After President Leonid Kuchma issued his strongest criticism yet of Prime Minister Viktor Yushchenko’s government, analysts said the president would stand by his man nonetheless.
At a government meeting on April 19, Kuchma hurled a storm of accusations at the Cabinet, accusing it of an ‘intuitive and improvised’ approach to reforms and of overstating its role in recent economic growth.
Kuchma’s criticism came after a senior official, reporting on the Cabinet’s first four months in office, cited a 5.6 percent rise in the country’s gross domestic product in first quarter of 2000 as one of the government’s major achievements.
Many independent economic observers had earlier described this year’s positive developments as resulting directly from last year’s sharp devaluation of the hryvna, which boosted exports and domestic output, and warned they could be short-lived unless supported by deep structural reforms.
Kuchma said many Cabinet members were paying too much attention to publicizing their work instead of ensuring that economic growth continues.
‘Nobody is against publicity in the work of government members, but it is becoming annoyingly persistent,’ Kuchma said.
Yushchenko, who since his appointment in December has received unwavering support from the president in public, looked shocked after Kuchma’s irate speech, according to sources in the government.
Zerkalo Nedeli weekly wrote on April 22 that Yushchenko had gone as far as tendering his resignation to Kuchma the day after the president’s tirade, only to see Kuchma reject it. Yushchenko denied the report.
Despite Kuchma’s harsh criticism, analysts say neither Yushchenko nor the Cabinet face dismissal in near future.
‘Yushchenko won’t be fired any time soon, because the president understands that there won’t be a better prime minister, and a prime minister more psychologically dependent on him,’ said political analyst Vyacheslav Pikhovshek.
But whatever reshuffle of the Cabinet may result from Kuchma’s displeasure, the first to be affected will be the post of deputy prime minister for the energy sector, held by controversial Yulia Tymoshenko, analysts say.
At the April 19 Cabinet meeting, Kuchma made a point of assailing the Cabinet’s failure to improve the woeful situation in the energy sector.
Ukraine this winter experienced its worst energy shortages since independence in 1991, a problem blamed largely on inefficient management of state-owned segments of the energy industry.
Kuchma reserved part of his criticism for Tymoshenko, proposing that Yushchenko consider whether having a deputy prime minister in charge of the energy sector is necessary at all, given that a separate post of energy minister already exists.
Tymoshenko’s career has been mired in controversy since 1996, when she headed the equally controversial gas trader, United Energy Systems.
The company was awarded lucrative gas supply contract during the tenure of former Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko in 1996-97, leading media to speculate that the two had close ties.
UES lost its position in the market after Lazarenko was fired in 1997 and subsequently accused of stealing millions of dollars in government funds.
Tymoshenko parted with Lazarenko when corruption allegations against him began to mount. She has repeatedly denied involvement in any of the former premier’s many alleged misdeeds.
A senior government official, who spoke to the Post on condition of anonymity, said that Tymoshenko’s dismissal is imminent but is unlikely to happen before the ongoing registration of candidates for the June by-elections to parliament.
The government does not want a disgruntled Tymoshenko sitting in parliament, where she might develop into a strong opposition voice, the government official said.
Tymoshenko, who had to give up her parliament seat upon taking up her current post in early January, won overwhelmingly both times she ran for parliament in the past, both times out of the Kirovohrad oblast.
With her former seat now vacant and scheduled to be filled in the June 25 by-elections, Tymoshenko could feasibly run for that seat again if she’s booted out of the government before the by-elections registration deadline, May 26.
