Does it have anything to do with todays swoon?
How connected these EFCR guys are to those characters in news?
Any idea?
guardian.co.uk
Ukraine President Dismisses Government
Thursday September 8, 2005 5:01 PM
AP Photo KIV106
By MARA D. BELLABY
Associated Press Writer
KIEV, Ukraine (AP) - President Viktor Yushchenko dismissed his Cabinet Thursday amid swirling allegations of corruption, saying members of the fragile coalition formed after last year's Orange Revolution had turned on one another.
The dissolution of Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko's government, coupled with the president's decision to accept the resignation of Petro Poroshenko, the powerful head of the Security and Defense Council, left the president looking increasingly isolated.
Still, Yushchenko appeared at ease as he addressed journalists, even with the resignations of four top-level aides since Saturday.
``I knew that there were definite conflicts between those people ... (but) I hoped that there would not be enough time for intrigues,' Yushchenko said. ``Those were my hopes.'
He made his abrupt move after former Orange Revolution allies leveled accusations of corruption against top presidential aides, including Poroshenko, whose agency controls the military and law enforcement services. Yushchenko called the allegations ``groundless but very strong' and said they demanded a reaction.
``I want people to feel that the government works in harmony ... (but) they lost the team spirit and faith,' Yushchenko said. ``They remain my friends.'
He said he hoped Tymoshenko and Poroshenko would remain part of his team, but insisted they must agree to work together. He did not specify whether this meant he would consider welcoming them back into the government at some point.
``I have spent the last three nights thinking about how to keep together that which has already separated. ... The key issue was the issue of trust,' he said. ``If there had been a possibility to preserve team spirit, to remain together, it would have been the best answer. We had such an agreement and during the night it was changed, but not by me.'
Vitaliy Chepinoga, spokesman for Tymoshenko, refused to comment. ``Let the president speak his mind today; tomorrow we will comment,' he said.
Oleksandr Turchinov, head of the State Security Service and a close Tymoshenko ally, also announced his resignation Thursday, as did Vice Prime Minister Mykola Tomenko.
Tomenko accused Poroshenko and others of corruption.
``I have realized that some people steal and others resign,' Tomenko, who left his post in charge of humanitarian affairs, told a news conference. ``I don't want to bear common responsibility for people who have created a corrupt system.'
On Saturday, Yushchenko's chief of staff, Oleksandr Zinchenko, resigned and leveled charges of corruption against high-level officials, including Poroshenko.
Yushchenko appointed lawmaker Yuriy Yekhanurov, a former economics minister who now heads a parliamentary committee on industrial issues, as acting prime minister.
Yekhanurov, a 58-year-old former deputy prime minister and economics minister, is the governor of the eastern Dnipropetrovsk region.
The political turmoil comes six months ahead of parliamentary elections that could cement the achievements of the Orange Revolution, or roll them back.
Tymoshenko, who controls a powerful bloc in parliament, was considering her next move, which could be to go into opposition to the president, according to her ally, Valentyn Zubov.
``The thing that the president did today can only be called a betrayal,' said Zubov, who speaks on behalf of Tymoshenko's parliamentary faction.
Yushchenko rose to power on the crest of last year's massive protests that became known as the Orange Revolution. Poroshenko, a confectionary tycoon, helped fund and publicize them through his Channel 5 television channel, and Tymoshenko became known as a heroine of the protests. She regularly addressed the nation from Independence Square, and her popularity today continues to rival that of Yushchenko.
Yushchenko said that conflicts between Poroshenko and Tymoshenko ``became the everyday agenda.'
``The president must not be a governess who has to settle relations between them,' he said, adding that the trust between his partners ``was zero.'
Oleksandr Lytvynenko, a political analyst with the Razumkov think tank, said the government's dismissal would hurt Yushchenko.
``Doubts had already emerged about his ability to make decisions, which are beginning to damage his image not only in Ukraine, but also abroad,' he said.
In Berlin, Russian President Vladimir Putin said he had spoken to Yushchenko by telephone and said there was no reason to ``dramatize' the situation.
``There is nothing unusual in a president dismissing a government,' said Putin, who fired his own prime minister last year.
Unlike in a parliamentary democracy, the Ukrainian prime minister does not lead the country but is responsible for coordinating the work of other ministries.
Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, who benefited from a similar uprising in the former Soviet republic, praised Yushchenko as ``a true brother' who knows ``exactly at the decisive moment what must be done.'
Poroshenko said he was resigning so as not to appear to put pressure on the investigation into Zinchenko's accusations.
Yushchenko had ordered an inquiry into the allegations, and Ukraine's Security Service on Thursday ordered a special commission to be set up to investigate all corruption allegations against high officials. That was a sign that the government, which took power on a pledge to end the corruption that tainted former President Leonid Kuchma's rule, was intent on fulfilling its promise. |
