Have Yushchenko's bees flown to Tymoshenko?

The next congress, scheduled for December, is to determine the party leader. For now, Viktor Pynzenyk remains in that position. But it is not excluded that in a few months he will be replaced by, say, Mykola Tomenko.

As is known, during the September divorce of Yushchenko and Tymoshenko, the PRP members took the side of the latter. And Mykola Tomenko was generally one of the mouthpieces of accusations of corruption against the president's entourage. In turn, the field commanders of the Orange Revolution, Taras Stetskiv and Volodymyr Filenko, even called for gathering the Maidan again to remind the authorities of its values.

However, closer to the vote on the candidacy of the new prime minister, Yuriy Yekhanurov, a split occurred in the PRP into radicals and moderates. The former were categorically against the new prime minister, the latter suggested thinking about Ukraine and separating the economy from elections. The situation was complicated by the fact that party leader Viktor Pynzenyk decided to stay working in the government.

On the eve of the appointment, Mykola Tomenko posed a blunt question to the party leader: either a post in the government or the post of party chairman. Pynzenyk stayed silent for a few days, and then issued a statement in which he said he was staying in the government and asked fellow party members not to cast stones.

The response was not long in coming – one of the heads of the party's regional organization reported that the PRP was convening an extraordinary congress at which it would consider the issue of the party leadership.

However, the blitzkrieg failed. The party council did not have enough votes to replace Pynzenyk, although many wanted to see Tomenko in his place. The congress had to address the issue of assessing the political situation and electing the leadership of the election headquarters.

On Saturday, a little more than 100 congress delegates gathered at the "Kyiv" hotel. Each organization was represented by 2-3 delegates. They say it was convened hastily, and in the party secretariat they learned about the congress altogether from journalists.

The presidium members looked tense. Pynzenyk sat with his arms crossed over his chest, Volodymyr Filenko, clasping his fingers at mouth level, studied the table, and Tomenko wrote something constantly for all four hours of the congress.

In his opening speech, Pynzenyk recalled that the PRP had been the backbone of Viktor Yushchenko's election campaign both locally and in the headquarters itself. That it was they who oversaw the main strategic directions of the campaign, prepared people, and persuaded them to draw broad masses into the campaign so that Yushchenko would become a truly people's president.

With this, the PRP chairman explained why in the summer of 2004 their party decided to take the name "Our Ukraine," which then caused considerable indignation among other associates of Yushchenko, and in 2005 – also disputes with the Ministry of Justice.

But now the party has decided to return to the old name PRP after all.

Then Pynzenyk outlined the reasons for the breakup of the president's team: "The new team was able to work effectively for only a short time. Then the diseases of the old system began to manifest. Some politicians misunderstood the Maidan's guidelines. They came to believe that people came out to the Maidan to support exclusively them. They perceived coming to power as an indulgence for any other actions."

"The change of power was not accompanied by changes in the system of power, a clear delineation of individual power structures. Some team members, instead of carrying out rapid reforms, engaged in pulling powers back and forth and mutual infighting. Facts of corruption, bribery, smuggling, and attempts to take financial flows under their control gained increasing publicity," said Pynzenyk, noting that all this was visible from his ministry, which deals with finances.

"All this became the causes of the scandal that we witnessed in September. A scandal that, given the development of the situation, could have erupted earlier. Moreover, I can assert that the conditions for such scandals remain in the future," he noted.

As a separate point, Pynzenyk noted the absence in parliament of a pro-presidential majority, which made the old, and now the new government, "a hostage of backroom deals."

"The dynamics on the ground are zero. Most officials, at best having once again changed their party card, kept their positions. At worst, the local bureaucracy sabotages decisions of central authorities... Oligarchs are again rushing to the forefront; alongside the old ones, new ones are raising their heads. Again politics is being pursued with the aim of preserving capital," Pynzenyk emphasized.

"All the latest events and scandals related to the government's dismissal, one way or another, boil down to a struggle over the regrouping of capitals. Money wants to defeat the people. As long as Ukrainian politics does not free itself from the influence of oligarchic capital, it is hard to hope for a change in the system of power, because this system will serve those who invested more money in its formation," added the PRP chairman.

Noting that Tymoshenko's dismissal led to a split in the orange team and to disappointment and loss of faith in the Maidan ideals among the people, Pynzenyk voiced the party's intention to continue fighting for the return of the unity of this team.

He recalled that three mega-blocs are so far making it into parliament – BYuT, NSNU, and Yanukovych's Bloc – none of which is capable of independently forming a majority and a government.

"The PRP will do everything possible to unite the political forces conventionally called the orange team. If it is not possible to form a single bloc and a single list, we will advocate the idea of developing clear rules of the game during the elections and insist that the president act as a guarantor of fair elections. The PRP will make every effort to create a government coalition on the basis of 'Our Ukraine' and Tymoshenko's bloc. The absence of such a coalition will mean a return to the times of Kuchmism and betrayal of the Maidan ideals," Pynzenyk emphasized.

The PRP chairman did not propose forms of the PRP's participation in the elections, noting that it is open to negotiations with everyone except the extreme left, bandits, and compromised individuals.

Despite the fact that Pynzenyk likes finance more than politics, he was still able in his speech to set the accents in such a way as to let Yushchenko's party understand everything he thinks about it, but also not to burn bridges with it completely.

However, it seems that for the rest of his fellow party members the question of choice has already been decided by 90%. And it is called blocing with "Batkivshchyna." It is not for nothing that the only guest at the congress was BYuT member Andriy Shkil, who asked the PRP members not to wait for winter or the end of autumn, but to run under Yulia Volodymyrivna's wing right now. "We are waiting for the brother party as part of the bloc, so that we can go together and win," he urged, drawing stormy applause from the PRP members.

The head of the Kyiv PRP, Volodymyr Bondarenko, who had already managed to be in the "People's Union" and leave it, expressed hope that the PRP would find "its own path with that part of the orange forces that have truly remained on the Maidan principles."

As for Pynzenyk, Bondarenko expressed the wish that he remain in the government and pursue the party's line there.

Unlike the party leader, he already directly announced claims against specific people in Yushchenko's entourage whom he once considered partners, and now calls their behavior "strange."

"Petro Poroshenko stated at the congress of the city organization that the revolution is over, wrap everything up, I'm fine – I have a piece of property, I have a post. The same position was taken by our once good allies such as Mykola Martynenko, who started a war over the territory of the 'Kyiv' factory with gas attacks and bloody brawls of people. How can we now be with him? Or the same Davyd Zhvaniya, who actively uses special equipment to fight his business competitors. We must achieve that either those turncoats no longer remain around Yushchenko, or then we need to change our position regarding the president himself," noted the deputy.

And the head of the Odesa PRP organization, the head of Yushchenko's headquarters in the region, Volodymyr Kurinny, even expressed his "phew" to the president.

Kurinny was especially struck by the fact that now the leadership of the "People's Union Our Ukraine" in his region includes people who were once in the parties of opponents.

"I have questions about the regional composition and about Tymoshenko's bloc too, but, unfortunately, the question is choosing the lesser of evils. I must say that NSNU does not compare with any of the forces. When the organization has heads of headquarters of the SDPU(o), the Party of Regions, or Serhiy Kivalov's entire Maritime Party behind 'Our Ukraine,'" he noted.

"When Serhiy Vasyliovych Kivalov, the father of election falsification, has a poster hanging in his reception that says 'To Serhiy Vasyliovych, Sincerely yours, Viktor Yushchenko 2.07.2005,' then, excuse me, it is already impossible to go with this party!" Kurinny was offended.

In the party's decision, Kurinny asked to emphasize that the PRP is renouncing the name "Our Ukraine" precisely because "it has been discredited by the newly created party (NSNU), more precisely by certain people."

He recommended that the party leader leave Yekhanurov's government and asked to begin negotiations with BYuT taking into account the PRP's interests when forming the lists. And if the negotiations do not have results useful for the party – to go to the elections independently. Both proposals met with applause in the hall.

The main radical, Mykola Tomenko, managed at the congress without accusations of corruption against Yushchenko's entourage, instead announcing a new mission for himself and the PRP – "to help Yushchenko become president, and to help form a genuine government of people's trust headed by Yulia Tymoshenko."

And then he still let loose a few barbs in the direction of the president's team – for Kuchma, who consecrates the work of the government, for the law on immunity for local council deputies, for the fact that Pinchuk's policeman is already creating a commission on Melnychenko's tapes, and another manifestation of kumism in power.

As it turned out, the newly appointed governor of Zakarpattia, the head of the Zakarpattia PRP, Mr. Havashi, is the godfather of the minister of emergency situations and his predecessor Viktor Baloha. And although the latter told how he baptized a child whom Baloha had taken from an orphanage, and was already his deputy at that time, the sediment, as they say, remained.

Another point of Tomenko's speech was the idea of the inadmissibility of the president heading the NSNU list. Tomenko motivated this by the fact that 70% of Ukrainians are against it, and also by the fact that if NSNU with Yushchenko gets 20% and Yanukovych's bloc gets 21%, then the latter will turn out to be more legitimate than the entire Ukrainian government as a whole.

At the end, Tomenko proposed holding a rating vote on whom to bloc with in the elections. But here he was somewhat brought down by party members, who said that there was no such item on the agenda. To which Tomenko took offense and proposed another option – to sit and do nothing.

However, rank-and-file PRP members do not want to sit in place and in principle are already ready to get involved in a new campaign and even bloc with BYuT, but at the same time they have their own remarks about Tymoshenko's force, in particular its regional composition, and their own thoughts about party lists. That is, they do not want to become the menial force of yet another leader.

Better than others, it seems, the entire discussion taking place within the PRP members was voiced by Volodymyr Filenko, translating everything into a joke customary for him.

"You know what Zyuganov says? Look how cunning these khokhols are – they split Yushchenko's team into the president and Tymoshenko's pseudo-opposition and play into each other's hands. So I'll tell you that we are the most cunning of those khokhols, because some of us went to NSNU, half, true, came back, and another part didn't make it. And some are already on Yulia Tymoshenko's list, and another part is in 'Pora,'" Filenko joked.

"But if Yushchenko and Tymoshenko make up, then for the country it's 'wow!' (raises his thumb up), but for the PRP in terms of political expediency – not so much. Because they may say: 'you were too clever,' and we will turn out to be needed neither there nor there," he noted.

"And if someone were in a great hurry toward BYuT, I wouldn't roll up my trousers too much, because a woman is waiting for us there, and she may not understand such an appearance," added the deputy.

Filenko put himself forward for the role of negotiator with BYuT on forming a bloc (though he is already conducting them together with Ihor Hrynyov anyway), and promised to defend the party's interests not from the position of his place on the list.

"And whoever really wants to go to BYuT right now, let them lead, but I will then see how fresh or not fresh you come out of there... Sorry, Andriy (Shkil), good guys are sitting there, but they say: 'we'll take you, Volodya, we'll take Tarasyk, we'll take Kolyu, and we'll think about him some more,'" Filenko points at Teriokhin and laughs.

However, the PRP congress still adopted a resolution featuring a passage about the need to begin negotiations with "Batkivshchyna" on creating a joint bloc.

When one rank-and-file PRP member asked to remove the name of the specific force and replace it with the phrase "conduct negotiations with other forces," everyone shushed him in unison and voted for the resolution as a whole.

In the version distributed at the beginning, there is not a single word about the headquarters and those authorized to conduct negotiations. However, in his closing remarks, Viktor Pynzenyk, not without offense in his voice, hinted that if there is a desire for some group to conduct negotiations on behalf of the party, then the question of changing the party leadership must be raised.

He once again emphasized that he went into the government consciously, and will leave it only if his activity contradicts Pynzenyk's ideas. Thus, the PRP leader left himself another bridge for departure, in case he wants to keep the post of party chairman.

Since it looks very much like already by winter the PRP wants to see at its head not the financial Pynzenyk, but the PR-savvy Tomenko.