Despite poor poll numbers, Yushchenko really isn't anything like his predecessor. He is honest and uncorrupt: where corruption and dishonesty were the defining characteristics of Kuchma's decade.

But he is also a poor and weak leader. Where Kuchma had the cleverness to control a seething mass of self-interested oligarchs for ten years, Yushchenko's government dissolved into bickering almost immediately.

Three Good Paragraphs from Zerkalo Nedeli

I called this Zerkalo Nedeli article "baffling" in my last entry, because it attempted to say all of the following things in one article (take a deep breath): it opened as a heartfelt appeal for Ukrainian citizens to keep up the spirit of the OR, talked about Yu and Ty's history of conflict back to 2000, condemned Zinchenko than commended him with twice the strength, meandered through the rumors leading up to the firing of the Cabinet, condemned Yushchenko for firing them and for his scary new un-democratic behavior, dragged through the question of whether the event was good for the nation without an answer, gave advice to Tymoshenko, speculated on her course, and talked about the opinions of the US and Russia before I gave up. (11,000 words!)

This logorrhea is why I stopped reading Zerkalo regularly; I had to wade through too many unidentified sources and rambling articles attempting to address everything at once. However, the following beautiful section on Yushchenko reminded me why I used to slog through the paper.

Let us consider the facts. Firstly, the president admits that for as long as eight months (since Yushchenko took office) relationships among the top leaders have disappointed him and the other 48 million Ukrainians. He calls these people his friends and admits that he brought them to the top and “vested them with enormous powers,” but they did not justify his trust. It would be logical if Yushchenko apologized to voters and said something like “Sorry, I appointed these people and I bear the responsibility for their failure to justify your trust.”

But Yushchenko did not say a word about his blame. Very regrettably, he did not look like the guarantor of his own promises and the constitutional rights vested in him. He looked like a child complaining that other kids have been throwing sand at one another. “The president is not a nursemaid to patch up their quarrels…” He is absolutely right: the president has more important things to do. And if he has to reconcile the people he himself selected, he is a bad president.

Secondly, judging from the president’s words “eight months of conflicts,” these conflicts were nothing new to him. Does it mean that for eight months he had been watching his friends and colleagues flounder in squabbles? Does it mean that he wasted his precious time on the pointless peacemaking mission while disappointment among his voters was growing? Hence, a question arises: why did he have to wait? And when did the president lie: two weeks ago when he sang the praises of his team, or two days ago when he called it “a team of disillusionment”?

I trust Yushchenko's honesty, and I trust his character, but as a man who knows how his own wishy-washy leadership can ruin good plans, I am gravely disappointed by Yushchenko's unwillingness to take responsibility for those in his command. And even if I still think of him as an honest man, his revelation that all the positive reviews he'd been giving his Cabinet had been false is mortifying.

Thank Goodness For Constitutional Reform

Almost from the start, I've been in favor of the constitutional reforms that will take away some of Yushchenko's powers. Tymoshenko spoke persuasively against them last December, but now she seems to look at it as the lesser of two evils. (ironically: when it originally passed, Tymoshenko had said her only victory was that Yushchenko abstained, rather than signing it with his party) The argument that he would need his excessive powers a little longer to deal with oligarchs in the Parliament rang a little hollow even then.

For months I've been waiting for word of whether or not Yushchenko will allow himself to lose those powers after all, as the greatest test of what advances the OR made. The Constitutional Report decision came in this month - the transfer of powers is legitimate [Update: Kommersant totally misrepresented this news, the Constitutional Report did NOT come in this month]. 

So you can imagine my horror to see the Honest President say this about reforms: (from an interview in the Kyiv Post):

Speaking to a group of foreign journalists late on Sept. 13, Yushchenko also dropped a political bombshell, revealing that he will try to postpone implementation of political reforms that would shift some executive powers from the president to the prime minister after the March 2006 parliamentary elections.

...

Referring to the constitutional changes, Yushchenko questioned whether now is the right time for them, suggesting he would like to postpone it with the support of legislators.

“The citizens of Ukraine should understand this process well and such reforms should be implemented consciously, not through intimidation,” he said.

“Opinion polls show that it doesn’t mean anything to 60 percent of the population … and they don’t understand it,” he said, adding that such major changes should be implemented after broad discussion in society.

Yushchenko said the reforms were passed in the heat of the moment during the Orange Revolution.

“Everything has its time,” he said.

“I think parliament has a good opportunity now to look at this issue and to consider the timing of it,” he said, adding, “I hope you understand me.”

I think I do, and it makes me shiver.