Regions Party not a winner, BYT not a loser after no-confidence motion in government, says experts
Kyiv, February 6 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The vote on a motion of no confidence in the government of Premier Yulia Tymoshenko has shown that the Regions Party is turning into a party of "political losers," President of the Open Policy Analytical Center Ihor Zhdanov has said.
"The Regions Party is turning into a party of political failures," he said at a press conference at the Interfax-Ukraine news agency on Friday.
He said that Regions Party leader Viktor Yanukovych had failed to become Ukraine's president in 2004 and then lost his premiership in 2007 after a snap parliamentary election.
Zhdanov said that the Regions Party has twice failed to win a no-confidence vote in the government.
He said that there was no need for the party to consider the government's dismissal in parliament if they were not confident that there would be enough votes to pass a no-confidence decision. The expert said that amid the crisis, it would be better for the party to continue criticizing Tymoshenko's government and "demonstrate its constructiveness."
Zhdanov said that the vote was a "tactical victory" for the premier.
However, the director of the Ukrainian Barometer social service, Viktor Nebozhenko, said that the voting on the government's dismissal showed that the Regions Party "are not losers, they are most likely interested in a new role – self-provision and earning."
"They're learning from the Communists how to earn money," he said.
"It might have been the last means for those who lost the gas war to Tymoshenko, and the Regions Party, along with the Communists, used their difficult position when they saw the anxiety of RosUkrEnergo. I think they've earned enough," Nebozhenko said.
"But this is something new. The Regions Party has learned how to earn money and started providing for itself. This is evidence of their understanding that purely political values are not the most important thing in their lives, and that it is necessary to think about some pension funds," he said.
Director of the Sofia Center for Social Studies Andriy Yermolayev said that the vote of confidence in the government headed by Tymoshenko opens the "gate of authoritarianism" for her.
Director of the GMT Group Anatoliy Lutsenko said that support of the no-confidence motion by some MPs from the Our Ukraine-People's Self-Defense Bloc close to the presidential secretariat shows that the "presidential secretariat and the president will somehow play into the Regions Party's hand."