Ever since the heady days of late 2004 when Ukraine’s democratic forces rallied around the banner of then opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko, the Orange alliance has appeared fragile at best. At root the problem has consistently been one of competition between Yushchenko himself and Yulia Tymoshenko. Both favour closer ties with the West and champion Euro-Atlantic integration, but neither seems ready to concede centre stage to their revolutionary rival.
Yushchenko loses the high ground
President Yushchenko initially appeared to hold all the trump cards in the showdown of the Orange icons. He succeeded in removing Tymoshenko from the PM’s office in 2005, but a series of ideologically embarrassing compromises with Viktor Yanukovych’s Party of Regions have seen his popularity rating plummet, while the relatively untarnished Tymoshenko has been allowed to position herself as the true champion of democracy. This reversal of fortunes underpinned Tymoshenko’s remarkable showing in the September elections, where she raked in over 30% of the national vote, a result which is said to have caused mass panic throughout the presidential administration.
Presidential campaign underway
At this stage Tymoshenko is the clear favourite to win the presidential elections of 2009, assuming she chooses to run. Yushchenko, despite his low personal ratings, would still be expected to defeat Yanukovych or any other Party of Regions candidate in a run-off vote, but if he fails to remove Tymoshenko from the equation there is little chance that he would make through to the second round of voting at all.
This has led to a duplicitous presidential policy which has seen Yushchenko attempt to reassert his crumbling authority by schemes designed to isolate Tymoshenko and chip away at her current ascendancy. Over the past two months representatives within the pro-presidential Our Ukraine faction have repeatedly created obstacles to the signing of the new Orange coalition deal, and only agreed to back the coalition agreement at the last minute when it had become clear that their various alternative scenarios had come to nothing.
For the time being Yushchenko would appear to have accepted the necessity of a Tymoshenko-led government, but analysts are already speculating about his next attempt to regain lost ground. This state of affairs is something akin to a cold civil war within the Orange camp. It comes at a time when the country desperately needs leadership and direction and threatens to undermine the pro-democracy push from within.
Orange Achilles heel
Unsurprisingly, the public is growing tired of this seemingly self-centred behaviour. After all, both Orange leaders have committed themselves to one of the most ambitious national reformations ever attempted in peacetime Europe, yet they are constantly being forced to expend untold energy dealing with internal divisions of their own making.
None of this will have been lost on those who would seek to destroy the foundations of Orange unity. The rivalry between the two leaders of the Orange Revolution is the Achilles heel of the whole movement, and until this is resolved there remains little chance of the strong political leadership the country requires.
There is an old Ukrainian proverb which states, ‘If I can’t have it, nobody should have it.” Could Yushchenko really feel that way about an Orange presidency? It would often appear so. If he chooses to adhere to this rather depressing piece of folk wisdom, the result could well be the latest in a long line of Ukrainian tragedies and the end of the country’s Euro-Atlantic dreams.
