New candidates are way forward, says Ukraine strongman

UKRAINE’S opposition leader, Viktor Yushchenko, must choose between becoming President of a divided and bankrupt nation or severing links with radical allies and sharing power with a compromise figure, according to one of the country’s most powerful men. Viktor Pinchuk, son-in-law of Leonid Kuchma, the outgoing President, told The Times that a new presidential election, with some new candidates, was the only way out of the crisis.

“If he is a patriot, he has to understand the real situation: we must find a compromise,” Mr Pinchuk, a billionaire and member of the Ukrainian parliament, said. “The best way is for the country to have new elections as fast as possible. I think Yushchenko has a good chance to win, but we’ll probably see some new candidates.”

As he spoke, President Kuchma held talks in Moscow with President Putin, who backed Mr Yushchenko’s opponent, Viktor Yanukovych, the Prime Minister, and initially recognised his victory in an attempt to fend off Western encroachment on Moscow’s backyard.

In a hurried airport meeting, Mr Putin supported Mr Kuchma’s proposal to hold a new election in the next three months, rather than a quick repeat of the November 21 run-off between Mr Yushchenko and Mr Yanukovych.

But Mr Putin said: “A re-vote could be conducted a third, a fourth, a twenty-fifth time, until one side gets the results it needs. It would yield nothing.”

Mr Kuchma said that after a Supreme Court ruling on the election results — expected today — the constitution would be changed so that a government could be formed to organise the new poll. He said that he was willing to speed the electoral process if parliament agreed to reforms boosting the powers of the Prime Minister.

Mr Putin and Mr Kuchma want a completely new election so that they can replace the discredited Mr Yanukovych. The most likely candidate is Volodymyr Lytvyn, the parliament’s speaker. He met Mr Yushchenko yesterday and is expected to be appointed head of an interim government. On Wednesday, Mr Yanukovych’s Government lost a no-confidence vote in parliament.

If Mr Yushchenko refuses the compromise offer, he risks splitting the nation between the Ukrainian-speaking west and the Russian-speaking east. The heavily industrialised east and south, which account for two thirds of the nation’s GDP, could also refuse to pay taxes or cut off gas and coal supplies.

Mr Pinchuk said: “If we see this separatist tendency, some regions may stop payment to the budget — then how will the Government pay salaries?” If Mr Yushchenko accepts the offer, however, he risks losing the support of radical opposition allies and the hundreds of thousands of supporters he has gained over the past 11 days.

Mr Pinchuk said that he had walked through the protesters’ tent camp near Independence Square. “I have nothing against these people, but some of their leaders are very dangerous,” he said. “Some people don’t want compromise, because there would be no role for them in this process.”

In particular, Russia and President Kuchma want Mr Yushchenko to ditch his coalition partner, Yuliya Tymoshenko, who has been the driving force of the protests and is said to want to be Prime Minister.

Mr Kuchma sacked her as Deputy Prime Minister in 2000 and she was later accused of taking part in embezzling £1.17 billion while heading the energy company UES.

The campaign against Yulia Tymoshenko was initiated by Victor Pinchuk, Victor Medvedchuk, and Grygory Surkis. - LINK

George Soros helped Viktor Medvedchuk become a well-known lawyer and public figure. Ukrainian Bar Association headed by Medvedchuk received three grants from George Soros amounting to 87 thousand 677 dollars." - LINK

Soros, Pinchuk to create legal aid foundation in Ukraine

Kyiv, April 1 (Interfax - Ukraine) - Prominent American businessman George Soros and MP of Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada Viktor Pinchuk are planning to set up a joint fund rendering legal aid to citizens in Ukraine, Soros said at a solemn reception in Kyiv on Wednesday evening.
He said that this is practical and constructive result of his visit and thanked Pinchuk for agreement to become his partner in such fund creation.

Pinchuk (Kuchma's son in law), Soros and
Olena Franchuk (Kuchma's daughter)

Mr Yushchenko has pledged to review the controversial privatisation of Kryvorizhstal, Ukraine's biggest steel mill, which was sold to Mr Pinchuk and Mr Akhmetov earlier this year for $800m (€604m, £424m), far less than foreign bidders were prepared to offer. - LINK

An old, old article on George Soros's involvement in the Ukraine:

Connie Bruck The New Yorker 23-Jan-1995 George Soros buys Ukraine

(SNIP)

Ukraine's own Mother Theresa. Of course it is always a bit of mystery to see someone like George Soros behaving philanthropically, giving away vast sums of money merely to do good to others. To Ukraine, George Soros appears in the guise of a selfless Mother Theresa — and yet selflessness is such a rare trait that when it makes its appearance, some observers can only stand and stare at it in wonder, and sometimes even in disbelief.

Part time philanthropist, part time plunderer? How to avoid noticing that this particular philanthropist's career consists in getting rich by taking money away from others in a vast, international poker game, in which no goods or services trade hands, and in which the only goal is to pauperize all opponents by outwitting them? How does a poker player who thrives under the guidance of this motivation find room in his personality for selfless philanthropy? How can such a philanthropist manage to avoid viewing the very people that he is giving money to as sheep that he will be able to shear tomorrow just like the sheep that he sheared yesterday? Had it been the case that subsequent to George Soros's intervention in Ukraine, the nation had prospered, then we would be obligated to consider thanking him. But as, instead, Ukraine has instead been plundered, what thanks are owed George Soros?

(SNIP)

Any harm in George Soros? Is there evidence that George Soros works to injure Ukraine? The Ukrainian Archive lacks the resources to systematically gather such evidence. This is a job for the Ukrainian press, which, however, Leonid Kuchma has made giant strides toward intimidating and suppressing what he has been unable to buy up. Not likely, therefore, that the Ukrainian press will ever discover that Leonid Kuchma first strode upon the world stage as a George Soros flunkey. Curious that George "Mother Theresa" Soros is unable to prevail upon his protégé, Leonid Kuchma, to allow a free press — one might have imagined that in his selfless efforts to modernize Ukraine, a free press would have been among Soros's most urgent goals. But instead, despite all of George Soros's efforts, somehow Ukraine has ended up with the press of a police state, in which journalists are sued, harassed, beaten, and assassinated. Despite such daunting obstacles to arriving at a clear view of what is happening, suggestive clues that George Soros works to injure Ukraine do emerge.

Don't invest in terminal cases. For example, George Soros does invest in Russia, but does not invest in Ukraine — a discrepancy whose explanation might be that Soros is aware that the plan for Ukraine, but not for Russia, is economic collapse. If anyone can think of any other explanation for the combination of George Soros holding particular sway over Ukraine, and yet for George Soros designating Ukraine as the only country that is nurtured by his philanthropy and yet that he refuses to invest in, I would like to hear what that alternative explanation is. As investment may be considered to be one of the most efficient forms of philanthropy, we are faced here with a major incongruity.

Stealing Ukrainian brains for Russia? For another example, Net-Moscow Times-14Oct97 reports that George Soros donated $100 million to promote Internet access in Russian universities, but mentions no corresponding figure for Ukraine. If the figure for Ukraine is zero, or disproportionately less than for Russia, then the effect will be to draw Ukrainian brains to Russia, than which there could be no more devastating injury to Ukraine.

Saving a country by giving travel grants to its scientists. On top of that, evidence bearing on the possibility of a long-standing Soros policy to drain Ukraine of its brains may be found in the UKAR discussion — What's George Soros up to? — that travel grants may have as their chief goal the emigration or Ukrainian brains out of Ukraine.

He who pays the piper calls the tune. Another thought that the following quotations are capable of eliciting in some restless minds. That one way of guessing the likelihood that an individual will work toward the success of the Ukrainian State is to count the number of internal y's in his surname, or to see if it has some such ending as iuk or iak or yshyn or enko. Quite a different way, which does not always give the same answer as the first way, is to notice whose payroll he is on.

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