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Ukraine political pact a welcome respite, but questions remain
By Anya Tsukanova
AFP
KIEV
Petroleumworld.com 08 04 06
Pro-Russia politician Viktor Yanukovych's expected confirmation as Ukraine's prime minister will reassure jittery investors but raises questions about the country's long-term course, commentators say.
After President Viktor Yushchenko announced a deal on Thursday to end months of post-election infighting, the Renaissance Capital financial group hailed Yanukovych's nomination as "a very positive development".
Parliament is expected to confirm Yanukovych in the prime minister's post on Friday.
Last year, foreign direct investors suffered a bad case of nerves and economic growth slumped as the government plunged into several months of uncertainty over whether to reverse a number of opaque privatisations.
Volodymyr Fesenko, an expert from the Penta Centre for Political Studies, said Yanukovych's Regions party comprised numerous business figures interested in developing the economy, although their main interests are in Yanukovych's eastern industrial homeland, Donetsk.
"The Regions party has every interest in structural reforms and developing the economy, above all in the steel industry, the chemical industry and machine building, in which the interests of Donetsk's entrepreneurs are concentrated," he said.
He also expected Yanukovych to push ahead with protracted efforts to join the World Trade Organisation.
Other analysts caution that Yanukovych's previous tenure as prime minister between 2002 and 2004 was an era of many of the shady privatisations that Yushchenko and others bridled at, but they add that the president should retain enough sway to block such deals.
Some hope that Yanukovych's close ties to Russia will help him negotiate good terms on purchases of natural gas from Russia, after Moscow briefly cut supplies in January in order to force through price hikes.
If Yanukovych keeps his electoral promises he will fight "to obtain from Russia at least the same price" next year as is being charged this year, said the business magazine Vlast Deneg.
Nonetheless, Yanukovych's rise to the prime minister's post has caused some to worry about Yushchenko's cherished objectives of integration with the West.
Joining the World Trade Organisation is just one of several steps seen as necessary before Ukraine can have a hope of joining the European Union -- as is combating corruption.
Amid signs that enthusiasm for enlargement is cooling among some EU countries, Yushchenko's earlier-stated goal of swiftly starting accession talks and joining the bloc in 2008 has slipped.
The outgoing prime minister, Yuri Yekhanurov, said in an interview in March with the Russian paper Izvestia that a Yanukovych election win would slow the country's "entry to Europe" by "two or three years".
As for joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) -- something that was an article of faith for all the ex-communist countries that joined the EU in 2004 -- that process has already been thrown off track.
Alliance members had to cancel military exercises on the Crimean Peninsula in June at the last minute amid widespread public opposition and problems in parliament over approving the exercises.
Yushchenko's one-time ally in the "orange revolution" that swept much of the country in 2004, Yulia Tymoshenko, has voiced outrage at the compromises involved in resolving the country's latest political crisis.
She slammed a pact signed Thursday between Yushchenko and members of Yanukovych's pro-Russian coalition that forbids entry to NATO without a referendum.
"We consider this an act of capitulation by the orange camp," said Tymoshenko.
ant/njc/mb
AFP 03 1732 GMT 08 06
Copyright ©2006 AFP. All Rights Reserved.
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