Against the gray cardinal

The head of the Secretariat of the President of Ukraine, Viktor Baloga, was dismissed: on May 19, President Viktor Yushchenko issued a decree in which he relieved him of his post, thereby accepting his resignation letter, written back in April. The name of Baloga is associated with the aggravation of the conflict between the president and Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, under the sign of which the political life of Ukraine has developed recently. A Kommersant source reported that Baloga, unlike Yushchenko, was a supporter of early presidential and parliamentary elections and amendments to the Constitution. He believed that it was necessary not to strengthen the pro-presidential party “Our Ukraine”, but to launch new political projects, one of which he wanted to make his own party “United Center”. Baloga himself stated that the reason for his resignation was his categorical disagreement with Yushchenko’s decision to run for president for the second time. Interfax quotes his words addressed to Yushchenko: “I am convinced that you do not have the moral right to go to the presidential elections. At least in this I am not your comrade-in-arms.”