Just moments before her TV address to the nation on June 7, in which Tymoshenko announced the collapse of coalition talks with ex-Prime Minister Victor Yanukovych, Tymoshenko famously said: “Propalo vsyo,” or everything is lost.
She was referring to the text on the teleprompter that suddenly disappeared. But it’s become a fitting symbol of her precarious political future.
She has had soaring heights of popularity and deservedly so. In the early part of the decade, she fought valiantly as deputy prime minister to clean up the corrupt energy sector. She dazzled crowds and provided the backbone of the 2004 democratic Orange Revolution.
She also bravely attempted to redress the injustices of the post-Soviet privatizations, but failed – except for the 2005 re-privatization of the largest steel mill in the nation. But even when she had won the hearts of millions, people have never shaken their lingering distrust of her because of her association with convicted swindler ex-Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko, and the shady sources of her gas-trading wealth from the 1990s.
Now Tymoshenko is showing that distrust of her is well-founded. Two alarming traits stand out: She’s interested only in power. And she’s no democrat.
It appears that not even public exposure of the failed Tymoshenko-Yanukovych power grab has deterred the prime minister.
Tymoshenko and Yanukovych, who command the lion’s share of seats in parliament, are reportedly interested in pushing new legislation that could curtail courts’ powers in reviewing challenges to election results.
This comes on the heels of the failed Tymoshenko-Yanukovych draft Constitution, which favored election of the president by parliament. The duo also flirted with a power-sharing agreement that would postpone parliamentary elections until 2014. They sought to intimidate the news media for spreading “disinformation,” a definition to be determined, of course, by those in power.
But there was even more reason for alarm.
In his opinion-page column on page 5, former Verkhovna Rada speaker Arseniy Yatseniuk exposed other dangers from the scuttled, secret talks. If true, it adds up to an attempt to monopolize power. Had the Tymoshenko-Yanukovych constitution been adopted, lawmakers would be elected through two rounds of voting. Only two parties would get into the parliament. The party that wins the runoff would form the government.
By now, any idea from Tymoshenko and Yanukovych should be scrutinized suspiciously. Today, both politicians are favorites in the Jan. 17 presidential contest. But once the consequences of their anti-democratic initiatives keep reverberating through society, we expect this pair will sink in popularity. Voters hunger for new leaders and will intensify their search.
Then Tymoshenko will be able to repeat her famous phrase – “Everything is lost” — after the presidential election. Only this time it will refer to her own – and Yanukovych’s – political careers.
