2006

COALITIONS & ALLIANCES

Just 5 political forces entered new parliament - the Party of Regions (POR), Bloc of Yulia Tymoshenko (BYUT), Bloc of "Our Ukraine" (or NU), the Socialist and Communist Parties (SPU and CPU). Few parliamentary players together with entering by some non-parliamentary forces local councils means significant restructuring of Ukrainian political landscape for the next five years. The core issue today is creation of majority coalition in parliament. "Our Ukraine" tries to postpone as long as it can the process of distribution of official posts, when issue of prime minister position for Yulia Tymoshenko will become main topic of agenda. Indeed, many in NU leadership feel comfortable with demolition of the "orange" coalition by not approval of Yulia Tymoshenko as prime minister. In this case parliamentary alliance between NU and the Party of Regions becomes real. Investors of POR do not want to stay in the opposition and are ready to collaborate with "Our Ukraine", de facto leaving along claims for prime minister and some other leading posts. Meanwhile the president tries to neutralise consequences of the constitutional reform and get back some his former authorities. As for now, during period of political instability, the president still remains real centre of the power. Besides winning parties and blocs, large business groups become more influential players in Ukrainian politics. The most winning business group is SCM of Rinat Akhmetov, key investor to POR. Other Donetsk-based groups as well as non-Donetsk but supporting POR groups also improved or remain formerly good their positions in parliament and local councils. Groups which financed BYUT (Finance & Credit, Zaporizhstal, UkrAuto etc.) also did successfully. Losers are those business groups which staked on "technological" political projects (Interpipe, Industrial Union of Donbass). In addition to large business groups, other large business entered parliament as well. Together, even being represented in all factions, they will become connecting-links for achievement necessary results in parliamentary voting by different factions. Yet another important factor of new political realty is changes in the regional power. Nowadays Yushchenko's backed "Our Ukraine" lost its status of a political force, which tired to become the "party of the power" for most of Ukraine. At the same time, local councils remain reliable mechanism of resistance to governors appointed by the president and other heads of state local administrations. According to Constitution, regional council have right to vote no confidence to any governor sent from Kyiv with two thirds of deputies - and regions where the Party of Regions got strong majority have already declared such actions. Whatsoever, in most of cases local majority coalitions will be set up independently from the central power in Kyiv, being established solely by compromises of local business elites.