to clarify the division of power between the president and parliament.

The president slammed Yulia Tymoshenko, his flamboyant prime minister, saying the country had been "ill prepared to confront the crisis" and accusing the government of purposefully trying to "conceal" the slowdown by releasing economic data quarterly, rather than monthly.

His speech underscored the depth of the economic crisis facing Ukraine, the European country worst affected by the credit crunch, and the damage done to political stability by the deep rifts in the Kiev leadership.

Parliament is most unlikely to co-operate with Mr Yushchenko's constitutional reform plans. But the divided assembly is scheduled this week to consider legislation required to unfreeze a $16.4bn standby loan granted by the IMF last autumn.

The Fund's first $4.5bn tranche last autumn helped to stabilize Kiev's shaky banking system and currency, which lost 40 per cent of its value last year.

But further disbursements have been delayed because of IMF concerns over the size of Ukraine's budget deficit and political infighting.

Mr Yushchenko has told parliament to bring the budget deficit down to less than 3 per cent.

Yesterday, parliament raised taxes on petrol, cigarettes and alcohol.

But Ms Tymoshenko is refusing to cut spending or raise utility tariffs, insisting it would be too much of a burden on citizens. She says the president's allies are sabotaging her initiatives to meet the IMF's demands.

Ukraine has been hit hard by falling global trade, frozen credit and plunging prices for steel, the country's main export. Unemployment has doubled to 1m since autumn and polls suggest a rising number of Ukrainians are sympathetic to anti-government protests as their trust and patience in the government is eroded by the political stalemate.

 

RFE/RL

Ukraine Parliament Calls October 25 Presidential Poll 

April 01, 2009 

 

KYIV (Reuters) -- Parliament in Ukraine called a presidential election for October 25, pitching the ex-Soviet state into new political turmoil as it grapples with a shrinking economy.

A parliamentary resolution set a date far earlier than had  been anticipated. It won the backing of 401 deputies in the 450-seat assembly, a rare resounding vote in a chamber with a track record of unpredictable behavior.

Under the post-Soviet constitution, parliament is solely responsible for naming the date.

"What we are adopting here is not only a legal, but also a political decision," speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn told the chamber.

Senior officials, including the speaker of parliament, had earlier suggested a number of dates for the election.

But most predicted it would take place in January 2010 -- at the very end of President Viktor Yushchenko's five-year mandate, marked by continuous quarrels within the pro-Western politicians brought to power by the 2004 Orange Revolution.

Ukraine's economy has been battered by the crisis, with markets for its steel and chemical industries shrinking and its currency subject in recent months to sharp falls. Yushchenko said on March 31 that the economy had contracted 25 to 30 percent year-on-year in the first two months of 2009.

Debate in the chamber had focused on whether the election was subject to amended parts of the constitution or on the document in place when Yushchenko was elected in 2004.

Yushchenko won an election on the back of weeks of mass "orange" protests against poll fraud -- ushering in an era of pro-Western policies aimed at bringing Ukraine out of the shadow of giant neighbor Russia.

Viktor Yanukovych, current opposition leader and a former prime minister, was initially declared the winner, but the result was overturned in the courts after weeks of protests and Yushchenko won a re-run of the vote.

Yushchenko has twice appointed Yulia Tymoshenko, his ally during the "orange" protests, as his prime minister, but the two have quarrelled continuously and are now rivals.

No politician has formally announced an intention to contest the election. Yanukovych leads opinion surveys with Tymoshenko close behind. Yushchenko trails, his standing reduced to single figures. 

 

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