There is an urgent need to bring down the temperature of the showdown in Ukrainian parliament and scale down the government’s populism, believes President Viktor Yushchenko.
This is the statement he made in a recent interview to Den’, Ukraina Moloda, and Fakty. “Neither the Verkhovna Rada nor the Cabinet of Ministers should be afraid of new elections; today our country is faced with totally different problems. We need to focus our efforts on fighting domestic and international challenges. This is our crisis, and we should not cast a shadow on the world,” the president said with emotion. “The crisis should be resolved, in particular, by an efficient parliament.”
He called the “backdoor methods” used to forge the current coalition unacceptable and immoral. “The coalition is effective if it has 226 votes. In the third millennium I would not advise anyone to turn for help to the Communist ideology — this is political disgrace. This is a relapse into the condition from which we have been escaping for so many years.
“Why can’t we enter the coalition headed by Yulia Tymoshenko? This is the decision of the party and it says: we are not enemies, but we cannot agree with the line pursued by the prime minister,” said the president. He added that the forthcoming II Congress of Our Ukraine next week will consider expelling party members who “supported the coalition contrary to the decision of the congress.”
Even today the president believes that there is no coalition in the Verkhovna Rada. What is happening is, in his words, “the boisterous activity that recently erupted in parliament for the single purpose of preserving the seats.” Yushchenko placed the recent coalition next to what happened during the previous convocation when Oleksandr Moroz betrayed his political allies in order to form the ruling coalition in parliament.
In answering Den‘s question about the rift that was exposed on December 16, when the coalition of BYuT, NUNS, and the Lytvyn Bloc was established de jure, Yushchenko said: “I believe that this is a good process. This is a process of purging, and I have been waiting for it for a long time. It was necessary for people to make their ideological choice and choose their place in the party. They did it and I respect their choice.” In general, however, the president noted that he is not optimistic regarding the sustainability of the newly forged ruling coalition.
“The problem is that the premier cannot be carried out of the office,” he said with indignation, adding that at this stage the Cabinet has to headed by a “fearless person who is not thinking about politics.” Who is this person? Why is the word ‘reform’ used only in jokes in our country? What will be the hryvnia’s exchange rate? Yushchenko’s answers to these and many other burning political and economic questions will soon appear in Den‘.
“I am a self-dependent person and have lived my life the way I wanted,” said the president as an opening remark in his answer to Den‘s question about his possible participation in the forthcoming presidential elections. We asked him a more specific question and his answer will soon appear in our newspaper.
