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Ukraine's president sacks squabbling government
Friday
September 9, 2005
The president blamed a "lack of team
spirit" for his move, and attacked his firebrand prime minister, Yulia
Timoshenko, saying she was obsessed with self-promotion. The fragile unity of the team that brought hundreds
of thousands of supporters on to the streets of the former Soviet state last
year was shattered this week when senior figures accused each other of
nepotism and taking bribes.
Mr Yushchenko's decision followed the resignations of the security and
defence council chief, Petro Poroshenko, and the deputy prime minister,
Mykola Tomenko, yesterday morning. On Monday a senior presidential aide, who had
implicated Mr Poroshenko and other members of the president's team in
systematic corruption, also resigned. The accusations were denied. Mr Yushchenko's dismissal of Ms Timoshenko and her
cabinet raised the spectre of an irreparable split in the team that crafted
his rise to power. Some analysts speculated that the president had
acted to cut short the ambitions of his charismatic prime minister, who has
long threatened to mutate into a powerful rival. Mr Yushchenko told reporters in Kiev yesterday he
had sacked ministers because he could not "smooth out" conflicts
between different branches of the government. "My friends who went
through so much with me did not justify my trust." He singled out Ms Timoshenko for criticism, saying:
"What has come to the foreground is the promotion of either her or her
political force." He added: "I set one task for the new team - to
work in a united team. I do not want any more of the intrigues between two or
three people that were determining the state policy." The president named a little-known ally, Yuri
Yekhanurov, the head of the Dnipropetrovsk regional administration, as acting
prime minister and instructed him to form a new cabinet within days. Mr Yushchenko was swept to the presidency on a tide
of euphoria in December when he won a rerun of a disputed election following
weeks of street protests that saw thousands of his followers camping in
central Kiev. Expectations were high that he could sweep away the
tainted regime of the former president Leonid Kuchma, but his team quickly became
mired in recriminations. Mr Yushchenko's personal ratings took a knock last
month when his son was criticised for living a playboy lifestyle. The fight among the president's allies centred on
rivalry between two of the orange revolution's leading figures. Ms
Timoshenko, once known as the Gas Princess, is said to have been in open
conflict with Mr Poroshenko, a confectionery magnate nicknamed the Chocolate
King who helped bankroll the uprising and had hoped to become premier. "Yushchenko spent all his time trying to make
peace between those two," said Vassily Stoyakin, the director of the
centre of political marketing in Kiev. "But everyone knew there was no
hope of achieving it." Under legal changes that Mr Yushchenko was forced to
adopt to secure support after the revolution, the powers of the presidency
will be severely eroded in favour of the prime minister early next year. A Moscow-based analyst, Roman Manyekin, said:
"There is a struggle to decide who will get the premiership and lead a
revitalised orange movement that is distanced from the quarrels of recent
months." It is thought that Mr Poroshenko - a loyal ally of
the president - could emerge the winner, he said. The fight for political power is exacerbated by a
clash between economic clans in Mr Yushchenko's team who are vying for
control of a programme to re-privatise state assets that were hived off to
allies of Mr Kuchma. Mr Yushchenko said yesterday he wanted both Mr
Poroshenko and Ms Timoshenko to remain in government, but that it was unclear
whether either of them would take the prime minister's office. Ukraine's relations with Russia looked likely to
worsen yesterday after Moscow and Berlin ratified a deal for a
multi-billion-pound gas pipeline under the Baltic Sea to supply Siberian gas
to Germany and western Europe. The deal will
allow the Kremlin to avoid "unfriendly" countries such as Ukraine
and Poland that can threaten to increase transit tariffs. |