It is naive to think that the "third Donetsk wave" on the Pechersk Hills will be limited to the results of Friday's vote.
It is also unlikely that Viktor Yushchenko will succeed in establishing an effective system of checks and balances and stopping the full-scale entry of the Party of Regions & Co into power. Whatever is said and however the current composition of the Cabinet of Ministers is analyzed, one thing is obvious – Viktor Yanukovych has outplayed the President in terms of personnel composition. And this means that he will be able to use his "secret weapon" and tactical skills in negotiations more than once.
Today Viktor Yushchenko gave the go-ahead for the second wave of redistribution of the system of power: he appointed the Odesa and Kirovohrad governors. By and large, in the appointment of the "nomenklatura" Ivan Plachkov, who traditionally has an interest in Odesa, or the deputy head of the local state administration Vadym Chernysh, there is nothing incomprehensible. After the socialists, the Odesa region had to be occupied by a representative of the People's Union Our Ukraine, and Plachkov looks ideal for this. In the Kirovohrad region, less interesting in terms of economic indicators, the President continued the tactic of appointing deputies after their bosses left for big politics. Previously, Viktor Yushchenko used a similar method in the Zhytomyr and Dnipropetrovsk regions.
That is, formally the President did not change tactics. It is just that the objective circumstances have changed. And they have changed significantly. He is trying to fight by building a system of influence, including regional influence, through his people. But it seems that in October, based on the results of the improvised quarter, disappointment awaits him.
One cannot use the tactics of a systematic dancer against a steamroller, which, beyond any doubt, is Viktor Yanukovych. Because when Viktor Fedorovych gains weight and momentum, the carefully built system will be crushed. Together with its author, who will be left with only the Secretariat. Even Leonid Kuchma failed to play by these rules, let alone the as-yet-inexperienced-in-the-corridors Viktor Yushchenko.
Beyond any doubt, after looking around a bit and "buying" a couple of "Our Ukraine" ministers and governors, as already happened during the corridor war between the Donetsk people and the Social Democrats, Viktor Yanukovych will turn his attention to the rest. Governors will be the first to suffer. Of course, one can object that appointment to the post of head of a state administration is the President's prerogative. But one can recall how Viktor Yushchenko lost on Friday evening. So there is hardly any point in having any illusions about this.
Moreover, the Prime Minister will have an ironclad pretext: the harvest and debts. Despite the cheerful reports of the already ex-Minister of the Agro-Industrial Complex, not in all regions are the prospects for a good harvest as rosy as Oleksandr Baranivsky painted them, counting peas, corn and wheat together in bunker weight. Add to this the change in the methodology for calculating grain quality, from which there is theoretically more food wheat, while in practice the status quo has been preserved, and in some places even less. And, of course, the high level of damage to food grain by pests, because of which it loses its class. That is, formally based on the results of the "battle for the harvest," but in practice – based on political calculation, heads may roll in some regions. In this regard, the Poltava and Dnipropetrovsk regions are a zone of particular risk.
The second pretext is debts. Beyond any doubt, they will exist both in the housing and utilities sector and in wages, etc. These are objective circumstances, as results of the actions of previous governments, and nothing can be done about it. But despite this, first of all, this is a pretext for personnel purges. So it is quite likely that in October there will be fewer presidential representatives in the regions, the Party of Regions will get people close to it, and Viktor Yushchenko will only have to theatrically spread his hands out of habit.
The same applies to posts in the central government. Already now Roman Zvarych is stating that he may not work as Minister of Justice. This is understandable, because he is supposed to act as a "blocker" of the government's ideas. Which means that soon he will either have to "surrender" the guarantor or leave. The same is probably felt by the head of the State Tax Administration Oleksandr Kireyev, to whom Mykola Azarov as First Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Finance could not have appeared even in a bad dream. The replacement of the head of the SBU and the Prosecutor General is also only a matter of time.
In general, the flywheel of a full-scale redrawing of the power system has been launched, and Viktor Yushchenko's timid attempts to remain master of the situation look unconvincing. October will mark the second tide of the "third wave" of the Party of Regions into power, and today this seems practically inevitable.
