Ukraine puts off vote on new government despite E.U. pleas for quick action
In Ukraine, objections from Maidan slow naming of new cabinet
(about 9 hours later)
KIEV, Ukraine — Ukraine’s interim authorities balked at forming a new government Tuesday as horse-trading among parties in parliament continued, despite pleas from the European Union to quickly pave the way for an emergency aid package.
KIEV, Ukraine — The interim leaders of Ukraine stepped on the brakes Tuesday as they faced resistance from street protesters and some members of parliament, who objected that they were moving too fast in forming a new cabinet just three days after the old regime collapsed.
Activists on the Maidan, the protest epicenter formally known as Independence Square, expressed dissatisfaction with the roster of familiar faces that the parliament has been considering for top posts following the ouster of President Viktor Yanukovych over the weekend.
New ministers for every department were supposed to be in place by the end of the day. But strenuous protests from the Maidan – the city’s main square that is still thickly populated with demonstrators – about a lack of input forced the leaders of parliament to wait at least until Thursday, despite European worries that Ukraine needs to move quickly to get its financial house in order.
“We need totally new people,” said Yaroslav Kazmyrchuk, 70, who described himself as a pensioner and a revolutionary. He said the protest on the Maidan — where a large crowd gathered Tuesday morning — would continue until it was clear that all the “bandits” would be removed from power.
And members of the parliament, or Verkhovna Rada, complained that the speaker, Oleksandr Turchynov, was pushing bills through with little regard for debate or transparency – much as his predecessor had railroaded a package of harshly repressive laws through the parliament in January, in an act that set off violent clashes between aggressive hardline protesters and police.
There was still no word Tuesday on the whereabouts of Yanukovych, a day after the authorities here announced a nationwide manhunt for him on charges of “mass murder of peaceful civilians.” Yanukovych was dismissed by parliament in the wake of clashes in which security forces opened fire on protesters, leaving dozens of people dead and hundreds wounded.
But the slowdown also comes as Ukraine remains deeply unsettled by the overthrow of President Viktor Yanukovych. In Kharkiv, a large eastern city where hostility to the Maidan was strong, tensions ran high as rival crowds faced off, with no one seemingly in charge. In the Crimea, with a strong pro-Russian population, a Russian flag was raised on a major government building and four Russian legislators met with local officials.
A Maidan council has been established by a group of prominent activists to consult on ministerial choices. According to a statement it posted, “We will check each candidate to be proposed by the new parliamentary majority” to be sure that no one who is rich, or who worked for Yanukovych, or was involved in human rights abuses, is selected.
Officials in Moscow continued Tuesday to express displeasure with events in Ukraine, if not as harshly as the day before. One bill that flew through the Rada on Monday downgraded the status of Russian as an official language, which struck critics as an unnecessary and incendiary move, and which opened Ukraine’s new authorities to stinging criticism from their larger neighbor.
“Each member of the new government must secure the Maidan’s approval,” the statement said.
Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, tweeted Tuesday, “We want to curtail the influence of radicals and nationalists who are trying to play first fiddle in Ukraine.”
But while the parliament, under pressure, was putting off until Thursday a vote on a new government, Catherine Ashton, the European Union’s top foreign policy official, was in Kiev meeting with the interim leaders and asking for a plan. She said Ukraine needs to move fast to put an economic reform proposal together in order to prepare the way for emergency financial aid.
The turn of events in Ukraine has been a major setback for Russian President Vladimir Putin, who wants to draw Ukraine into a new Eurasian Economic Union. But protesters on the Maidan worry that Russia still hopes to recoup its losses.
Ukraine’s economy is in dreadful shape, and the new authorities say they have found the government’s coffers almost bare.
“There are an awful lot of bandits here,” said Viktoria Ignatova, “and Putin wants to get them back into power.”
Russia promised Yanukovych a $15 billion bailout in the fall, but that has now been suspended. Russian leaders have made clear their distrust and dislike of Ukraine’s new interim authorities.
Moscow argues that the Ukrainian protests have been taken over by extremists. But on the Maidan, there were strong fears that the revolution was being sold out.
Mikhail Margelov, head of the international affairs committee for the upper house of Russia’s parliament, compared Ukrainian events Tuesday to the “Arab Spring,” the Interfax news agency reported. He said he feared that an uprising launched by romantics, for understandable reasons, was being taken over by extremists.
Activists were unhappy with the roster of veteran politicians being mentioned for top posts in a new government. And one very familiar face was missing Tuesday – the giant poster with a portrait of Yulia Tymoshenko, the former prime minister and arch-foe of Yanukovych, had been taken down.
Russia on Monday questioned the legitimacy of Ukraine’s interim leadership, charging that it used a peace deal brokered by Europe to make a power grab and to suppress dissent in Russian-speaking regions through “terrorist methods.”
Her release from prison Saturday had turned her into a player again instead of a cause, and she is no longer a uniting factor among what until a few days ago was the opposition. Her party, in any case, said she will go to Germany for medical treatment.
The tone was much harsher than any previous Russian response to the events of the past few days. “If you consider Kalashnikov-toting people in black masks who are roaming Kiev to be a government, then it will be hard for us to work with that government,” Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said Monday.
“We need totally new people,” said Yaroslav Kazmyrchuk, 70, who described himself as a pensioner and a revolutionary.
Ukrainian lawmakers, now largely foes of Yanukovych, were defiant. Asked about Russia’s displeasure, parliament member Yuriy Derevyanko said: “They can take it or leave it. It’s not their business.”
A Maidan council has been established by a group of prominent activists to consult on ministerial choices. It wants to veto any candidate who is rich, who worked for Yanukovych or who was involved in human rights abuses.
The search for Yanukovych was backed up by warrants authorizing the arrest of the ousted leader and 50 members of his government for their roles in the deaths of 88 Ukrainians killed by riot police and in street clashes over the past week, said Arsen Avakov, the interim interior minister.
The Maidan had a full crowd Tuesday as Kievans laid flowers at shrines to the dead built from stacked paving stones, and snapped photos of the barricades of rubble that had held back the police. Kazmyrchuk said the camp protest there would continue until it was clear that all the “bandits” would be removed from power.
Ukrainian officials said Yanukovych has used helicopters and ground vehicles to travel from his palatial estate outside Kiev to Kharkiv in the east, and then on to an airport in Donetsk, where border guards stopped two chartered jets from leaving the country. Some suspect that he may have moved on to Ukraine’s Crimea region, which has a strong Russian-speaking majority.
There was still no conclusive word Tuesday on the whereabouts of Yanukovych, a day after the authorities here announced a nationwide manhunt for him on murder charges.
Ukraine’s parliament was trying to form a caretaker government and appoint a new prime minister. The move is crucial to help the country continue to meet its financial obligations and, most important, to borrow money.
But a top aide, Andriy Kluyev, who was thought to have been with Yanukovych, was reported by his press secretary to have been shot and wounded – where and when were not clear.
The legislative body has called for a presidential election May 25, and it declared Monday that candidates can announce themselves and begin their campaigns Tuesday.
While the Rada was putting off a vote on a new government, Catherine Ashton, the European Union’s top foreign policy official, met with the interim leaders and asked for a financial reform plan, which would open the way to E.U. loans.
Visitors to Yanukovych’s presidential Web site were greeted with an “error” message. Journalists poring over documents left behind at Yanukovych’s mansion found lists of expenses, including one citing a $2.3 million bill for the decoration of a dining hall and tea room.
Ukraine’s economy is in dire shape, and the new authorities said they have found the government’s coffers almost bare.
The E.U.’s Ashton arrived in Kiev on Monday, and U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew held a phone conversation with Arseniy Yatsenyuk, a leader of the protests. But Medvedev, the Russian premier, heaped scorn on the West for what he called its “aberration of consciousness” for endorsing the toppling of Yanukovych’s democratically elected government.
In Kharkiv, where nationalists seized the local government building over the weekend, an opposing crowd had gathered around a huge statue of Lenin across the main square to protect it from assault.
At the same time, Russia’s Foreign Ministry spoke out in defense of members of Ukraine’s Russian-speaking minority, who live primarily in the eastern and southern parts of the country.
The nationalists wear the red arm bands of the right-wing Pravy Sektor movement that was the militant backbone of the Maidan protests. Those defending the Lenin statue flew the black and orange Saint George flag commemorating the victory over Nazi Germany in World War II.
A statement on the ministry’s Web site warned of attempts to “nearly ban” the Russian language, purge Yanukovych loyalists from the ranks of government, stifle the press and permit neo-Nazi propaganda. It accused Ukraine’s new leaders of launching a “dictatorial, and sometimes even terrorist,” campaign against Russian speakers.
Neither Mikhail Dobkin, the governor of Kharkov region, who said he would run in the presidential election in May, nor his deputy, Valentin Dulub, has been seen since the weekend.
Similarly hostile rhetoric was voiced by Mikhail Dobkin, governor of the eastern region around Kharkiv, where many Ukrainians speak Russian as their first language. He denounced the “fascism” of the new authorities in Kiev.
Yet local government employees continue to show up for work, picking their way through the motley crowds roaming the ground floor of the building on their way to their offices.
At the same time, Dobkin announced that he would run for president in the May election — a sign that, however dismayed, he is prepared to play by the new rules and enter the electoral fray.
All over Ukraine, in fact, the wheels kept turning. The Daily Bulletin of the Council of Ministers was published as usual Tuesday, even if there aren’t any government ministers at the moment. It contained a few nods to the crisis but also announced the construction of 743 locomotives last month, a new transport agreement with Turkey, a plan to build a bridge across the Dnieper River next year, and a 5.3 percent increase in natural gas extraction.
The Ukrainian parliament passed a law Monday downgrading the status of Russian as an official second language, and there were calls for the ouster of Yanukovych’s allies, but Russia did not provide evidence to support its other charges.
There’s a vast bureaucracy in Ukraine, and it would take more than the overthrow of a president to bring it to a halt.
The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said Russia has nothing to worry about. Threats to Russian citizens “are ungrounded because the situation is stable and under control,” the ministry’s press secretary, Yevhen Perebiynis, told the news agency Interfax.
Isabel Gorst contributed from Kharkiv.
Russia has recalled its ambassador to Ukraine. On Monday, its sanitary service — notorious for discovering health problems with imports from countries that Russia is having a spat with — announced that it was prepared to ban foodstuffs from Ukraine on the grounds that the turmoil here could have led to lapsed standards.
The Russian denunciations have stoked fears that Moscow is encouraging a breakup of Ukraine, but such a drastic move seems distant.
Tetiana Maliarenko, a professor at Donetsk State University of Management, in Yanukovych’s industrial home town in eastern Ukraine, called threats of a split, or a division into separate federated republics, an attempt to blackmail Ukraine’s new leaders and said such a partition was not a serious possibility.
“I am confident it will not split in the near future,” she said. “There is public support for separatism, here and in the Crimea, and separatism was always on the table, but at the same time there is no project for a future independent state and no strong leaders to do this. There is a Russian-led movement, but there is no one who can do it.”
