These people dont act like they are living under iron heel of fascism. NY Times, Feb. 24 2014 Ukrainian Protesters See Too Many Familiar Faces in Parliament After Revolution By ANDREW HIGGINS KIEV — As Ukraine’s parliament moved to fill a power vacuum left by the ouster of President Viktor F. Yanuovych, Irina Nikanchuk, a 25-year-old economist, stood outside the legislature building on Monday to give voice to a widespread feeling here: Throw the bums out. Waving a banner calling for early elections to a new Parliament, she cursed members of Parliament and opposition politicians like Yulia V. Tymoshenko who have so far become the principal beneficiaries of a revolution driven by passions on the street and bubbled with disgust at Ukraine’s entire political elite. Parliament has moved swiftly since Mr. Yanukovych’s flight on Saturday to restore a semblance of normal government, endorsing interim ministers and giving expanded powers to its new speaker, Oleksandr V. Turchynov, an ally of Ms. Tymoshenko, empowering him to carry out the duties of the president until a new presidential election is held in May. But the prospect of a new order dominated by established opposition parties, almost as discredited in the eyes of many Ukrainians as Mr. Yanukovych’s Party of Regions, has left a bitter feeling that what comes next could end up disappointing as much as the government that followed the 2004 Orange Revolution. Ukraine is being pulled in different directions: one toward Russia, the other toward Western Europe. “We need new people who can say no to the oligarchs, not just the old faces,” said Ms. Nikanchuk, referring to the wealthy billionaires who control blocks of votes in the Parliament but who, with a few exceptions, hedged their bets until the end about which side to support in a violent struggle that left more than 80 protesters dead between Mr. Yanukovych and his opponents. “Tymoshenko is just Putin in a skirt,” she added, comparing the former prime minister and, until Saturday, jailed opposition leader with the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin. As prime minister after the Orange Revolution, Ms. Tymoshenko engineered a gas deal with the Kremlin that helped Ukraine avoid a catastrophic energy shortage but left the country paying an exorbitant price for its gas supplies. Ms. Tymoshenko, who was jailed by Mr. Yanukovych after losing the 2010 presidential election, had been put forward as one of three candidates for the post of prime minister but she issued a statement on Sunday saying she had not been consulted about this and did not want to be considered for the position. Still, it left open the possibility that she would run for president. “The problem is that the old forces are trying to come back to take their old chairs,” said Vasily Kuak, a shipping broker who stood outside parliament waving a sign that read: “Revolution, Not a Court Coup!” In Kiev, at least, nobody is publicly challenging Ukraine’s revolution, although Russian-speaking regions in the east of the country are far from enthusiastic about a new order they fear could veer toward hard-line nationalist forces. One of the first acts of Parliament after the flight of Mr. Yanukovych, himself from eastern Ukraine, was to annul a law that provided for the use of Russian as a second official language. But even the Party of Regions, which is particularly strong in the east, has now thrown its lot in with the forces of change, denouncing the former president as it scrambles to keep itself relevant and avoid being punished for its former loyalties. All the same, the sight of luxury cars dropping off members of Parliament at the colonnaded legislature building, is now guarded by “self-defense” units that previously battled government forces, has stirred dismay and anger. “Again we see Mercedes and BMWs bringing deputies who are supposed to represent the people,” said Mr. Kuak, “We don’t want to see these people again. We want to see people from the square, from the revolution.” But as with any revolution, the question of who should represent the turbulent forces that created it is a difficult one. The revered heroes of Ukraine’s revolution are squads of helmeted young men with clubs who risked their lives to hold back government forces as they tried early last week to seize Independence Square, known as Maidan. The center of Kiev is now scattered with shrines to those who died, each one piled with flowers left by grateful residents. “We need people from Maidan, not people like you,” screamed an angry woman as Volodymyr Lytvyn, a former speaker of the Parliament known for shifting with the wind, left the legislature building. As he tried to answer questions from the crowd, protected by two bodyguards and a solid wrought iron fence, a cry went up clamoring for “lustration of everybody,” a term usually associated with the purge of officials and politicians suspected of serving Communist regimes before the revolutions of 1989 across Eastern and Central Europe. Peppered with angry demands that the Parliament raise pensions, reopen closed hospitals and find work for the jobless, Mr. Lytvyn struggled to respond but basically called for patience, a virtue that is likely to be in short supply if the interim government does not manage to convince people it is working to improve their lives, not line its own pockets. Mr. Turchynov, the speaker and effectively Ukraine’s new president until elections, gets credit for swiftly shepherding a raft of legislation through Parliament to establish the legal basis for a post-Yanukovych order. But few see him as representing the revolution. “He knows parliamentary routines but he does not have the support of the people,” said Nikita Kornavalov, a teacher, 29, who left a job in Norway to support what he hopes will be a new era free of the corruption and brutality that have marred the country since its independence in 1991. But even those who want a decisive break with a political class seen as corrupt and self-serving acknowledge that the heroes of the street might not make the best rulers. One of the most prominent leaders of the street forces is Dymtro Yarosh, the head of Right Sector, a coalition of previously fringe nationalist groups. But his elevation to government would terrify many Russian-speaking Ukrainians in the east and accelerate the risk of a dangerous break-up. “Yarosh would be good in the state security service or the police, but not as a minister,” said Ms. Nikanchuk, the economist.
Posted on: Wed, 19 Mar 2014 22:44:05 +0000
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