The puffed face of President Petro Poroshenko doesn’t hide much. The chocolate baron, who became leader of the former Soviet Republic after the Maidan Revolution threw out a Kremlin-supported president, gritted his teeth when he met Russian President Vladimir Putin. It was like a handshake between two warlords who face each other and hold back their aggression in hope of an apparent adjustment that would keep their tribes safe.
Poroshenko has been ruling over a nation torn asunder not only by the ravages of an insurgency propelled by Russia, but is also trying to reconcile the demands of a coalition government with the urgent needs of a floundering governance structure affecting the life of citizens.
Ukrainian oligarchs, like their Russian counterparts, haven’t spared a thought about reining in their nefarious activities as the country struggled to come to terms with a newfound identity in the aftermath of the revolution. The scourge led Poroshenko to appoint former Georgian president Mikheil Saakshvili as the governor of a province for his record of erasing corruption in his country that was also part of the Soviet Union.
Trouble started when Saakshvili accused a minister of wrongdoing to which he took offence. The upheaval playing out in Ukraine took a turn for the worse when Poroshenko sacked his defence minister. This led to a chain of events that exacerbated the political crisis in the country that has become another case of brinkmanship between Washington and Moscow. Poroshenko threw a bombshell in the fragile political arena by asking Prime Minister Viktor Yatsenyuk to resign.
Then came in Yulia Tymoshenko, a former prime minister who has been maintaining a low profile after the fall of the previous regime. Her party Batkivshchnya (Fatherland) withdrew support from Yatsenyuk’s government. The resilient prime minister however stood his ground and won the confidence after a fiery speech in parliament. Tymoshenko, who was jailed by the government that was thrown out by the Maidan Revolution, has urged other parties to pull support and bring down the government. What prompted Poroshenko’s hand at asking Yatsenyuk to go is unclear.
However, it is anybody’s guess that political maneuverings in Ukraine have laid bare a polity that needs consolidation. The West has played its role in Ukraine to some extent to buffer Russian influence on its closer ally Poland. Revolutions in Ukraine have brought about major shifts — the Orange revolution led by Tymoshenko in 2004 was one. The Maidan Revolution threw out a pro-Russia political class that had the country in its grip. Poroshenko’s attempt to remove Yatsenyuk from the government is unlikely to do the country a favour. It would have been wiser of him to reconcile political differences instead of upsetting the existing system. Political stability in spite of internal cross currents is needed as a bulwark against Russia’s bid to destabilise Ukraine.
The puffed face of President Petro Poroshenko doesn’t hide much. The chocolate baron, who became leader of the former Soviet Republic after the Maidan Revolution threw out a Kremlin-supported president, gritted his teeth when he met Russian President Vladimir Putin. It was like a handshake between two warlords who face each other and hold back their aggression in hope of an apparent adjustment that would keep their tribes safe.
Poroshenko has been ruling over a nation torn asunder not only by the ravages of an insurgency propelled by Russia, but is also trying to reconcile the demands of a coalition government with the urgent needs of a floundering governance structure affecting the life of citizens.
Ukrainian oligarchs, like their Russian counterparts, haven’t spared a thought about reining in their nefarious activities as the country struggled to come to terms with a newfound identity in the aftermath of the revolution. The scourge led Poroshenko to appoint former Georgian president Mikheil Saakshvili as the governor of a province for his record of erasing corruption in his country that was also part of the Soviet Union.
Trouble started when Saakshvili accused a minister of wrongdoing to which he took offence. The upheaval playing out in Ukraine took a turn for the worse when Poroshenko sacked his defence minister. This led to a chain of events that exacerbated the political crisis in the country that has become another case of brinkmanship between Washington and Moscow. Poroshenko threw a bombshell in the fragile political arena by asking Prime Minister Viktor Yatsenyuk to resign.
Then came in Yulia Tymoshenko, a former prime minister who has been maintaining a low profile after the fall of the previous regime. Her party Batkivshchnya (Fatherland) withdrew support from Yatsenyuk’s government. The resilient prime minister however stood his ground and won the confidence after a fiery speech in parliament. Tymoshenko, who was jailed by the government that was thrown out by the Maidan Revolution, has urged other parties to pull support and bring down the government. What prompted Poroshenko’s hand at asking Yatsenyuk to go is unclear.
However, it is anybody’s guess that political maneuverings in Ukraine have laid bare a polity that needs consolidation. The West has played its role in Ukraine to some extent to buffer Russian influence on its closer ally Poland. Revolutions in Ukraine have brought about major shifts — the Orange revolution led by Tymoshenko in 2004 was one. The Maidan Revolution threw out a pro-Russia political class that had the country in its grip. Poroshenko’s attempt to remove Yatsenyuk from the government is unlikely to do the country a favour. It would have been wiser of him to reconcile political differences instead of upsetting the existing system. Political stability in spite of internal cross currents is needed as a bulwark against Russia’s bid to destabilise Ukraine.
