Who is who in the Circus of clowns: Yulia Tymoshenko

By Online Editor -
Kyiv Post profile of performers

www.tymoshenko.ua


Yulia Tymoshenko, 49, is a former natural gas trading tycoon turned politician in the late 1990s. The Dnipropetrovsk native served in Yushchenko’s reform-minded government in 1999-2000, and played a big role in backing his presidential candidacy in the hotly contested 2004 election, which he won thanks to the Orange Revolution. She served briefly as prime minister in 2005 until being ousted in connection with a falling out with Yushchenko. She regained the premier's job in 2007 after a strong showing in snap parliamentary elections.

Comments

UkrToday said…
Yulia Tymoshenko is expected to progress to the second round of voting. She is the underdog of the election and is regarded across the board as an effective and tireless campaigner.

Political commentators such as Taras Kuzio and Taras Chornivil have predicted that she could win the second round.

Her greatest mistake in the past has been trusting Yushchenko. Yushchenko and his supporters have undermined her efforts at every step of the way.

Yulia Tymoshenko and the "Orange coalition" had won the parliamentary. The only reason Yulia was not elected Prime minister was due to the efforts of Yushchenko who refused to share power and form a governing coalition. As each day passed in the months that followed the relationship between Yushchenko and Tymoshenko began to seriously unravel with Yulia forced into making public addresses for Yushchenko and his party to unite and support the formation of a governing coalition.

During the prolonged negotiations Yushchenko and his team were actively pursuing an option of supporting a coalition with the Party of Regions but only on the condition that they would nominate who was elected Prime Minister.

Tymoshenko's pleas fell on death ears, when it became obvious that he was not winning any support Yushchenko and his party turned their focus on the Socialist Party a colaition partnetr that helped Yushenkpo get elected in 2004, our Ukraine now opposed the appointment of Olexandr Moroz to the position of Parliamentary speaker.

The rest was history. Time was running out and Ukraine was facing another constitutional crisis. Moroz was left with little option and opted instead to support a coalition of unity and the appointment of Viktor Yanuvoyvh as Prime Minister.

In 2007 Yushchenko, just over 12 months since the previous parliamentary election, initiated a constitutional coup and illegally dismissed Ukraine's Parliament on the pretense and fear that the parliament was seeking support to initiate constitutional reform and the creation of a Parliamentary democracy.

Yulia Tymoshenko saw this as a another chance and opportunity to regain office and after seven months of political instability agreement was reached to hold a fresh parliamentary election in September.

Yulia Tymoshenko's support base increased by 10 percentage points but she was unable to win a majority of votes. The combined parliamentary representation of Tymoshenko's party and the President's faction gave them a slender majority of one.

Unbeknown to Yulia at the time Yushchenko and his team had been trying to once again betray her and was actively negotiating an alliance with Party of Regions. However Yushchenko's faction's level of representation had decreased and they were not in a commanding position to dictate terms of a coalition with Party of Regions. Yulia Tymoshenko was eventually elected Prime Minister after a second round parliamentary show of hands and role call.

In 2008 one year after the 2007 Election the relationship between Yulia Tymoshenko and Viktor Yushchenko and collapsed and Yushchenko tried once again to dismiss the parliament without success. Yushchenko found no support or favour in his efforts to undermine Ukraine's stability.

Yushchenko's own party rebelled and divided with a majority opting to reunite and support Yulia Tymoshenko.

In an effort not to make the same mistakes and to regain stability, Yulia's governing coalition negotiated the support and the inclusion of Volodoymir Lytvyn who was subsequently appointed parliamentary Speaker position that was previously denied to Moroz, replacing "Our Ukraine"'s Arseny Yatseniuk.

Yushchenko's betrayal and constant efforts to undermine Yulia Tymoshenko's government taken it toll and Bloc Tymoshenko was no longer prepared to support Yushchenko being re-elected to a second term of office.

The rest is history. Tymoshenko is expected to out poll The presidents party by 10 percentage points with Yushchenko losing in the first round.
Wed Nov 25, 03:56:00 am EET
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