UKRAINE: REGIONS PARTY RADA DEPUTY SAYS REGIONS

C O N F I D E N T I A L KIEV 001353

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/05/2016
TAGS: PGOV PINR UP
SUBJECT: UKRAINE: REGIONS PARTY RADA DEPUTY SAYS REGIONS
READY TO JOIN RADA MAJORITY COALITION

REF: KIEV 1337

Classified By: Ambassador for reasons 1.4 (b,d).


1. (C) Summary: During an April 4 meeting, Party of Regions
parliamentary (Rada) deputy and former Deputy PM Andriy
Klyuyev told Ambassador that Regions was ready to join a
coalition with the pro-presidential Our Ukraine bloc. He
dismissed the possibility that Regions was looking to force a
new election. End summary.


2. (C) In a late afternoon meeting April 4, Klyuyev, who had
just arrived from the Rada session (reftel),said the lame
duck Rada would not dissolve until April 26. Declaring that
Regions was ready to join a coalition in the new Rada,
Klyuyev said he had met earlier in the day with Our Ukraine
faction leader Mykola Martynenko and with Our Ukraine
Executive Committee chairman Mykola Katerynchuk, and March 31
with Prime Minister Yuri Yekhanurov. Klyuyev said his
discussion with Yekhanurov, while friendly, had not included
discussion of which party members might take Cabinet
positions; in particular, there had been no discussion as to
whether ex-PM and Party of Regions leader Yanukovych would be
an acceptable prime minister candidate. While he confirmed
that discussions were taking place, Klyuyev declined to
comment further on Regions' negotiations with the Yuliya
Tymoshenko Bloc (BYuT).


3. (C) Klyuyev confirmed that, with 186 members in the new
Rada, Regions could prevent the opening of the new Rada
session (which requires a 2/3, or 300-seat, attendance) and
thus precipitate the calling of a new election by refusing to
attend when the new Rada convened, but said Regions was not
considering doing so. He did not rule out, however, the
possibility that Regions might decide in the future to take
this step.


4. (C) Klyuyev stressed that the Regions approach to
governing would be to avoid economically ruinous policies
that might return Ukraine's economy to the mid-90s, a period
of high unemployment and inflation. Klyuyev claimed his
party's wealthy members, such as owners of eastern Ukraine's
industrial enterprises, controlled 80 percent of Ukraine's
economy. The elections had been extremely expensive, so
Regions would tend to avoid an election repeat; Regions'
members would not put their short-term political interests
above the nation's overall welfare, he claimed with dead
seriousness. (Note: As Deputy PM under Yanukovych, Klyuyev
was reportedly the person in charge of the incumbent regime's
effective but ultimately failed dirty tricks effort against
the Yushchenko-led opposition in the 2004 presidential
election campaign.)


5. (U) Visit Embassy Kiev's classified website:
www.state.sgov.gov/p/eur/kiev.
Herbst