| POLITICAL CRISIS IN UKRAINE 
DMITRY VYDRIN,
Adviser to former Ukraine’s Prime Minister Yuliya Tymoshenko, Director of the European Institute for Integration and Development, Ukraine NEW UKRAINIAN GOVERNMENT SHOULD BE FORMED BY VIKTOR YUSHCHENKO AND YULIYA TYMOSHENKO
There are several scenarios of developments after Yuliya Tymoshenko’s Cabinet resignation. Now it is difficult to estimate which of them will be implemented.
The first scenario is the most favorable for Ukraine. It implies that the government would be formed under the supervision of Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko and Yuliya Tymoshenko, the two leaders of the “Orange Revolution”.
However, the new government should work on a new set of ground rules. If formerly it used to be the political criteria, namely the personal loyalty to the President and Prime Minister, which affected the selection of the Cabinet Members, then from now on the former should be substituted by the criteria of professionalism. It should be a Cabinet of highly experienced managers with unblemished reputation.
In this case Ukraine will manage to get over the political crisis, to avoid a cleavage between the political elites and to escape from the serious social and economic problems.
The second scenario is unfavorable for Ukraine. It implies the transition of Yuliya Tymoshenko into the opposition to the President and his team.
In this case she can get a parliamentary majority in the upcoming elections to the Verkhovna Rada in spring 2006. It would enable her to become either a Speaker of the Parliament or a Prime Minister again, but this time against Viktor Yushchenko’s will.
Such developments may have extremely harmful effects on the Ukrainian political, economic and social life.
It appears that President Yushchenko is not interested in the implementation of this scenario. The appointment of Yury Yekhanurov as an acting Prime Minister speaks for that.
This appointment is obviously temporary. Yekhanurov is a professional manager, but he does not have sufficient political heft to be a Prime Minister. The Ukrainian political elites won’t accept him in this capacity.
Thus, Yushchenko needs Yekhanurov in order to take a break and to puzzle out the situation. The final decision has not yet been made.
If Viktor Yushchenko fails to come to terms with Yuliya Tymoshenko before the parliamentary elections, the first Deputy Prime Minister Anatoly Kinakh might hold Prime Minister’s office for the period of the election campaign. He can perfectly fit in the position of a technical Prime Minister who would only execute President’s decisions.
As for the role of Russia in these developments, the position of the Kremlin officials is totally ungraspable. The Russian politicians keep making the same mistake by limiting their circle of contacts to repulsive political figures, who are considered by the Ukrainian society to be corruptionists.
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