Waiting for H-hour

Zero hour — July 25 — is approaching. On that day President Yushchenko may exercise his right to dissolve parliament. However, even Yulia Tymoshenko’s supporters have now grasped that there will be no dissolution and nothing sensational will happen on July 25.

It is not in our president’s character to resort to extraordinary measures. Furthermore, there are not enough legal grounds to justify this step. Even though the coalition is “treacherous” and “communist-oligarchic,” it has been formed. Our Ukraine seems to have resigned itself to this long ago. “For me, July 25 is just a Tuesday, an ordinary working day, and zero hour is all in peoples’ hot heads,” Borys Bezpaly of Our Ukraine told The Day. It is no secret that five or six vacancies in the future government have been “reserved” for Our Ukraine. At least that’s what the “regionals” keep repeating all the time. Last Friday MP Volodymyr Zubanov named the “three professionals” whom the Party of Regions would like to see on its team: Prime Minister Yuriy Yekhanurov, Economy Minister Arseniy Yatseniuk, and National Security and Defense Council ex-secretary Anatoliy Kinakh.

The only remaining mystery, if this is the right word here, is the candidate for prime minister. The BYuT’s Andriy Shkil still hopes that Yushchenko will submit a different candidate to the Verkhovna Rada after consultations with the Party of Regions, “a candidature that is not directly associated with the election rigger Yanukovych, who has two convictions under his belt,” Shkil explains. Incidentally, Yanukovych recently had his convictions overturned again. Charges of a falsified court ruling to absolve Yanukovych of his convictions were again dropped for lack of evidence, said Donets oblast prosecutor Oleksiy Bahanets last Thursday.

Last Friday the Presidential Secretariat received Yanukovych’s biography, declaration of income, and a photocopy of his employment record — all the necessary documents. So his prime ministership looks more and more certain every day. The Day asked political scientist Viktor NEBOZHENKO about what can be expected from the “second coming” of Yanukovych.

“The Party of Regions has changed considerably. Whereas the beating of a journalist was once considered a hallmark of valor, the strong behavior of a real man in Donetsk circles, now this has triggered a very bitter reaction. The ‘regionals’ did their best to avoid a scandal and threw Kalashnikov out. This alone says that the party has learned something since 2004 and is trying to be different. But different how? That is difficult to say. I think the same applies to the economy: the domination of the ‘Donetsk clan,’ shady taxation schemes, but I still do not think there will be any redistribution of property because their goal is to make full use of what is available rather than to stir up reprivatization scandals.

“Many people are now saying that Yanukovych will ‘dump’ Ukraine on Russia. I think this will all boil down to high-sounding rhetoric in the humanitarian sphere, something like a Year of Friendship with Russia, warm hugs, etc., but the ‘Donetsk clan’ will not relinquish its positions in the economy. They did not take power for the purpose of handing it over to the Kremlin.

“I would also rather not dramatize the fact that the president and the prime minister may belong to different political forces. This is normal practice in the West. For example, at one time the president of France was a socialist and the cabinet was right-wing, and now it is the other way around: a right-wing president and a center-left cabinet.

“I think Yushchenko and Yanukovych will work together somehow. The ‘Donetsk clan’ will need to preserve its huge economic resources, so this will force them to seek a compromise with Yushchenko. Still, there is a possibility of a ‘diabolical scheme,’ on in which the Party of Regions will be in cahoots with a desperate Tymoshenko and will try to topple Yushchenko in a constitutional way. But this is just a hypothesis.”