PRESIDENT YUSHCHENKO of Ukraine sacked his entire Government yesterday as infighting and allegations of corruption tore apart the team that led the Orange Revolution last year.
Mr Yushchenko dismissed the Cabinet of Yuliya Tymo-shenko, his charismatic Prime Minister, severing the partnership that brought hundreds of thousands of peaceful protesters on to the streets of Kiev last November. He also accepted the resignation of Petro Poroshenko, a key sponsor of the Orange Revolution, as head of the National Defence and Security Council in the climax of a fierce power struggle within the administration. “
These people remain my friends. It is very difficult but today I must cut this Gordian knot,” said Mr Yushchenko, looking sombre but calm after wielding the knife. I do not want any more the intrigues between two or three people that were determining state policy.” His emphatic move came less than a week after Oleksandr Zinchenko, the architect of the Orange Revolution, resigned as his chief of staff, accusing the Administration of being even more corrupt than its predecessor.
It was a dramatic attempt by the President to reassure an increasingly disillusioned public that he would stick to his pledges to root out the corruption and economic mismanagement that plagued Ukraine under Leonid Kuchma, the previous President.
“We are witnessing a paradox,” Mr Yushchenko said. “Many new faces have come to power, but the face of power has not changed.”
His actions raised fears that the feisty Mrs Tymoshenko, arguably the most inspirational figure in the Orange Revolution, would join the opposition or call her supporters out on to the streets again.
She is due to make a statement on television today that could determine whether Ukraine continues along its path towards integration with the West or descends again into civil unrest. “She will speak to the people of Ukraine,” Vitaly Tchepinoga, her spokesman, told The Times.
Mrs Tymoshenko’s glamorous looks and fiery rhetoric inspired many of the protesters who helped to overturn a rigged presidential election last November and sweep Mr Yushchenko to power. But her popularity has waned because of her Government’s poor record and she is widely despised in Russian-speaking eastern Ukraine because of her anti-Russian views and links to big business.
Mr Yushchenko appointed Yury Yekhanurov, the Governor of the western region of Dnipropetrovsk, as acting Prime Minister and asked him to form a new Cabinet. Mr Yekhanurov, 57, served as Mr Yushchenko’s deputy when he was Prime Minister in 2000 and is considered a loyal and reform-minded technocrat who can better balance Ukraine’s relations with the West and Russia.
In his first public remarks after learning of his appointment, Mr Yekhanurov said: “I have one goal, to ensure stability. That’s why my task right now is to form a government.”
The crisis prompted calls for stability both from Western governments, which backed Mr Yushchenko during the revolution, and from Russia, which supported his opponent.
President Putin of Russia said that he had spoken to Mr Yushchenko by telephone to offer his support. It was a clear indication of Moscow’s dislike for Mrs Tymoshenko. She is still wanted in Russia on charges — which she says are politically motivated — of bribing Russian Defence Ministry officials when she was head of Ukraine’s gas monopoly in the 1990s. Mr Putin said: “Ukraine is going through a complicated stage of its development.”
Analysts blamed the crisis on a power struggle between Mrs Tymoshenko, nicknamed the Gas Princess in the 1990s, and Mr Poroshenko, a confectionery and media tycoon dubbed the Chocolate King.
The three joined forces last year to oppose Mr Kuchma’s chosen successor, the Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, who wanted to forge closer ties with Russia. But after the revolution Mr Poroshenko was disappointed not to have been appointed Prime Minister and built up a rival power base that clashed regularly and publicly with Mrs Tymoshenko. That rivalry was at the heart of a series of public disputes that have marred Mr Yushchenko’s presidency, notably over energy policy and the reprivatisation of assets sold in rigged auctions in the 1990s.
Nikolai Tomenko, a Deputy Prime Minister who also resigned yesterday, said that there were in effect two governments in Ukraine, one run by Mrs Tymoshenko and the other by Mr Poroshenko. “I do not want to share responsibility with those who have created a system of corruption,” Mr Tomenko said. The infighting boiled over last weekend when Mr Zinchenko, who co-ordinated Mr Yushchenko’s election campaign, resigned and accused Mr Poroshenko and another top presidential aide, of corruption.
Sources close to Mr Yushchenko said that he had tried to get Mr Poroshenko to resign along with some members of Mrs Tymoshenko’s team to maintain the balance of power between the two factions. But Mrs Tymoshenko had refused.
“He was left with no choice. In some ways, this house cleaning should have been done a lot earlier,” one source close to Mr Yushchenko said. “The issue now is how the public reacts.”
Analysts say that plans for Mr Yushchenko and Mrs Tymoshenko to join forces to fight the election are no longer realistic.
AMBER FUTURE
November 2004 Official count gives presidential election victory to Viktor Yanukovych, the Prime Minister. With reports of vote-rigging, opposition candidate Viktor Yushchenko begins a campaign of street protest. Supreme Court annuls the poll result
December 2004 Yushchenko wins the poll count after a rerun of the election
January 2005 Yanukovych’s challenge is rejected by the Supreme Court and Yushchenko is sworn in as President
February 2005 Yuliya Tymoshenko, the President’s nominee for Prime Minister, is approved by parliament
March 2005 Yushchenko says suspected killers of the journalist Georgy Gongadze, a critic of the previous administration, are in custody and accuses the former authorities of a cover-up
April 2005 Tymoshenko cancels her first official visit to Moscow. Tension heightens between Moscow and Kiev
September 2005 Oleksandr Zinchenko resigns as Yushchenko’s chief of staff and accuses officials of corruption. The President dismisses the Government
