Ukraine 3000 Foundation, Tuesday, October 9. 2007

Published by the Action Ukraine Report (AUR) #877, Article 21
Kyiv, Ukraine, Friday, October 12, 2007

legal, then official final election results will be announced on Oct. 26. If

events unfold according to this scenario, then the new Rada should convene

no later than Nov. 25.

"It will be interesting to see how this works out in practice, as Nov. 25
is a Sunday," Kalchenko said.

Maksym Kopeychykov, a partner of the Kyiv-based Ilyashev & Partners law
firm, said that he does not think any legal challenges will be heard by the HAC.
Neither Kalchenko nor Kopeychykov were aware of any legal challenges to the
election results.

"It depends more on the results of negotiations between the winners of
the elections," Kopeychykov said.

"If there is no agreement with the Regions Party, then, probably, those
CEC members who were appointed by the previous governing coalition will
become too ill to be present at the CEC's meetings," Kopeychykov explained.

The governing coalition of the Regions, Socialists and Communists enjoy
a one-vote majority on the 15-member CEC. Despite failing to qualify for
seats in the parliament, Socialist leader Oleksandr Moroz said Oct. 5 that
his party will not challenge the results of the "unconstitutional"
elections.

The Communists, who gained more than 300,000 votes in the latest poll, have
demanded a total recount of all votes cast, but have not said they will not
challenge the results of the Sept. 30 elections in the courts. Prior to the vote,

the CPU said it would legally challenge the results of last month's vote.

On Oct. 5 the Party of the Regions' representative in the CEC Vladislav
Zapansky said his political force was not planning to challenge the results
of elections - that have not been falsified - in the courts.
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LINK: http://www.kyivpost.com/nation/27524/
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would create a so-called "democratic coalition" with a comfortable

parliamentary majority of 22 votes.

A coalition between the Party of Regions, OUPSD and the Lytvyn Bloc would
create a pro-business government that may take a multi-vectored approach,
instead of being divided along pro-Western and pro-Russian lines.

Former Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk said the Lytvyn Bloc's best
option would be to remain neutral, but it might not have that luxury.

"For businessmen, the parliament is a publicly-traded stock company,"
Syrotiuk said. "They feel with their investment, they should obtain
dividends. Moreover, if he remains neutral, he could hurt the career of his
influential relatives. Lytvyn will be forced to take sides."

Lytvyn has better relations with Yanukovych and the Party of Regions than
Tymoshenko, observers said, but may end up going Orange anyway.
OPPOSITION-READY
Throughout the election campaign, OUPSD leaders assured the Ukrainian
electorate that it would only form a coalition with its stalwart Orange
Revolution partner, the Tymoshenko bloc.

After the vote, Orange leaders repeated their vows, promising that a
democratic coalition agreement would emerge within a day or two of the final
election results, which are expected on Oct. 15.

They said they would base the coalition on a pact signed between the two
forces in February, in which they distributed key government posts, giving
the prime minister post to the bloc with the most votes.

However, President Yushchenko's vague Oct. 3 announcement, hinting at
inviting the Party of Regions into a broad coalition, sent shivers down the
spines of Orange supporters.

Concern immediately spread after the president's remarks that Our Ukraine
would once again court the Party of Regions and play hard-to-get with the
Tymoshenko bloc, as it had done last year.

Tymoshenko declared she would rather enter the opposition than form a
government with the Party of Regions. Days later, she offered her
concessions, which drew derision from the Party of Regions. Few political
observers believed the Party of Regions would quietly agree to go into the
opposition.

Leading up to the election, the Party of Regions set up two stages at Kyiv's
central Independence Square, with its leaders threatening protests and
demonstrations to defend their election results if necessary.

Quite mysteriously, the Party of Regions took down one stage, sent its
camped-out supporters back home and didn't rattle its swords, except for a
threat that it could have 150 parliament members surrender their mandates
and liquidate the next parliamentary convocation, just as the Orange forces
had done.

On Oct. 5, the party announced that it would accept the election results
without any protest. Days later, Yanukovych announced the Party of Regions
would not work with Tymoshenko as prime minister.

Yanukovych's Oct. 8 statement that the Party of Regions was willing to go
into opposition reveals that it doesn't feel threatened by an Orange
government with a slim majority, Syrotiuk said. "The Regions might be able
to attract Our Ukraine votes," Syrotiuk said.

"They are most interested in economic votes, for which they can find
partners in Our Ukraine, but will lose support from the Communists. To pass
laws, the Regions will have to find support not only within Our Ukraine and
the Tymoshenko blocs, but also the president, who has veto power."

Regardless of whether she becomes prime minister, Tymoshenko gained the

most from the election and demonstrated she is the most relevant and dynamic
politician on the Ukrainian political scene, observers said. "Yulia
Tymoshenko saved the Orange Revolution and Yushchenko's presidency,"

Kuzio said.

Tymoshenko earned more than 7.1 million votes, gaining more than 1.5 million
supporters since the March 2006 election - more than anyone else. Her
popularity grew in every region, except for the pro-Russian Autonomous
Republic of Crimea.

"Everyone is shocked by the election results, particularly the Party of
Regions," Lozowy said. "They thought they would get the majority with

the Communists. But they aren't taking any radical steps because they are
waiting for the president's next moves."

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LINK: http://www.kyivpost.com/nation/27525/
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[return to index] [Action Ukraine Report (AUR) Monitoring Service]
========================================================
19. UKRAINE: PARLIAMENTARY ELECTION ONCE

AGAIN FAILS TO RESOLVE DEEP POLITICAL CRISIS

COMMENTARY: By Markus Salzmann
World Socialist Web Site (USWS), UK, Thursday, 11 October 2007

A third election within three years has proved incapable of resolving the
deep political crisis in Ukraine. Once again, it has become clear that the
struggle between rival political cliques, carried out at the expense of the
broad population, has nothing in common with democracy.

In the early parliamentary election of September 30, Our Ukraine led by
Viktor Yushchenko won around 14 percent of the vote, while the Bloc
Yulia Tymoshenko (BJT) received well over 30 percent.

Together, the two parties, which three years ago led the so-called Orange
Revolution, picked up 44.8 percent of the vote. This means they have a
razor-thin majority of 228 seats out of 450 in the new parliament (Rada).

According to the electoral committee, all other parties standing won
approximately 44 percent. The "blue" Party of the Regions led by Prime
Minister Viktor Yanukovich won 34 percent, and its ally, the Communist
Party, received 5 percent and also entered the Ukrainian parliament. The
Socialist Party, which had previously been part of the government coalition,
failed to win enough support to re-enter parliament.

The Litwin Bloc led by former parliamentary president, Vladimir Litwin,
received 3.9 percent for the first time, and therefore crossed the 3 percent
level necessary to enter parliament.

Litwin has refrained from making clear his real political intentions and, in
light of the close outcome of the election, is now being courted by the
Orange parties.

The election turnout was low, at 63 percent, reflecting widespread hostility
in the population to all of the competing camps.

Yushchenko had dissolved parliament at the beginning of April hoping that
fresh elections would favourably resolve his longstanding struggle for power
with Yanukovich.

Following Yanukovich's victory in parliamentary elections last year,
Yushchenko had felt compelled to appoint his rival as prime minister.

Then last spring, a number of deputies from the Orange opposition switched
over to the government coalition. Yushchenko described this as a
falsification of the 2006 election result and dissolved the parliament.

Yanukovich and his coalition partners opposed the move, and only after long
negotiations was an agreement reached for a new election.

Two years after the Orange Revolution, the differences within the Ukrainian
elite expressed through the two rival camps-Yushchenko and Tymoshenko on the
one side, and the oligarchs led by Yanukovich on the other-have narrowed
considerably.

The latter camp had previously maintained a strong orientation to Russia,
but are now looking increasingly towards the West to secure their economic
interests. Day by day, it is becoming ever clearer that there are no
principled political differences between the two political camps.

In the meantime, Yushchenko has called upon all the political forces
entering the new parliament to develop a model for cooperation between the
government and that opposition, as well as to take measures aimed at
consolidating the powers of the state.

He offered government ministries to Yanukovich's party-"from vice-prime
minister down to ministerial positions." Everything was possible-this was
the only way to secure stability in the parliament and government,
Yushchenko explained.

Yanukovich reacted positively to this offer made by the president and
expressed his own support for the construction of a "broad coalition."

Tymoshenko, however, has so far rejected any cooperation with Yanukovich's
party and announced she is only prepared to participate in a coalition with
"democratic" forces. If Yushchenko and Yanukovich form a coalition,
Tymoshenko has announced she will go into opposition.

Yushchenko's proposal is an attempt to prevent the political division of the
country. While the west and the centre of the country mainly support the
parties involved in the Orange Revolution, voters in the south and east have
voted in the past in the majority for Yanukovich. At the same time, it is
clear that the Orange camp itself is deeply split.

A coalition of the BJT and Our Ukraine would be anything but stable, and
such an alliance would have only a very narrow majority. It still remains
unclear which position the Litwin Bloc will take.

But in the main, the individual parties are driven by economic and personal
interests rather than politics or programme, and the widespread corruption
of deputies is an established fact. "Two or three votes are always up for
sale," political commentator Vadim Karasyov wrote in the Kyiv Post.

At the same time, the relatively high vote for Tymoshenko represents a
danger to Yushchenko's political future. Yushchenko's miserable showing in
the election (14 percent) was his punishment by the electorate for the
catastrophic social consequences of the government's policies in recent
years.

Tymoshenko was able to pick up votes for the opposition on the basis of her
populist election campaign. It is unlikely that Yushchenko would play
important role in the long-term role should he enter an alliance with the
BJT.

Meanwhile, there are doubts in the pro-West camp over Tymoshenko's politics.
Analysts expressed the concern of investors, who referred to Tymoshenko's
role as prime minister in 2005.

At that time, she announced she wanted to investigate the legal status of
the privatisations previously carried in the era of President Leonid Kuchma.
She declared that the privatisation of up to 3,000 formerly nationally owned
companies could be reversed.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union and independence for Ukraine in 1991,
the layer around Kuchma had sold off the country's assets and in the process
shamelessly enriched themselves. The enterprises were sold for low prices on
the basis of political and regional criteria.

At the back of Tymoshenko's reversal of the privatisations lies a scheme for
the future re-division of what is nothing other than stolen national
property.

Following renewed nationalisation, Tymoshenko plans to sell off the
enterprises once again-this time at a better price-to those oligarchs close
to the Orange alliance, or to Western companies.

Alarm bells rang amongst financial analysts following Tymoshenko's
declaration last Sunday that the privatisation procedures would be subject
to court scrutiny. They fear that the whole procedure could lead to
irresolvable economic and political conflicts involving broad layers of the
population.

One example of the privatisations policy was the fate of the steel plant
Krivorijstal, the country's largest steel exporter. The Donetz oligarchs
Rinat Akhmetov and Viktor Pinchuk acquired the company in 2004 at a
rock-bottom price. At the time, there are said to have been a number of much
higher offers, including a bid by the American company, US Steel.

At the beginning of 2005, the sell-off was then waived following a court
order issued after pressure from Tymoshenko, and at the end of the year,
Krivorijstal was finally sold off to the Mittal concern.

The affair caused such a scandal that even the World Bank felt compelled to
intervene in the "Krivorijstal case" in order to prevent damage to the
general investment climate. At the time, economist Oleksij Plotnikov
detected a "serious blow for the investment climate. The effect is a shock."

The increasingly sceptical attitude taken by the Ukrainian elite towards
Tymoshenko was revealed in an interview given by the director of the
International Institute for Political Studies in Kiev, Vladimir Malinkowich,
to the Viennese Standard.

When asked what the election result means for Ukraine, he answered: "nothing
good." Tymoshenko "promises the impossible and thereby ruins our economy.
But what is most dangerous is that she does not want to strengthen
democratic institutions."

When asked about her relationship with Yushchenko, Malinkowich explained,
"She will have even more power over him. When he opposes her now she will
stand against him in the next presidential election and is likely to win.
The most probable variant of an Orange coalition will therefore prove to be
quite unstable.

Two persons will continue to fight one another at least until the
presidential election in 2009, and it will continue to remain unclear who is
in charge and represents the country in the west, he or she."
THE FRAUD OF THE ORANGE REVOLUTION
A coalition of Our Ukraine and the Party of the Regions would be just as
incapable of solving the fundamental political problems confronting the
country as any new version of an Orange bloc government. In the final
analysis all three-Yushchenko, Tymoshenko and Yanukovich-represent the
interests of different clans of oligarchs.

Those in the east of the country, who primarily back Yanukovich, have closer
links to Russia and the former Soviet economy, while those in the west have
closer bonds to the US and western Europe.

In 2004, Yanukovich was condemned as an electoral fraud and hunted out of
office. He was regarded as the natural successor to president Kuchma by the
Kremlin and by Kuchma himself.

The US and western Europe had bankrolled the "democratic" opposition, and
financed and backed Yushchenko, the former head of the central bank and
prime minister under Kuchma.

His advocacy of "market reforms" aimed at privatisation and the deregulation
of the economy, together with his promise to distance the country from
Russia and move closer to the European Union and NATO, made him the favoured
candidate of the West.

The American government and Western media supported Yushchenko and Yulia
Tymoshenko-the richest woman in Ukraine, who had accumulated her fortune as
an energy minister under Kuchma-at a time when both politicians attacked
Yanukovich's election as president as fraudulent.

Yushchenko and Tymoshenko base themselves on pro-capitalist, anti-communist
layers, which were formerly opposed to Kuchma. Their opposition, however,
was based less on their rejection of growing repression and pervasive
corruption in the country than on their abiding desire to enrich themselves.
The sincere opponents of Kuchma were cynically manipulated by the pair.

Nine months later, the new Orange leadership collapsed under charges of
mutual corruption. In September, Yushchenko dismissed the government of his
former ally Tymoshenko and then formed a pact with his former opponent
Yanukovich, in order to ensure the nomination of Yuri Yekhanurov as
Tymoshenko's successor in the office of prime minister.

It was also agreed that a candidate from the Party of the Regions would
occupy the post of deputy prime minister, while Tymoshenko and her allies
were denied any important posts.

In so doing, Yushchenko had recalled representatives of the two most
important clans of Ukrainian oligarchs-from Dnjepropetrowsk and Donetz-into
government in the same tradition as his predecessor in office, Leonid
Kuchma.

In less than three years, the true character of the Orange Revolution-widely
praised in the West as a breakthrough for democracy and liberty-has been
revealed. In 2004, many Ukrainians still believed that such a movement could
improve their political and social situation.

Now, broad swathes of the population have learnt that the entire ruling
elite has completely detached itself from the masses and is only interested
in its own enrichment.

According to a current poll, all Ukrainian politicians receive a negative
rating when it comes to the issue of trust. According to the Ukrainska
Pravda in February 2005, over 50 percent of all Ukrainians thought the
country was headed in the right direction, while 20 percent thought the new
government and the new president were worse than their predecessors.

Six months later, the same polling institute registered more than 60 percent
who regarded the government and the president to be taking a false course.
An investigation by the institute showed that in October 2005, support for
the government had fallen by half-to just 20 percent-and this process is
continuing.

While the ruling political caste seeks to sing the praises of economic
successes in the country, the reality for the majority of the population is
very different. Price increases in basic goods and energy have outstripped
any wage increase for workers in some industries and public service during
the past two years.

Foodstuffs and clothes have increased in price, and in particular, there
have been sharp increases in the price of electricity and fuel. Inflation
just for the month of September topped 6 percent.
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http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/oct2007/ukra-o11.shtml

Ukraine 3000 Foundation, Tuesday, October 9. 2007

Published by the Action Ukraine Report (AUR) #877, Article 21
Kyiv, Ukraine, Friday, October 12, 2007

Dear Friends,

I am happy to see you in this hall. I would like to thank everyone who has
come to today's event. The issue we are discussing today is very
significant for Ukraine and for the world community.

75 years ago a horrible tragedy took place on our land. Millions of
Ukrainians were murdered in a famine which was intentionally organized by
Stalin's regime.

All food was confiscated, people were denied all means of existence and
survival. Starving regions of Ukraine and the Kuban were surrounded by
armed forces, the borders of Ukraine were closed so that no one could escape
and so no assistance could enter. This was a true war of the communist
regime against the Ukrainian nation; a terror famine was the chief weapon.

Most experts confirm that more than 7.5 million people died during the
Holodomor. Some use even higher figures. But all researchers agree that
millions were murdered during this 1930s crime.

Imagine this figure - it is the population of an entire country that ceased
its existence in less than a year.Each Ukrainian family lost relatives,
loved ones, friends.

We intentionally chose the wonderful Ivan Honchar Museum to hold this
event, so that you could see the faces of those people who were physically
annihilated, the rich and unique culture that they tried to destroy.

The truth about this crime, its extent and its reasons were hidden for more
than 50 years from people, and from the world community. During Soviet
times, even mention of the Holodomor could mean being put behind bars.

But the Ukrainian people preserved their historical memory. Only after the
declaration of our independence did we have the opportunity to appropriately
honor the victims of the Holodomor.

In thousands of cities and villages throughout Ukraine memorials were
created. Every month there more are established.

Experts have researched a huge amount of information. We are constantly
opening up and making public new facts that prove that the Holodomor was
part of a criminal policy of the Soviet leadership to destroy the Ukrainian
nation. Thanks to a great deal of research and educational work over the
last five years, attitudes in Ukraine toward the Holodomor have change
significantly.

When the Verhovna Rada in 2006 approved a law recognizing the Holodomor as
an act of genocide, more than 70% of the population of Ukraine supported the
decision. This was a very positive signal, since despite regio