Yuri Yekhanurov is our premier.
289 parliamentarians have voted for him this time.
Regions of Ukraine gave him 50 votes; Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc - 7.
Communists and SDPU(o) did not vote.
***
According to Ukrainska Pravda (in Ukrainian), guys from the Regions of Ukraine are saying Yushchenko has signed an agreement with Yanukovych an hour before the vote.
Main points of the document allegedly are: no politicial persecution, freedom of speech, political reform begins Jan. 1, 2006 (according to Ihor Shkir); no reprivatization, amnesty to those election commission workers accused of violations during the 2004 election, adoption of the law on opposition and the law on the president (according to Vitaly Khomutynnyk).
Seems innocent enough except for the amnesty to election commision crooks item.
Is Yushchenko very smart or are we very ____?
ReplyDelete09.22.05 - 11:48 pm
"amnesty" - I too in reading the list was okay, okay, okay, ouch (no reprivation?) and then NO! amnesty??!! to those crooks?
ReplyDeletewhat's the law on the opposition and law on the President?
Hopefully this will be like the agreement signed with Kuchma during the OR. Political expediency and then progress marches on. Is it wise to trust people whom you cannot trust except to try to poison you?
09.23.05 - 12:54 am
Greetings,
ReplyDeleteI too was quite disappointed with the promise to refuse further reprivatization and for no further efforts to prosecute anyone for the election violations. But I also expected these promises.
As for the latter, I have come around to thinking that this is Yushchenko' s very wise and compassionate, Buddha-and-Jesus-like side: let us just forgive and forget, make our peace, and move on into the future.
As for the former, Yekhanurov already stated sometime ago that there should be no more reprivat. And I think the above mentioned Buddha-and-Jesus thing is also what is behind Yushchenko's refusal of further reprivat (but this is generous--he is also being the tool of the international business community and investors who hate populist disturbances of any economy). Yushchenko et al seem so eager to move on into the future, and the best way is to make peace with the past, saying, "Ok, you guys got what you got through bogus means, but there will be no more bogus means. You can keep it, but you have to play with new, cleaner rules."
But the sincerity of this promise for newer, cleaner rules is rendered questionable as far as I am concerned by the fact that Yekhanurov has also has said, in relation to completing privatization, that the government should be allowed to hold meetings with members of the business community--Which one? Indigenous Ukrainian? Russian? International?--suggesting closed doors and deals struck just as before under an earlier round of privatizations before Yanukovych was PM. This, in a word, sucks.
What happened to transparency? Am I missing something here?
But once again, to be generous to Yushchenko and pals, perhaps they are weary over reprivat because of how the doors to further corruption (not perception) were opened. But that still remains to be demonstrated. One should keep in mind that the allegations of corruption against Tymoshenko are also, so far, just words.
No doubt, the issue of reprivat has been very divisive, but where? In the government of Ukraine? In the opinion of the international community? Or among the Ukrainian people? I am back in Ukraine again, and have anyway been talking with lots of friends in both east and west. So OK. . .the pro-OR people, we will say, were about 55-60% of the population, and the pro-Yan were about 45-40-%. It seems to me that the break-down of people pleased/displeased with the lack of justice for the past is about the same. But that is my totally unscientific observation.
I asked my taxi driver today in Odesa what he thought about all this. He said, "I don't even want to talk about it. No justice, no fulfillment of promises. . .what are we to do with them all?"
09.23.05 - 11:14 pm