[Ohio UZO News] Ukraine: WSJ; NYT;AP;FT

[Deychak, Orest]

The Wall Street Journal

www.online.wsj.com

EUROPE NEWS FEBRUARY 22, 2010 

Ukraine's President-Elect to Visit Moscow 

Russian President Medvedev Agreed to Meet Viktor Yanukovych in March,
after Challenges to the Election Were Dropped 


By JAMES MARSON
<http://online.wsj.com/search/search_center.html?KEYWORDS=JAMES+MARSON&A
RTICLESEARCHQUERY_PARSER=bylineAND>  


KIEV, Ukraine-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev called Viktor Yanukovych
this weekend as soon as the Ukrainian president-elect's challenger
dropped a legal battle to block his inauguration. According to the
Kremlin, the two men agreed that Mr. Yanukovych would visit Moscow in
early March. 

Ukraine President-elect Viktor Yanukovich lights a candle in a Kiev
monastery Sunday.

On Sunday, however, Mr. Yanukovych's aides declined to confirm or deny
anything about a visit, though his Web site posted the Kremlin
announcement. Hanna Herman, a legislator and a deputy leader of Mr.
Yanukovych's Party of Regions, said the president-elect's first priority
was to form a new government and deal with domestic problems.

The call from the Kremlin on Saturday signals Russia's interest in
reasserting a preferential relationship with its former Soviet neighbor.
But the reaction in Kiev leaves it unclear in which direction Mr.
Yanukovych will tilt Ukraine, a country of 46 million wedged between
Russia and the West.

Ukraine embraced a Western agenda after the 2004 Orange Revolution, when
mass protests alleging electoral fraud overturned Mr. Yanukovych's
tainted victory in that year's presidential election. Viktor Yushchenko
won the revote and antagonized the Kremlin, which had openly backed Mr.
Yanukovych, by pushing to advance negotiations to join the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization and by supporting Georgia during its 2008
war with Russia.

In the recent campaign, the Kremlin played no favorite, and Mr.
Yanukovych straddled the fence, calling for good relations with Russia
and with the European Union. Ms. Herman had indicated last week that his
first presidential trip abroad could be to Brussels.

The question of Mr. Yanukovych's foreign-policy priorities could
complicate his effort to form a majority in parliament and replace Yulia
Tymoshenko, his bitter rival in the presidential race, as prime
minister.

Ms. Tymoshenko on Saturday dropped her court challenge to the results of
the Feb. 7 election, clearing the way for Mr. Yanukovych's inauguration
on Thursday. She said there was no point in pursuing the case after the
Supreme Administrative Court refused to consider evidence she presented
alleging vote falsification in favor of her opponent, who won by a
margin of 3.48%.

As the political struggle moves to parliament, Mr. Yanukovych's
opposition Party of Regions is trying to persuade two parties in Ms.
Tymoshenko's fragile coalition to switch sides and oust her as prime
minister. One of those parties, Mr. Yushchenko's Our Ukraine bloc, is
divided: Its many nationalist supporters in western Ukraine are wary of
Mr. Yanukovych because he has shown himself willing to take Russia's
positions into account.

In interviews with Russian journalists last week, Mr. Yanukovych said he
wouldn't pursue NATO membership and would consider prolonging an
agreement to base Russia's Black Sea Fleet on Ukrainian soil. The
Kremlin also wants Ukraine to join a customs union with Russia, Belarus
and Kazakhstan, a step that could impede Kiev's talks on a trade
agreement with the European Union.

Ms. Tymoshenko met with Our Ukraine lawmakers last week in an attempt to
persuade them to stick with her coalition.

If Mr. Yanukovych fails to form a majority, he has said he would call
early parliamentary elections. That prospect would prolong political
uncertainty and further damage Ukraine's economy, which shrank 15% last
year.

The New York Times

www.nytimes.com

 

Prime Minister Drops Ukraine Vote Challenge 

By CLIFFORD J. LEVY 

21 February 2010

Late Edition - Final

8

MOSCOW -- Prime Minister Yulia V. Tymoshenko of Ukraine effectively
conceded the presidential election on Saturday by withdrawing her legal
challenge, saying that she did not believe that she would get a fair
hearing.

Her decision clears the way for the inauguration on Thursday of the
winner, Viktor F. Yanukovich, the opposition leader, capping a comeback
for him. Mr. Yanukovich was humiliated in the 2004 Orange Revolution,
when he was criticized as a Kremlin pawn who did not want Ukraine to
become more democratic and pro-Western.

Mr. Yanukovich has sought to refashion his image in recent years, vowing
to improve relations with both the European Union and Russia.

Speaking Saturday at the court in Kiev that was hearing her appeal, Ms.
Tymoshenko was defiant, and her party said it would boycott Mr.
Yanukovich's inauguration.

''Sooner or later, an honest prosecutor's office and an honest court
will assess that Yanukovich was not elected president of Ukraine, and
that the will of the people was fabricated,'' she said.

The end of her challenge is expected to bring about a relatively
peaceful transfer of power in Ukraine, a little more than five years
after the mass protests known as the Orange Revolution broke out over a
disputed presidential election in 2004.

Still, Ms. Tymoshenko, an Orange leader, remains prime minister, and has
rejected Mr. Yanukovich's demand that she resign. He intends to put
together a coalition in Parliament to dismiss her or, if that fails, to
call parliamentary elections, which could create more political
instability.

Mr. Yanukovich's aides say he now has to try to unite the country by
reaching out to Orange voters, who are concentrated in the
Ukrainian-speaking western part of the country and tend to view him as a
Soviet-style party boss. Mr. Yanukovich is from the east, where Russian
is the primary language.

At the same time, Mr. Yanukovich also wants to mend ties with the
Kremlin.

On Saturday, after Ms. Tymoshenko abandoned her challenge, President
Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia called Mr. Yanukovich, and the two men
agreed that Mr. Yanukovich would visit Moscow in early March, the
Kremlin said.

Under the current Ukrainian president, Viktor A. Yushchenko, an Orange
leader who lost his bid for another term, relations with Russia had
grown so tense that the Russians would not send an ambassador to Kiev.

Russia was particularly angered by Mr. Yushchenko's plan to seek NATO
membership for Ukraine, saying that such a move would infringe upon
Russia's zone of influence.

Mr. Yanukovich has opposed NATO membership for Ukraine.

Ms. Tymoshenko had refused to concedethe Feb. 7 runoff election, which
she lost by 3.5 percentage points, asserting that Mr. Yanukovich had won
only through widespread fraud. Mr. Yanukovich's aides called her
accusations phony and desperate.

European election monitors called the election honest and fair, and many
world leaders, including President Obama, have congratulated Mr.
Yanukovich.

In announcing her legal challenge, Ms. Tymoshenko had promised not to
organize demonstrations.

As it began evaluating Ms. Tymoshenko's case on Friday, the Higher
Administrative Court in Kiev rejected her petition to scrutinize
documents from election districts in the Crimean Peninsula, a Yanukovich
stronghold, and also to question election and law-enforcement officials.

On Saturday, Ms. Tymoshenko announced that she saw no point in
continuing, suggesting that the judges were biased against her.

''It became clear that the court is not out to establish the truth,''
she said.

She also attacked the court for not permitting the proceedings to be
broadcast.

The court did not directly respond to her remarks but agreed to cancel
her appeal.

Ms. Tymoshenko earned fame for her charismatic speeches in the Orange
Revolution, which occurred after supporters of Mr. Yanukovich were
accused of stealing the 2004 presidential elections.

A court threw out the results, and Mr. Yushchenko was victorious in a
new election over Mr. Yanukovich.

Ms. Tymoshenko had charged that Mr. Yanukovich had again relied on dirty
tricks this year. But analysts said she had little chance in court,
given the margin of Mr. Yanukovich's victory and the election monitors'
assessment. 

 

 

AP

Yanukovych's party seeks Ukraine gov't dismissal 

22 February 2010

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) - The party of Ukraine's president-elect has
submitted a motion to parliament to dismiss the government, led by the
prime minister who claims he won the election by fraud.

Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko's office says she will address the
nation later Monday. There are no immediate indications of whether she
will give in to the rising pressures against her or continue to try to
fight President-elect Viktor Yanukovych.

Yanukovych narrowly defeated Tymoshenko in elections this month.
Tymoshenko claims there was election fraud, but last week dropped a
court challenge to the results.

Yanukovych's Party of Regions does not by itself have enough votes in
parliament to dismiss the government.

Financial Times

www.ft.com

Ukraine's radically different conflict

Published: February 20 2010 

>From Dr Igor Torbakov.

Sir, Much as it is tempting to link London's National Theatre's new
production of Mikhail Bulgakov's The White Guard with Ukraine's
present-day chaotic politics, Misha Glenny misses the point ("Bulgakov
is once again our guide to Ukraine", February 12).

In the Kiev of 1918, Bulgakov was witnessing the unprecedented social
upheaval born of the collapse of the Romanov empire and the Russian
revolution. At the heart of it was the violent struggle between various
political forces over the scope of social transformation and over how to
define Ukraine as a political entity. It is utterly misleading to
contend that the messy politics that we are witnessing today is a kind
of repetition of the 1918-19 events.

Today in Ukraine we are observing radically different social conflicts.
Mr Glenny errs when he sees at the centre of the current political
battle the "debilitating struggle between its two constituent Slav
nations, the Ukrainians and Russians".

True, the ethno-linguistic cleavages in Ukraine still exist but the
almost 20-year-long period of independence saw the slow emergence of
common identity comprising all Ukrainian citizens in one multi-ethnic
Ukrainian political nation. The struggle that is going on in Ukraine is
not the one between "Russian east" and "Ukrainian west." What is really
at stake is which social model will ultimately prevail in Ukraine: a
polity based on crony capitalism and oligarchic domination of political
sphere, or a highly institutionalised and law-governed state of a
European type.

I, as an enthusiastic Bulgakov fan, would suggest that Mr Glenny could
do worse than look for an updated list of sources helping to make sense
of Ukraine's tangled political process.

Igor Torbakov,
Finnish Institute of International Affairs,
Helsinki, Finland

 

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