Timoshenko – Saakashvili’s Hope

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Ukraine’s election extravaganza is over for Georgian observers. All eyes are back on Tbilisi. The desired result was achieved – the “oranges” are in the second round of the presidential election and will have to clear out final relations with Yanukovich, the Kremlin’s favorite, on February 7. Incumbent Prime Minister Timoshenko lost to the leader of the Party of Regions in the first round by 10 percent of votes.

Sending Georgian “democratic landing” to Ukraine and the problems they encountered there caused more of a stir in Tbilisi than in Ukraine. The opposition treated President Saakashvili’s attempts and his loyalty to the “oranges” with irony.

“I warned Victor Yushchenko not to baptize Mikheil Saakashvili’s little son Nikoloz, as Saakashvili baptized my child as well, and then declared me the number one enemy,” Koba Davitashvili, onetime Saakashvili supporter turned leader of the oppositional People’s Party, said.

Ukraine’s incumbent president Yushchenko keeps silent; however, considering Yushchenko’s starting data for presidential elections, he has nothing to reproach President Saakashvili for. It was proven on the first round of presidential elections. The incumbent president gathered 5.4 percent of the votes. This is why supporting the second leader of the “oranges” was quite a logical choice. Georgian oppositionists see another reason in the “new Ukrainian choice” of the Georgian government. Sozar Subari, a leader of the Alliance for Georgia, recollected the orange ties of President Saakashvili and businesses of his in Ukraine.

“People sent to Ukraine are cautious about their business. This is why Givi Targamadze went there, and not to protect votes for the ‘oranges.’ It is a shame,” Subari said.

Nothing is known about the business of Parliament’s Defense and Security Committee Chairmen in Ukraine. No such accusation was voiced by any of the oppositionists before, even in most critical situations. The timing of such accusations by the former ombudsman raises even more doubts.

Despite the variety of criticism, all oppositionists unanimously state that President Saakashvili made a political mistake when he openly supported his favorite candidate Yulia Timoshenko. According to the Georgian opposition, with his inconsistent politics, President Saakashvili is losing the main strategic partner for the country.

Labor Party leader Shalva Natelashvili is certain that Georgians living in Ukraine will share the same fate as Georgians living in Moscow in 2006: “Saakashvili achieved setting the visa regime with Ukraine, quitting military cooperation, deportation of hundreds of thousands of Georgians from that country and actual recognition of Georgia’s separatist regions by the new government of Ukraine.”

All signs indicate that if Victor Yanukovich becomes Ukraine’s new president, a lot will change in Georgian-Ukrainian relations. The matter may not come to recognizing the occupied territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, but a revision of Georgian-Ukrainian relations will definitely take place. Therefore, President Saakashvili’s open position and single-sided choice in favor of Timoshenko looks quite strange. This was the idea behind question of Levan Vepkhvadze, a leader of the Christian-Democrats, to the government.

“The Georgian government openly stated its negative attitude towards Yanukovich becoming the president,” Vepkhvadze stated, “We would like to know what the government is going to do if Yanukovich wins the presidential elections, and what is the strategy if Russia then thinks it has dealt with Ukraine, and now Georgia is next.”

Vepkhvadze’s question was not followed by any response from the government circles. However, when looking through government statements, it is easy to guess that after the first round of elections in Ukraine, nothing changed in their rhetoric. The ruling party still openly supports Timoshenko and hopes that this time Georgian observers will find their way to the polling stations.

Why does Tbilisi believe in Timoshenko so much? Can this lady overcome the 10 percent difference and win to Yanukovich? Timoshenko claims that she will defeat Yanukovich in the second round as the “democratic camp” of Ukraine will support her, i.e. those who voted for the incumbent president Yushchenko, Yatseniuk and Tigibko will vote for Timoshenko in the second round. Her hopes are not groundless, and this can truly happen in west Ukraine.

However, in eastern Ukraine, it is doubtful that she will get 100 percent of the votes for democrats. And it is doubtful not because people will support Victor Yanukovich; he received the maximum of the votes in the first round and it is less likely for him to get a better result. The threat for Timoshenko is that those voters will not participate in the second round of elections at all. Thus, President Saakashvili’s choice does not look hopeless if Yulia Timoshenko truly manages to bring voters supporting democratic forces to polling stations. In that case, it can be quite realistic that she could become the next president of Ukraine.

Story by Zaza Jgharkava

29.01.2010