Taras Kuzio: No better final epitaph could have been written for Yushchenko.
Two major myths promoted by President
Viktor Yushchenko in Ukraine’s 2010 presidential elections were that
there was no difference in policies between the two main candidates,
Viktor Yanukovych and Yulia Tymoshenko, and that both were
“pro-Russian.” These myths helped defeat Tymoshenko by 3 percent in an
election where every vote counted.
Several pieces of evidence point to the
Yushchenko-Yanukovych alliance that facilitated Yanukovych’s election.
For instance, the lack of criticism by Yushchenko of Yanukovych
preceding the elections (Ukrayinska Pravda, February 10). Yushchenko
never criticized Yanukovych’s pro-Russian policies on energy (gas
consortium, return to non-market subsidized prices, and revival of the
corrupt RosUkrEnergo); Russian as a state language; the extension of
the Black Sea Fleet base beyond 2017; opposition to NATO membership,
and the Party of Regions alliance with Russian extremist nationalists
in Odessa and the Crimea.
Yushchenko and the presidential secretariat
levelled daily abuse at Tymoshenko, accusing her of “treason”
and
vetoed a record number of government policies.
Moreover, a draft agreement was leaked
in December 2009 by a staff member in the presidential secretariat that
revealed plans for a Yushchenko-Yanukovych alliance (UNIAN, December
25, 2009; EDM, January 5,
6). The Ukrainian media discussed the issue
of Yushchenko becoming prime minister under President Yanukovych (www.comments.com.ua, December 4, 2009).
In the event of a Our Ukraine-Peoples
Self Defence (NUNS) – Party of Regions grand coalition being formed,
the Yushchenko loyalist Yuriy Yekhanurov might be offered the post of
prime minister (Ukrayinska Pravda, February 8-10). Prime Minister and
Our Ukraine leader Yekhanurov led the negotiations with the Party of
Regions after the March 2006 elections for a grand coalition that
collapsed. Yekhanurov was the head of the State Property Fund in the
1990’s and the oligarchs are his creation.
The Party of Regions and the NUNS
faction, together with the Communists and Volodymyr Lytvyn bloc, sought
to remove pro-Tymoshenko Interior Minister Yuriy Lutsenko. The vote was
supported by NUNS deputy Petro Yushchenko. Similarly, between rounds
one and two Yushchenko vetoed the cabinet’s December 16, 2009 decree
appointing General Hennady Moskal as Crimea’s police chief (UNIAN,
February 2). Moskal, who is a deputy in the pro-Lutsenko Peoples Self
Defense group in NUNS, was praised for halting election fraud in favor
of Yanukovych in round one. “The Party of Regions, who is as thick as
thieves with Yushchenko, controls the administrative resources on the
peninsula,” Moskal said (www.zik.com.ua, February 11). The Tymoshenko campaign found evidence of fraud in the Crimea in round two (www.vybory.tymoshenko.ua, February 10).
Meanwhile, between rounds one and two
Yushchenko removed the Kharkiv and Dniproptrovsk governors who had
expressed support for Tymoshenko and had refused to provide
administrative resources for Yanukovych’s campaign. Yushchenko also
removed six ambassadors where there had been few votes for Yushchenko
in round one (Ukrayinska Pravda, February 10). The Tymoshenko campaign
will contest in the courts the election results in the Crimea, Donetsk,
Zaporozhzhia and Dnipropetrovsk (www.vybory.tymoshenko.ua, February 10).
Only five days before the second round
the Party of Regions, the pro-Yanukovych wing of NUNS and the
Communists, passed changes to the election law. President Yushchenko
quickly signed the law, ignoring a plea to veto it by the Committee of
Voters (www.cvu.org.ua, February 4), independent experts, and Tymoshenko (Ukrayinska Pravda, February 3, 4).
These changes were widely condemned
because they changed the electoral rules in the middle of the
elections. If the changes were deemed so important, they should have
been demanded by Yushchenko prior to round one. Yushchenko’s actions
proved that he had forged an alliance with Yanukovych, Kyiv expert
Volodymyr Fesenko said (www.politdumka.kiev.ua, February 4).
What was left of Yushchenko’s
reputation, in Ukraine and abroad, was effectively destroyed by his
support for the electoral law changes, because they undermined his role
as the constitutional guarantor of free elections and his election
campaign slogan of having brought democracy to Ukraine, Kyiv expert
Ihor Zhdanov said (www.politdumka.kiev.ua,
February 4). Oleksandr Tretiakov, a long time ally, resigned from the
Our Ukraine party in which Yushchenko is its honorary chairman.
Most controversially, between the
election rounds Yushchenko signed two decrees giving hero status to
Organization of Ukrainian Nationalist leader Stepan Bandera and to
honor members of various Ukrainian national liberation movements in the
twentieth century (www.president.gov.ua,
January 28). The decrees, immediately condemned by Russia, helped to
additionally mobilize pro-Yanukovych voters in Eastern and Southern
Ukraine. Professor Myroslav Popovych claimed the decrees
“disorientated” Eastern-Southern Ukrainian voters and mobilized them
against the “Orange” candidate, Tymoshenko (Ukrayinsky Tyzhden, January
29-February 4).
The timing of the two decrees was odd,
as they were not issued prior to round one, when they could have given
Yushchenko additional nationalist votes from supporters of the Svoboda
leader Oleh Tyahnybok. The decrees could have been issued at any time
during his presidency, as he did with an October 2007 decree giving
hero status to Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) leader Roman Shukhevych
(EDM, October 23, 2007). A decree in honor of Sich Sharpshooters, a
Ukrainian unit in the Austrian army in World War I, was issued on
January 6 before the first round.
Finally, Yuriy Shukhevych, the son of
the UPA commander, led a campaign in Lviv with other nationalist
leaders in support of Yushchenko’s call to vote against both candidates
in round two. Evidence was provided by Tymoshenko in an appearance on
Inter television (February 5) that these appeals were published in Lviv
newspapers with financial assistance from the Yanukovych campaign.
Anti-Semitic leaflets appeared in Lviv
and Ivano-Frankivsk (witnessed by this author) urging voters: “Do not
vote for that Jew,” a reference to Tymoshenko’s father’s alleged
ethnicity (the leaflet was reproduced on www.rferl.org, February 3).
The irony of Ukraine’s 2010 election
campaign is that the nationalist candidate, Yushchenko, long vilified
by Russia, likely facilitated the election of the pro-Russian
candidate, Yanukovych, Moscow’s favourite in the Ukrainian elections
(EDM, January 22, 27, 29). Yushchenko, brought to power by the 2004
Orange Revolution, effectively destroyed the Orange Revolution himself.
The Revolution, long the personal object of hate by the former Russian
President Vladimir Putin who saw it as one of his personal policy
failures, was buried by that very person (Yushchenko) so despised by
Putin.
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