IN THE PRESS

Yushchenko's tough choice and the possible results

"Oranges and apples? Ukraine's political crisis," The Economist, August 5:

"... Faced with a constitutional deadline, Mr. [Viktor] Yushchenko had to choose between two unappetizing options. One was to dissolve Parliament and call fresh elections. The other was to agree to nominate Mr. [Viktor] Yanukovych, whose candidacy had been agreed by a coalition comprising his Party of the Regions, the Communists and the Socialists. Although his decision may puzzle some foreign admirers, Mr. Yushchenko has made the right choice, for two reasons.

"The first is that Mr. Yanukovych and his allies have every right to form a coalition and get their man in as prime minister on the basis of the election results, in which Mr. Yanukovych's party won the most seats. ...

"The other reason is that, if Mr. Yushchenko had called fresh elections, it would have disrupted the country at home and discredited it abroad, only, probably, to produce similar results, but with more vitriol. Mr. Yanukovych would probably still have ended up as prime minister (the job he held before the 2004 elections, but which now has increased powers under a constitutional reform agreed during the revolution). Our Ukraine might well have done even worse. ...

"It is just possible that a governing axis of the two Viktors might help to stabilize the country, helping to bind east and west together. It may result in more sensible economic policy than a government that included the populist Ms. Tymoshenko. And the president has tried to make Mr. Yanukovych commit to a set of policy principles designed to safeguard the pro-Western cause that Mr. Yushchenko is committed to. On the other hand, there may be chaos."

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, August 20, 2006, No. 34, Vol. LXXIV

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