Yuschenko: historical times

I had almost given up. The time of our appointment had changed six times in 24 hours. The presidential palace was — as it still is — in full crisis, and my interview seemed to be receding out of reach. When he finally showed up, the man at the centre of the political storm seemed perfectly calm. Victor Yuschenko was wearing a well-cut suit and a bright red tie, but it was his face that captivated my attention. This was the famous face that had shocked the world and launched a revolution. Disfigured by pocks and carbuncles, it tells the story of Yuschenko’s near-death and of his country’s bitter struggle for democracy. But now Yuschenko has traded the barricades for office, and his pockmarks are obscured by a protective cloak of make-up — salmon pink, like the satin wallpaper and armchairs of his presidential suite.

In the country outside the scars of Ukraine’s political past are resurfacing.  Just like Yuschenko’s cosmetics, the presidential election of 2005 and the parliamentary one of 2006 provided no more than a veneer of normality; failing to heal the rift that splits the country between east and west; between European democracy and Russian stability. ‘We are living in historical times,’ says Yuschenko, with typical understatement. In the past few weeks, he has dissolved the parliament and sacked three constitutional court judges in a desperate attempt to prevent his old nemesis, the Russian-backed Prime Minister Victor Yanukovich, from seizing power.

What drove the President to take such drastic action? Yuschenko explains that his rival had never accepted the result of the Orange revolution. Not content with controlling the government, Yanukovich had been buying up MPs from the other parties in an effort to overturn the constitution and remove Yuschenko’s presidential veto: ‘The will of the electorate counted for nothing….