Foreign Correspondence

[Amaunet]

News Flash: Kuchma resignation rumored – “Yeltsin variant”

This, if true, could give Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych the advantage to overcome the strong presidential campaign of former Prime Minister Viktor Yushchenko.

The better the Georgian revolution evolves in practice and in its dealings with Russia, the better the attitude of Russians will be toward Yushenko, who is typically assigned the role of the Saakashvili of Ukraine. But if Saakashvili continues down lines of confrontation and exacerbation of Georgian nationalism -- lines being compared in Russia to the first Georgian democrat-president, Gamsakhurdia -- then it will sour Russians not only on him but on Yushenko. And it will sour not only Russians but millions of Ukrainians, who would dread a similar downward spiral in relations with

Russia. We should bear in mind that a large majority of Ukrainians are pro-Russian: The personal ties are intimate, and a pro-Russian image has been the key to winning presidential elections in Ukraine.

The interest of the U.S. is for the positive variant to succeed: for Georgia to build a good relation with Russia, and for Russia and pro-Russian Ukrainians to take a more hopeful view of Yushenko. One Russian business newspaper has called, wistfully, for a reconsideration of Yushenko as potentially a good thing because a domestic reformer. Other Russians have argued that Yushenko has already lost and backed himself into an anti-Russian cul de sac where he cannot get much more than his 25 percent core vote.

The United States has placed considerable stakes on Yushenko and on Saakashvili. The U.S. also has stakes in Russia -- far greater stakes, in fact.

#msg-3779497

-Am

News Flash: Kuchma resignation rumored – “Yeltsin variant”
By Peter Lavelle
Published on August 21, 2004


Thanks to Ben for sending the following along – more on this story Monday.

Source: Inside Ukraine Newsletter, Kyiv, Ukraine, Sat, August 21, 2004

KYIV - Rumours thought to have originated among the Russian press suggest that Ukrainian President Kuchma may be on the verge of announcing his pre-term resignation, to take effect almost immediately after Ukraine's Independence Day, August 24, 2004. The rumours are so specific as to suggest that the Kuchma announcement has already been recorded and will be held in Presidential Administration hands until it would be broadcast by all major television stations on Monday.

Should the rumoured Kuchma resignation come to pass, it would closely mimic the resignation of Russian President Boris Yeltsin that brought Vladimir Putin to power. Just as it was in Russia, Ukrainian law prescribes that in case of the resignation of a sitting president the prime minister would become acting president for 60 days during which time an election would be held to elect a new president for a full term.

In Kuchma's case, with the regular presidential election slated for October 31, a resignation in late August would only shorten his term by a little over two months and might, at the same time, prove an immense advantage to the chances of Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych to overcome the strong presidential campaign of former Prime Minister Viktor Yushchenko.

With all the powers of the presidency at his disposal and with the existence of a several billion hryvna war chest of government funds at his disposal, allegedly secreted there in the 2004 budget process, available for what are expected to be considerable raises in the pay of government employees and the retirement payments of pensioners, Yanukovych would be expected to become an almost unstoppable force for election to a full term.

The election of Yanukovych, with his known record of criminal convictions and prison terms, and his highly authoritarian Soviet style of rule, clearly demonstrated during his years in power as governor of the eastern Ukrainian industrial heartland, Donetsk Oblast, will not sit well with many government leaders in Europe and the United States.

However, opprobrium in the wider world seems to the Ukrainian power elite to be a small price to pay for a smooth transition of power to a known quantity like Yanukovych, particularly when the deal also almost certainly includes certainty that neither Kuchma nor any of his close political associates will ever be required to face court action for their alleged misdeeds over the past 10 years.

As Moscow Komsomolets said on August 19 in comments related to the possibility of Kuchma's pre-term resignation, "On the whole, all this goes the same way it did with us in Russia."


http://www.untimely-thoughts.com/index.html?cat=4&type=3&art=831