President Yanukovych

 Five years after the Orange Revolution ousted him Viktor Yanukovych has sworn in as President of Ukraine. He took the oath of office in the Verkhovna Rada, the Ukrainian Parliament.

 The former USSR republic “is in an extremely difficult situation,” he said in his first speech as Head of State. “There is no state budget for the current year. The debts on foreign loans are colossal. Poverty, a ruined economy, and corruption are only part of the list of the troubles that constitute Ukrainian reality.” The meaning of his words is clear: it’s time to dig the axe of war and start to work together.

 His electoral opponent’s refusal to concede defeat and step down from the premiership threatens to prolong the political wrangling that has paralyzed the country since 2006. Yulia Tymoshenko continues to accuse him of having won the run-off through fraud. But Joao Soares, president of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, called Ukraine’s election “an impressive display” and “a victory” for democracy.

 The voting pattern showed a sharp split between Russian-speaking voters in the industrial east and south who backed the new President and Ukrainian speakers in the west and in the centre who voted for Tymoshenko. Yanukovych’s margin of victory was only 3.5 percentage points.

 The former Soviet republic can not wait for political peace anymore. Last autumn, the International Monetary Fund froze a $16.4 billion bailout.  Ukraine’s gross domestic product plunged by 15 percent in 2009, according to the World Bank. IMF officials will visit Kiev on April 7^th.

  Ukraine will embark on a foreign policy,” Yanukovych highlighted, “that will allow our country to fully benefit from equal and mutually beneficial relations with Russia, the European Union and the United States.” His first foreign official visit as Ukrainian leader will be to Brussels, the second to Moscow.  In Yanukovych’s idea his country will come back to be “a bridge between the East and the West, integral part of both Europe and the former USSR”.

 The new President will simply correct the too westwards Yushchenko’s policy into a more natural ‘non-aligned’ one. When Yanukovych served as Prime minister under Kuchma’s presidency he supported national economic interests against the Russians in many tenders and had a good relationship with the USA. His best advisers are American still now.

 The new President has indicated he would put an end to Ukraine’s drive to join NATO and renegotiate a gas-supply deal with Moscow, which some believe would enable him to establish closer ties with Russia’s Gazprom. He has proposed the creation of a consortium (33% stakes each to Ukraine, Russia, and EU) to run the national gas pipelines and has hinted at possible concessions to the Kremlin over the future Russia’s Black Sea fleet  forces in Crimean peninsula. Yanukovych needs to find a good solution for Khrushchev’s poisoned present and for the use of Russian as official language. Around 20 million people can not use their mother tongue in state documents.

 The European Union and Russia need stability in Ukraine for raw materials’ transit . On the same day Yanukovych swore in, the European Parliament has issued a document which leaves the door open to a future Ukrainian membership to the EU and expresses the hope that the new President will cancel his predecessor’s recent decree that gave the honorary title of national hero to Stepan Bandera. Brussels will study a road map to guarantee no-visa EU entry to the Ukrainians in the next future and, as a first step, free of charge Schengen visa.

 Yanukovych has much to gain from the international situation, using his country’s new geopolitical importance. Financial and technological aids from West and East may be crucial for the modernization of Ukraine and for its European integration.

Giuseppe D’Amato

 The blunt-spoken Yanukovych against the ‘gas Princess’ at the runoff. There was no surprise at the first round of the Ukraine’s presidential election. The former CEO of the National Bank, Serhiy Tihipko, didn’t succeed in overtaking Yulia Tymoshenko, but he got more than 3 million votes.

 The Orange Revolution is over. President Viktor Yushchenko, who led it in 2004, trailed in the polls with just over 5 percent. He completely wasted the popularity he conquered 5 years ago when millions of people supported him and his policy.

 The Orange Revolution had an incredible impact on the former USSR similar to the one caused by the Berlin’s Wall fall on Central Europe. After centuries the Russian pole has found a great competitor in the EU and the regional balance has moved westwards. The European enlargement to the East in May 2004 indirectly helped the creation of this favourable situation for the oranges. Since then, the Ukraine’s membership in the European Union has become a popular topic in Brussels. Ukrainians will remember the Orange Revolution for the hope they acquired for a better future at home and for the disappointment they got for the broken promises and the long period of political paralyses.

 Despite warnings of large-scale election fraud in the days leading up to Sunday’s vote, officials and election observers said the ballot seemed fair and orderly. There was no evidence of voter intimidation or organized fraud.

 “Ukraine is a European democratic country”, said Yushchenko in a sort of political will at the polling station. “It is a free nation and free people.” This point of view can be shared. In these years Ukraine has demonstrated to be probably the most developed democracy in the former USSR. Where might another real multi-parties system be found as in Kiev? Where is the same full freedom of speech guaranteed in the Soviet area?

 Thus, the Ukrainian disappointment for not having become a EU member with a new formula during the orange power can also be shared, especially if we consider the membership given to the problematic Bulgaria and Romania in 2007. Brussels would have had a better position in the control of the strategically important gas and oil pipelines from Russia and Asia.

 Despite Tymoshenko’s second place finish, her sharp political instincts give her the edge in the runoff vote. Oleksandr Turchynov, the head of Tymoshenko’s election headquarters, said they are sure that the voters backing Tihipko, Yuschenko, Change Front head Arseniy Yatsenyuk and some other contenders in the first round will support Tymoshenko in the runoff regardless of the position of the candidates themselves.

 But Tihipko said he did not intend to support any candidate in the runoff even if he was offered the post of prime minister. He had personal links with Tymoshenko’s circle when he was the regional Dniepropetrovsk’s leader of the Komsomol, the Communist Union of Youth in the late Eighties. Tihipko has also been for years one of the most faithful advisers of former Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma, who chose  Yanukovych as his successor in 2004.

 The next Ukrainian president will likely concentrate on consolidating power and shoring up the economy. Ukraine’s currency crashed in 2008, the economy sputtered and the IMF had to step in with a $16.4 billion (euro11.41 billion) bailout. Ukraine’s gross domestic product plunged by 15 percent in 2009, according to the World Bank.

 Wealthy businessmen are likely to retain a tight grip on the economy and the main enterprises and to hold sway over politics. They will be the main security against a too strong Russian influence on their country in next future.

Giuseppe D’Amato