UKRAINE: REGIONS AND SOME IN OU OPPOSE TYMOSHENKO,

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 KYIV 002653 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/19/2017 TAGS: PGOV PREL UP SUBJECT: UKRAINE: REGIONS AND SOME IN OU OPPOSE TYMOSHENKO, BUT WILL THEY FIND COMMON GROUND? REF: A. KYIV 02533 ¶B. KYIV 002634 KYIV 00002653 001.2 OF 004 Classified By: Ambassador for reasons 1.4(b,d). ¶1. (C) Summary. As they await the official promulgation of the election results, which has been slowed by court appeals, the major parties are clarifying their positions on coalition formation. Prime Minister Yanukovych rejected the idea of the technocratic government outlined by members of the president's team (refs A and B),and emphasized that a broad coalition was the only reasonable option, while an orange coalition would be ineffective and unstable. Deputy Prime Minister Klyuyev indicated to the Ambassador in a separate meeting that Regions might now be willing to form a broad coalition that did not include Yanukovych as PM. First DPM Azarov said that he thought both orange and broad coalitions would be unstable as everyone looked toward the presidential election. From the President's side, Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council Plyushch and Defense Minister Hrytsenko both indicated that they do not think Tymoshenko will be confirmed. Plyushch and Klyuyev both thought that Tymoshenko, knowing that she does not have enough support, will not let her nomination go to a vote. Just a day after the coalition agreement was signed, the President and a number of Our Ukraine-People's Self Defense members have come out to publicly criticize several of Tymoshenko's platform positions as populist and unrealistic, showing that there is still opposition to her within the President's party as well. ¶2. (C) Comment. The positions articulated by Yanukovych, Klyuyev, Plyushch, and Hrytsenko suggest that there is some common ground between Regions and Our Ukraine on a future coalition, if they can overcome personal ambitions and concern about the presidential election in 2009/2010, and agree to a format that meets both sides' political needs. The court challenges, which no one expects to change the outcome of the election, give the parties more time to negotiate, but we are unlikely to see any public acknowledgment of a possible broad coalition until after the Rada is seated -- still expected to take place within 30 days after the election results are promulgated, and probably on a Tuesday. We also should not count Tymoshenko out. She may �0A;be as actively soliciting support from MPs in the Lytvyn Bloc and Regions as Regions is soliciting MPs in the orange camp to not vote for her. She may also be calculating that the best way to the presidency is to go up for the vote, and either win the Prime Ministership, or be stabbed in the back by her allies and move into radical opposition. End summary and comment. Yanukovych: Calm, Waiting for Broad to Happen -------------- ¶3. (C) A more relaxed, but unsmiling Yanukovych on October 18 reiterated Party of Regions' position on coalition formation: either Regions would be in a broad coalition or in opposition, but there would be no temporary or technical third variant, nor would Regions take deputy PM and minister jobs in a Tymoshenko government. He repeated throughout the conversation that an orange coalition will be unstable and unable to work effectively and its failure could lead to another round of elections. His underlying message, although he only directly said it once, was that a broad coalition was a much better alternative. He did, however, indicate the Regions will take their seats in the new Rada and repeated the statement he made at the October 17 Cabinet meeting that Regions does not want new elections. ¶4. (C) Regions expects the promulgated election results by October 25, once all the court challenges are addressed. Yanukovych said Regions would then like to see the Rada get started as soon as possible. Once the Rada convenes, factions will be formed and their leaders identified. Only then can faction heads sign a coalition agreement. Moreover, he said, MPs from the factions in the coalition must sign their consent to the coalition agreement, meaning there must be at least 226 signatures on the document. The PM said that the orange team will undergo several tests indicative of its staying power -- the votes on Speaker, PM, and the Cabinet. ¶5. (C) Most of what happens next, the PM said, depends on Yushchenko. He expressed the wish that the President would be open and direct about his plans rather than play games. Right now, Yanukovych said, "we are still partners." He believed that Regions' proposal to Yushchenko for cooperation would make him strong and bring stability to all branches of government. But they were not interested in a temporary variant - they wanted only long-term stability KYIV 00002653 002.2 OF 004 ¶6. (C) Yanukovych was dismissive of constitutional change initiated by the orange camp. He argued that the constitution could only be amended with Regions' help -- they would need Regions for a two-thirds vote in the Rada to make amendments and they would need Regions to help get a 50-percent turnout to validate a referendum on a new constitution. He added that Regions has no interest in constitutional reform unless it is part of the process of writing the amendments. Klyuyev: Next PM Will Not Be Tymoshenko, Maybe Not Yanukovych -------------- -------------- ¶7. (C) An equally calm Deputy Prime Minister Klyuyev told the Ambassador October 19 that Tymoshenko did not have the votes -- there would be defections from both OU-PSD and BYuT. In the next few weeks there will be a lot of accusations of vote buying and he did not want to be in the country when the storm breaks. (Note. It is no wonder Klyuyev wants to be out of Kyiv if a vote-buying scandal breaks. Lutsenko told us Klyuyev had offered him five million dollars to stop publicly supporting Tymoshenko and others have said Klyuyev was in charge of buying defectors. OU-PSD MP and PORA head Vladyslav Kaskiv told us he had been offered three million to be "sick" during the confirmation vote, but he did not say by whom. End note.) Eventually, there will be a broad coalition of Regions, Lytvyn Bloc, OU-PSD, and some members of BYuT. Klyuyev said he has been meeting with Tymoshenko regularly to convince her to join the broad coalition, but she has not agreed. In response to the Ambassador's question about who would get tp posts in this coalition, Klyuyev said Regions would propose Yanukovych for PM, but did not care about other positions. The Ambassador pointed out that a number in OU-PSD will not accept Yanukovych as PM, and wondered what Regions would do in that case, to which Klyuyev replied "we will agree," implying that he sees a possible coalition without Yanukovych. In a final mysterious statement, Klyuyev said that Regions has plans in the next six months to seriously reduce Tymoshenko's chances of winning the next presidential election. He would not divulge any details, saying only three people in the whole world know the plan. Azarov: No Government Will Be Stable Until 2010 -------------- -- ¶8. (C) First Deputy Prime Minister Azarov told the Ambassador October 18 that BYuT/OU-PSD's majority would simply be too small to govern effectively. There would be many times when, for various reasons, the orange coalition would not have enough votes to get things done. At such times, it would be unfair and difficult to expect Regions to jump in so things can get passed. In fact, Regions would do just the opposite, "and do everything we can to destabilize the coalition." A large coalition might be somewhat more stable for a limited period of time, but not for longer. Presidential elections were looming in two years. Regions would face a dilemma since it would be called upon to support the coalition at the time when it would need to actually draw a clear line between itself and its coalition partners in the run-up to the election. ¶9. (C) In addition, in the coming two years any government needed to adopt difficult and painful reforms for the good of the country, "and by this I don't mean reimbursing the victims of the Sberbank (Oshchadbank in Ukrainian) collapse." The government in power would lose significant amounts of popular support when it started to reform the country; the measures would be unpopular and weaken the position of the party in power leading up to the elections. Hence it was better to stay in the opposition. President Yushchenko understood the predicament. Plyushch: Moving Towards National Unity Coalition -------------- -------------- ¶10. (C) NSDC Secretary Plyushch outlined for the Ambassador on October 19 his variation of the same plan for the formation of the East-West Coalition of National Unity that we have heard from Chief of Staff Baloha, his deputy Bezsmertniy, and OU-PSD leader Lutsenko. His argument was that a 228-member majority was unstable and would never be able to develop and implement the policies Ukraine needs right now. In addition, Tymoshenko made so many impractical populist promises on the campaign trail, the best way for the President to contain her was to co-opt her by supporting her. Plyushch argued that Yushchenko has raised himself above the political fray now and is the force for stability and democracy in Ukraine. The presidential team wanted a path KYIV 00002653 003.2 OF 004 that would unite all of Ukraine. ¶11. (C) Plyushch thought it would be better to avoid the confirmation vote for Tymoshenko altogether. OU-PSD would look bad going back on its campaign promise to vote for an orange government and would set a bad precedent for their faction to not all vote the same way. Tymoshenko and OU leader Kyrylenko should understand she will never be confirmed and drop the issue. Plyushch was very vague on how the Unity coalition would be brought about, but he thought it would include OU-PSD, Regions, Lytvyn Bloc, and some MPs from BYuT. He argued there was no difference in ideology between the three main parties and all of them had oligarchs and clans, the only things keeping them apart were egos and ambitions. ¶12. (C) Plyushch said that the presidential team wanted the Rada seated within 20 days of the Central Election Commission's promulgation of the election results. He did not want to see the process drag on for two or three months as it had in 2006. As to when the Unity coalition would be formed, he could not say. The President, Plyushch said, has been consistent since April that after the Rada elections, the constitution needed to be reformed. They needed to fix the power structure at the national and local levels. The goal was a clear delineation of power so that there was never another incident like the clash at the Prosecutor General's Office in May. (Note. Plyushch is referring to the clash between two government security forces sent by the Cabinet and President to fight for control of the PGO. End note.) ¶13. (C) Plyushch was very dismissive of OU-PSD MPs, especially the younger and newer ones. He criticized them several times for being too impatient to get into the Rada and get the orange coalition formed. He also rejected that they had any decision-making power regarding the future coalition, saying that it was Yushchenko who got them into the Rada, why were they not respecting the President's wishes? Hrytsenko: I Won't Vote for Tymoshenko -------------- ¶14. (C) Defense Minister Hrytsenko told the Ambassador October 17 that he would not vote for Tymoshenko as Prime Minister because of their mutual enmity. He said that Tymoshenko opposed him for his criticism of her promise to abolish conscription in such a speedy and ill-advised manner, his calling the Tender Chamber corrupt, when it was benefiting her faction, and because she saw him as a rival for the presidency. He said that he had Yushchenko's blessing to sign the coalition agreement with reservations, and to withhold his vote for Tymoshenko as PM. He also said that if Tymoshenko is not confirmed, they will work for a technocratic government. This PM would preside over a cabinet of technocrats "people had never heard of" and the new PM would have to promise not to run for president in the upcoming elections. OU-PSD Already Expressing Discontent with Tymoshenko -------------- -------------- ¶15. (SBU) Just a day after Tymoshenko and OU head Kyrylenko signed the preliminary coalition agreement, Our Ukraine members publicly criticized several of Tymoshenko's proposed plans for her Cabinet -- all of them specifically included in the coalition agreement. Yushchenko, Baloha, Plyushch, and PORA leader Kaskiv criticized her idea to abolish conscription in the army beginning January 2008. Plyushch said it was harmful to Ukraine's national security. In addition, Kaskiv criticized Tymoshenko's plans to repay the Oshchadbank debts in the next two years and said he will never support a law on imperative mandate, which Tymoshenko advocates. OU MP Zvarych said he saw no financial basis for the Oshchadbank and conscription plans, but since BYuT will control the economic portfolios, it will be up to them to work it out. Court Challenges are Minor Delay -------------- ¶16. (SBU) The High Administrative Court has now received four appeals of the election results, from: the Socialists, Communists, Free Democrats Party, and All-Ukraine Party of People's Trust. According to the law, the Court should hear all the cases within five days, but politicians and analysts we have spoken with say that it could take longer. No one, however, expects the Court to issue a ruling that would change the outcome of the vote. ¶17. (U) Visit Embassy Kyiv's classified website: KYIV 00002653 004.2 OF 004 www.state.sgov.gov/p/eur/kiev. Taylor