Posted on 02/18/2005 1:22:18 PM PST by jb6
KIEV, Feb 18 (AFP) - Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko slapped down a threat by his fiery prime minister to review the privatization of 3,000 firms, insisting in an interview with AFP that only a "few dozen" companies are affected.
In what analysts warned showed a troubling split within the ex-Soviet republic's new Western-leaning government, Yushchenko flatly contradicted Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.
"There will not be a review of 3,000 privatizations. I go by the principle that -- in all likelihood -- there will only be a few dozen companies concerned and the list, once established, will be definitive," he said.
Earlier this week, Tymoshenko unnerved investors who have sunk billions into Ukraine by announcing that the government planned to review past privatizations of 3,000 enterprises, just a day after the president had said that just 30 to 40 firms were concerned.
In the first concrete move, a tribunal in Kiev on Thursday ruled that last year's privatization of the country's largest steel enterprise, Krivorizhstal, was illegal. Cancellation of Krivorizhstal's privatization would mark the first in a list of "strategic" enterprises that the new authorities in Ukraine claim were sold off fraudulently under the regime of the former president, Leonid Kuchma.
A consortium created by Viktor Pinchuk, Kuchma's son-in-law, and Rinat Akhmetov, Ukraine's wealthiest person, bought a 93 percent stake in the Krivorizhstal plant last June for 800 million dollars.
This was several hundred million dollars less than what was offered by foreign companies, which cried foul after the sale.
Yushchenko has said the government plans to auction off Krivorizhstal for "two to three" times the price paid last year.
Next in line will be the major Ukrrudprom iron ore producer -- partly controlled by Pinchuk-linked interests -- Deputy Prime Minister Anatoly Kinakh was quoted as saying by the RIA Novosti news agency Friday.
Yushchenko stressed that Ukraine would set about reviewing crooked privatizations "in a very different way" to Russia -- an apparent reference to the state takeover of the Yukos oil giant's main asset in a politically-driven campaign.
"The privatizations from 1992-93 up until today took place arbitrarily. The main thing that the business community wants to hear from the new government is that the government will protect it according to the law," he said. Confirming that privatization of major concerns in the strategic metallurgy and coal sectors would be targeted, the president said the review would concern "above all enterprises of national importance."
Analysts, however, expressed disquiet at the different messages coming from the government's top two figures, which they said was bad for the country's image with foreign investors.
"As long as there is such a huge discrepancy between the number of reprivatizations announced by Yushchenko and Tymshenko, it's a bad sign," said Olexander Litvinienko from the Razumkov centre of political and economic studies.
Another political expert, Vadim Karasyov, criticized the prime minister for populism.
"The president is speaking like a politician who understands the risk of scaring off investors. Tymoshenko is still behaving like a revolutionary and is playing the populist card," he said.
She'll be gone within 2 years.
Either she'll be gone or he'll be dead and she'll be in charge. Watch. This woman is ruthless and her backup is UNA-UNSO, the Ukrainian Nazi party.
bump
They will keep butting heads I presume starte gently but eventually the goat with the stronger forehead will win. My belief honestly is that she will break his head. However I m usually wrong in political analysis.
The logical inclination though is all of those 30 or 40 will be the south-eastern oligarchs although if I m wrong and he does both south-east and north-west it would be surprising.
The outcome of her winning the power struggle would be insanely interesting. It would definetely either create a very united nationalistic state or split in two or more. Ofcourse I m hoping for the later. There is an agricultural rift in Europe right now in shutting out the Ukranian and Russian grain exports into Eu by creating quotas on those countries wheat its proposed by Poland-France.
http://www.world-grain.com/newsfinder.asp?Action=UserDisplayFullDocument&orgId=586&docId=l:258459571&topicId=14429&start=2&topics=single
thats the link for the proposal...
The united nationalistic state would be minus Moscowites, Jews and half-breeds, in other words, the eastern and southern Ukraine.
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