Translated material
Along Kovpak's path
The Minister of Transport of Ukraine expects a disaster from the President
In Kiev, the battle continues between Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych and President Viktor Yushchenko, who lead opposing political camps in early parliamentary elections on September 30. The impetus for a new escalation of the conflict was the recommendation of the National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) to the government to remove two ministers - the head of the Ministry of Transport Nikolai Rudkovsky and the head of the Ministry of Emergency Situations Nestor Shufrich, who is number five on the election list of the Party of Regions. This step was the president’s revenge for Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych’s refusal to block the September 4 opening of the session of the Rada of the fifth convocation, which was dissolved by presidential decree.The Party of Regions yesterday interpreted the decision of the National Security and Defense Council as the beginning of political repression. The prime minister refused to implement it, saying that he was not even notified that the issue of dismissing ministers was included in the agenda. The “political games” started 20 days before the early parliamentary elections reminded Yanukovych of the “old Soviet times.” Alexander Moroz, speaker of the Rada of the fifth convocation, which the president dissolved by decree, called the decision of the National Security and Defense Council “not just a usurpation of power, but tyranny,” recalling that, according to the constitution, only the Rada can dismiss ministers. However, yesterday, Deputy Head of the Presidential Secretariat Igor Pukshin explained that the National Security and Defense Council’s demand to remove ministers from their duties is enough for them to lose their legal legitimacy.
The dismissed ministers are not going to leave their chairs until a new government is elected. The head of the Ministry of Emergency Situations Nestor Shufrich called the meeting of the National Security and Defense Council a “circus” with “trained animals.” Shufrich considers his resignation to be “settling personal and political scores.” Not only is he not going to resign, but he is confident that he will take the same post in the next government. Transport Minister Rudkovsky regarded his dismissal as “the president’s steps toward a creeping usurpation of power.” He said that in order to discredit the government, the presidential secretariat is “developing a scenario” to organize “another disaster with hundreds of victims.” The Ukrainian Security Service yesterday appealed to the Minister of Transport demanding that he provide information about the terrorist attack, threatening seven years in prison in case of libel.
Yushchenko himself, at a meeting of the National Security and Defense Council on Tuesday, accused both ministers of unprofessionalism and failure of work. “There is simply no Minister for Emergency Situations. There is a showman who can communicate well with a group of court journalists,” the president said. As for the head of the Ministry of Transport, the report on his work is “a summary of the information bureau from the fronts,” Yushchenko explained. “Kovpak in his time did not send as many trains into derailment as this minister does,” the president said.
Mentions of Rudkovsky’s department have not left the newspaper pages in the last one and a half to two months due to a record number of transport accidents. After the explosion of three tanks with white phosphorus near Ozhidov on July 15, the Ministry of Emergency Situations persistently assured citizens that the disaster was not dangerous to health, although in reality this was far from the case. “The decision of the National Security and Defense Council is not legal, but purely pre-election political in nature,” said Vladimir Fesenko, head of the Ukrainian Penta Institute, in a commentary to Vremya Novostey. “It is important for Yushchenko to create a precedent when every government refusal to implement his decrees ends in personnel decisions.”
Yesterday in the afternoon a retaliatory strike came from the Yanukovych camp. The head of the election headquarters of the Party of Regions, Boris Kolesnikov, said that his party is beginning preparations for an all-Ukrainian referendum. It will include questions about the state status of the Russian language, the non-bloc status of Ukraine, as well as the direct election of heads of regional and district administrations.
The Party of Regions wants to “inject new impetus into the stagnant election campaign by mobilizing undecided voters in Russian-speaking regions, as well as neutralize the initiatives of Tymoshenko and Yushchenko to hold a constitutional referendum,” Mr. Fesenko said. According to our interlocutor, the Party of Regions fears “changes in the political system of governing the country outside the Rada, where it has a strong position.” Therefore, the party proposes to put its three questions on the ballot in order to “neutralize” the constitutional referendum.