UKRAINE: ORANGE COALITION DEAL "UNDER THREAT" - OR

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 KIEV 002436

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/21/2016
TAGS: PGOV PINR SOCI UP
SUBJECT: UKRAINE: ORANGE COALITION DEAL "UNDER THREAT" - OR
TYMOSHENKO-POROSHENKO II IN THE WORKS?

REF: A. KIEV 2403

B. KIEV 2359

C. KIEV 2329

Classified By: Acting PolCounselor George Kent, reasons 1.4 (b, d).

Summary
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1. (C) Ukraine's coalition drama continued June 21, inching
closer to an Orange Coalition, but also featuring a potential
obstacle -- Petro Poroshenko as Our Ukraine's Rada Speaker
nominee -- that could possibly cause the deal to unravel or
create discord in the months to come. The Rada met briefly
on June 21 before again adjourning until June 22 at 10:00
a.m., without voting on forming a governing coalition. Our
Ukraine (OU) MP and Party Chair Roman Bezsmertny opened the
day by announcing that OU, Bloc Tymoshenko (BYuT) and the
Socialist Party (SP) had agreed to form an Orange coalition;
he called for a vote on adjourning until June 23 to permit
the three parties to formally ratify the deal. Socialist
leader Oleksandr Moroz and BYuT chief Yuliya Tymoshenko
argued against delay, stressing that OU had to "mobilize" its
MPs and immediately seal the Orange deal. The normally
bombastic Party of Regions MP Yevhen Kushnaryov pleaded for
the creation of a grand coalition, emphasizing that the
country needed a government capable of uniting all
Ukrainians. The vote on Bezsmertny's proposal was a fiasco
for the badly disorganized Orange forces; only 154 MPs voted
"for," including only half of BYuT and no Socialists. A
senior Socialist MP told us privately following today's
adjournment that the Orange coalition agreement was "under
threat"; the Poroshenko faction of OU (14 MPs) had declared
its opposition to Tymoshenko as Premier and could work with
Regions, and other potential Orange camp defectors, to elect
a new Rada Speaker on June 22. A BYuT MP suggested that OU
was in "serious internal turmoil," declining to predict what
would happen June 22. Separately, the People's Union Our
Ukraine (PUOU) political council endorsed
Tymoshenko-archrival Petro Poroshenko as its candidate for
speaker, putting the onus of sealing an Orange coalition back
on Tymoshenko's shoulders. Several BYuT MPs suggested that
Tymoshenko would ultimately swallow the difficult pill of
Poroshenko as Speaker as the price to pay for returning as
PM, despite the difficulties of 2005, when Tymoshenko was PM
and Poroshenko served as National Security and Defense
Council Secretary. End summary.

No Deal yet
--------------


2. (U) The Rada met twice on the morning of June 21 but again
adjourned, until 10:00 a.m on June 22, without forming a new
governing coalition (Ref A).

Our Ukraine: We Need More Time
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3. (U) The first morning session, chaired by Our Ukraine's
(OU) representative on the Rada's provisional presidium,
Mykola Katerynchuk, began with OU's chief coalition
negotiator, Roman Bezsmertny, announcing from the rostrum
that OU, the Socialist Party (SP),and Bloc Tymoshenko (BYuT)
had reached agreement on the evening of June 20 to form an
Orange coalition. Surprisingly, though, Bezsmertny called
for a vote to adjourn the Rada until Friday, June 23. The
Orange parties, he said, needed time to have their political
councils formally authorize the agreement and to collected
the required signatures from their respective MPs. The
Orange parties could likely complete the work by June 22, but
voting on a coalition deal on that "tragic day," the 65th
anniversary of the German attack that started the Great
Patriotic Fatherland War, would be wrong (note: Hitler's
forces launched the eastern campaign the night of June 21,
1941, but Kiev was bombed at 4 am on June 22).

Moroz and Tymoshenko: No, We Don't
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4. (U) Socialist Party leader Oleksandr Moroz dismissed
Bezsmertny's call for a delay until June 23. Action was
needed now, he stressed, adding that OU's leadership needed
to "mobilize" its MPs and get the coalition deal done.
Bathed in the camera flashes of a press corps fully expecting
her to become prime minister again, Yuliya Tymoshenko
seconded Moroz's point about the need for action. Looking at
the BYuT and OU contingent, she said "she knew" that some of
them were under pressure not vote for an Orange coalition;
Orange MPs had to stand united and "be strong." Tymoshenko,
to the cheers of BYuT MPs and the silence of the Party of
Regions contingent, blasted the "forces of corruption and

KIEV 00002436 002 OF 003


bribery" that had tried to obstruct the formation of an
Orange coalition. As prime minister, she stressed, the
government would fight "corruption and the clans" and fight
for "the people of Ukraine." She mocked critics in the press
who were predicting that an Orange coalition would implode in
six months or less; the coalition, she predicted, would
remain united and strong.

Regions: We Still Want In
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5. (U) A very subdued Yevhen Kushnaryov, a senior and
normally bombastic Regions MP, used his turn at the
microphone to again call for the formation of a grand
coalition. Ukraine, he said, had "no future" under a
coalition government "of only one color"; the country needed
a coalition capable of uniting all Ukrainians, Kushnaryov
emphasized. With the scowling Regions leader Viktor
Yanukovych looking on, Kushnaryov again threatened that
Regions "reserved the right" to elect a new Rada Speaker if
coalition formation continued to be delayed. (Note: In sharp
contrast to the confidence of last week, a dyspeptic-looking
Yanukovych entered and exited the Rada today without stopping
to speak to reporters. See Refs B and C.)

The Vote: Regions Organized, Team Orange Not
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6. (SBU) The vote on Bezsmertny's proposal to adjourn until
June 23 was a fiasco for Team Orange. As time ticked down,
senior BYuT MP Oleksandr Turchynov, a member of the
provisional presidium, attempted to shout instructions to
BYuT and SP MPs, many of whom, unable to hear Turchynov,
threw their hands up in disgust. In contrast, the Regions
leadership quickly and efficiently communicated with its MPs,
telling them to vote "no." The result was a humiliating 154
votes "for"; with a red-faced Bezsmertny looking on, Regions
and Communist Party MPs rose and gave a roof-raising cheer
when the final faction-by-faction tally was announced. After
a short recess, MPs briefly reconvened and agreed to adjourn
until June 22.

Prognosis From Socialists, rebuttal from OU leaders
-------------- --------------


7. (SBU) Senior Socialist MP and longtime Embassy
interlocutor Vitaliy Shybko privately told us that the Orange
coalition deal reached on the evening of June 20 was "under
threat." He asserted that OU was "not ready" to sign an
agreement. Specifically, he claimed that, at the June 20
late-night meeting of the OU political council, the
Poroshenko faction (14 MPs) had announced that it would not
vote in favor of a coalition government that included Yuliya
Tymoshenko as prime minister and would, moreover, work with
Regions. Shybko confided to us that with 14 OU rebels,
Regions only needed three more Orange MPs to defect to be
able to amend the Rada's Rules of Procedure and elect a new
Rada Speaker. And, Shybko claimed, Regions was working hard
to find more defectors. (note: OU deputy leader Mykola
Katerynchuk told the press later June 21 that "nearly 100
percent" of PUOU's Political Council had endorsed the
coalition document; fellow OU deputy leader and deputy
negotiator Roman Zvarych told journalists that all three
parties had initialled each of the 103 pages of the coalition
agreement and that OU's Rada contingent would meet en masse
before the June 22 session to endorse the agreement).

Readout From The Tymoshenko Huddle: Yushchenko a waffler
-------------- --------------


8. (SBU) Following today's adjournment, Tymoshenko held an
impromptu huddle on the Rada floor with a large group of her
MPs, occasionally waving to press photographers in the
balcony and looking like a quarterback calling a play. One
of the MPs in the huddle, former Vysoky Zamok editor and
Embassy interlocutor Stepan Kurpil, later discreetly gave us
a readout of what was discussed. Kurpil, a passionate
Tymoshenko partisan, candidly told us it was "hard to say"
what would happen at the Rada on June 22; BYuT MPs hoped for
a vote on the Orange coalition, and were united, but "serious
internal turmoil" roiled OU. The problem, he asserted, was
Yushchenko's waffling: on June 20, the president had at 2
p.m. green-lighted an Orange-Blue coalition deal, and then,
following an evening meeting with Tymoshenko, changed his
mind and approved the "Orange variant."


9. (C) Kurpil related that, in the huddle, all of the MPs --
"100 percent" -- had expressed opposition to joining a grand
coalition with OU and Regions. "Several" MPs had pressed for
immediately going into opposition, arguing that Yushchenko
and OU could not be trusted. The majority of the MPs,

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though, had urged Tymoshenko to keep trying to form an Orange
coalition. Kurpil stressed that the easy thing for BYuT to
do was go into opposition, but that the right thing to do --
"for Ukraine's future" -- was to keep trying to get a deal
done with OU.

The Poroshenko gambit: the price to pay, or a poison pill?
-------------- --------------


10. (C) The afternoon focus switched to Our Ukraine's
internal deliberations, and the prospect of another high
profile pairing of archrivals Tymoshenko and Poroshenko in
office. Yushchenko's People's Union Our Ukraine (PUOU) party
endorsed both the coalition document and Petro Poroshenko as
its candidate for Rada Speaker, after Party Chair Bezsmertny
and acting PM Yekhanurov withdrew their candidacies (note:
Poroshenko, a deeply unpopular politician, has widespread
support among party leaders due to his past
financial/organizational roles). The wider Our Ukraine bloc
political council continued to meet as of 1900 but was
expected to endorse PUOU's line. Online paper Ukrainska
Pravda published the text of the draft agreement, indicating
that MPs were already signing it. BYuT MP Andriy Shevchenko,
number five on the BYuT list and a former journalist at
Poroshenko-owned Fifth Channel, told us recently that he
thought Tymoshenko would ultimately accept Poroshenko as
Speaker. BYuT deputy leader Mykola Tomenko made a similar
comment late June 21, suggesting that BYuT was weary of
negotiations and would seek assurances that Poroshenko would
"behave" as Speaker. A reported deal which would give the
First Deputy Speakership to BYuT, in exchange for the
Socialists securing the First Deputy PM slot, would be one
"control" mechanism. In any event, the Ukrainian coalition
formation drama continues.
Taylor