UKRAINE: COALITION SOUNDING ORANGE--FOR TODAY

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 KYIV 002575

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/12/2017
TAGS: PGOV PREL UP
SUBJECT: UKRAINE: COALITION SOUNDING ORANGE--FOR TODAY

REF: KYIV 002555

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Classified By: Political Counselor Kent Logsdon for reasons 1.4(b,d).


1. (C) Summary. As the five-day timeline President Yushchenko
gave to the parties to submit coalition proposals draws to a
close, BYuT and Our Ukraine-People's Self Defense took public
steps intended to demonstrate that the orange coalition is
close to becoming a reality. Tymoshenko and three
representatives from OU-PSD -- Lutsenko, Kyrylenko, and
Tarasyuk -- separately announced that an agreement on the
formation of a orange coalition was ready for signing.
Yushchenko and Tymoshenko also made positive public
statements regarding an orange coalition, although
negotiations continue between all parties. The President
said in Slovakia on October 12 that he hoped the orange team
had learned from its mistakes in 2005 and that this coalition
was the only possible format, but he did not fully endorse
that option. For her part, Tymoshenko made some public
concessions in line with several of the demands Baloha passed
to her earlier in the week (reftel). However, public
back-and-forth between BYuT and OU-PSD about government posts
suggests that not everything is agreed to. Oleh Zarubynskiy,
lead negotiator for the Lytvyn Bloc told us that he thought
that Yushchenko would choose orange in the end; the Lytvyn
Bloc would stay neutral for now, waiting for the big parties
to solidify their positions. Yuriy Miroshnychenko from Party
of Regions told us that while they were still negotiating for
a broad coalition, there was a sense within the leadership of
the party that it was better to be in the opposition than to
hold new elections. Unfortunately, this view was not shared
by all, leaving Regions divided for now.


2. (C) Comment. Time remains for further coalition
negotiations. The Central Election Commission has still not
announced the official election results, and the Socialists
have now filed an appeal against all the District Election
Commission (DEC) protocols to the High Administrative Court,
which will likely take at least an additional week.
Yushchenko and Tymoshenko's public comments suggest they have
moved forward in their talks, but the President still sounds
hesitant to fully commit. Miroshnychenko's comment that not
all of the Regions faction was yet convinced to take their
seats in the new Rada means that Yushchenko and Regions'
leadership must still find a way to reach out and reconcile
them. Lytvyn Bloc's strategy may pay off in the end -- by
not committing to an orange coalition now, their 20 votes may
become very valuable later when it is clear that 228 MPs are
not enough to get anything done. End summary and comment.

Yushchenko, Tymoshenko Make Conciliatory Public Remarks
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3. (SBU) Yushchenko, speaking to the press on October 12 in
Slovakia, made comments that suggest he is willing to back a
BYuT-OU-PSD coalition. He is quoted in one news website
saying that an orange coalition is the only possible format.
He also says that this was agreed on as far back as
February. Yushchenko urged the parties not to bicker over
positions and, in the case of on orange coalition,
underscored his desire to keep talks going with the
opposition. He also said that he would like to see the
Lytvyn Bloc in the coalition, although added that as head of
state it was not his place to decide this.


4. (SBU) Echoing this seemingly new-found air of cooperation,
Tymoshenko held a press conference October 12, during which
she said that BYuT and OU-PSD will have a formal coalition
agreement on Yushchenko's desk on October 13.
Representatives from both blocs later initialed the
agreement. Tymoshenko also said that they will let the
President select the Interior Minister (MOI),a conciliatory
gesture given that both blocs wanted to control the contested
post.


5. (SBU) Nevertheless, party representatives continue to
publicly snipe. BYuT deputy head Mykola Tomenko said at a
press conference that BYuT wanted 16 governors in the regions
where BYuT had the strongest support. (Note. An interesting
comment, coming after BYuT MP Nemyria told us part of the
deal put forward by Baloha was the acknowledgment that the
president would nominate all governors. End note.) Deputy
Head of the Presidential Secretariat Bezsmertniy immediately
replied that BYuT had no grounds to nominate governors.
Tomenko also said that BYuT would not support Volodymyr
Lytvyn as Rada Speaker.

Zarubynskiy: Lytvyn Bloc Inclined to Stay On Sidelines
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6. (C) MP Oleh Zarubynskiy, Lytvyn's designated negotiator in

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coalition talks, told us October 12 that his bloc was
currently inclined to join neither the coalition nor the
opposition, but to try to play a constructive role in
advancing parliamentary work. He said that at a minimum,
Lytvyn Bloc would not consider an offer to join an orange
coalition until it was clear that BYuT and OU-PSD had worked
out all their issues and problems. Right now, they were
completely focused on claiming various posts from themselves,
especially within OU-PSD. This led to various leaders
contradicting themselves and no one was talking about
policies. Zarubynskiy added, however, that a 228-seat
majority was inherently unstable and that's where the Lytvyn
Bloc might come in. He said that they had not asked for any
positions yet, although he confided that in a one-on-one
meeting Tymoshenko had made an offer to Lytvyn. Instead,
they would remain neutral for now. To associate themselves
too closely with one side or the other would hurt them
politically too. (Note. He even hinted that Lytvyn might
have presidential ambitions and, like the party, offer a
"third force" to Ukrainian voters. End note.)


7. (C) In response to a question about the possibility of a
broad coalition, Zarubynskiy said that right now it looked
like there was only a 10 percent chance that this would
happen. He pointed to Tymoshenko's public statements in
which she not only gave up the MOI, but also expressed her
willingness to accept a new Law on the Cabinet of Ministers
that stripped the PM's office of certain powers and to
support a constitutional referendum in 2008 that could lead
back to a presidential system of power as signs that she was
willing to agree to anything to make the coalition work. In
addition, he said, Yushchenko still remembered the Universal
and Regions' readiness to break promises. Given this and the
clear inclination of most of OU-PSD to be in an orange
coalition, how could Yushchenko not choose this option?
Zarubynskiy caveated this, however, by saying that there were
a number of politicians and businessmen in OU-PSD -- such as
Yekhanurov, Plyushch, Tretyakov, and Zhvaniya -- who were not
eager for Tymoshenko to return to power.

Miroshnychenko: We're in the Cabinet or Opposition, Not Both
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8. (C) Regions MP Yuriy Miroshnychenko, who served as head of
the campaign's legal department, told us October 11 that
Regions was still conducting an internal debate about what to
do. The higher leadership -- Yanukovych, Akhmetov,
Kolesnikov -- saw that they must take their Rada seats and
were working on trying to get a broad coalition. However,
many of the mid-level MPs were unhappy with the election
results and thought the party could do better in a second
round of preterm elections. They saw no benefit to being in
the opposition and were afraid of political and economic
persecution from Tymoshenko, as they "suffered" in 2005;
these people would rather spend the money on another campaign
and were not concerned how this would affect Ukraine's
international reputation.


9. (C) Miroshnychenko's personal opinion was that Regions
must take their seats, but it was better to be fully in the
opposition than to take a couple of posts in a Tymoshenko
government. Such an arrangement, in which the opposition had
one deputy prime minister post was simply unnatural. Regions
had not yet had a party meeting to come to a formal decision
and he could not say when this would happen. However, he
remained optimistic that the Rada would convene in late
October or early November.


10. (C) Regarding the elections, Miroshnychenko said the
overall conduct had been free and fair and he credited
Regions' Code of Conduct (which he co-authored) as a key
reason for keeping the vote clean. He also said Regions had
conducted training for its commissioners and observers. As
far as he was concerned, there was no basis to challenge the
overall results of the election. He believed the CEC was
dragging out the count on purpose to allow more time for
negotiations. Miroshnychenko did express regret that Regions
had not done better getting voters into the polling stations,
although he was proud that Regions had increased it support
in central Ukraine -- a first step, he said, in becoming a
national party.


11. (C) In terms of legislative priorities, Miroshnychenko
said that the most important issue to tackle was systematic
economic reform, even before trying to address all the social
promises made in the election. For his part, he would be
focused on judicial reform -- he was already working on a law
on lawyers. He might also work on amendments to the
constitution. He thought the correct path was to improve the
political reforms already implemented. He and his colleagues
were consulting constitutional experts from Ukraine, the EU,

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and the U.S., and were hearing that some form of
parliamentary system was the best choice for Ukraine.


12. (C) In response to a question about his opinion of
Baloha, Miroshnychenko said the Presidential Chief of Staff
was a strong player who had unified the presidential team and
its message. He wouldn't call Baloha a democrat, but he was
pragmatic and effective and you always knew what to expect
from him. Miroshnychenko thought Yushchenko needs Baloha and
that Baloha's chances were good of becoming even more
influential.


13. (U) Visit Embassy Kyiv's classified website:
www.state.sgov.gov/p/eur/kiev.
Taylor