Kiev, Ukraine – President Viktor Yushchenko on Tuesday accused his former prime minister and ally of abuse of office, alleging she used her post to try to wipe out $1.5 billion in debts owed by a now-defunct company she once headed.
Yushchenko also said he would welcome former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko back to his government if she were to return to the principles that he said she had abandoned.
He fired Tymoshenko on Thursday, accusing the government she led of spending more time squabbling than fulfilling the promises of the Orange Revolution that brought them into power. He also suggested that her government had sided with certain business groups to the detriment of Ukraine.
Yushchenko alleged in an interview that Tymoshenko, while in office, tried to wipe out the debt owed to the state budget by Unified Energy Systems. He did not elaborate. The company, Ukraine’s predominant gas dealer, was run by Tymoshenko in the 1990s.
“The behavior that (Tymoshenko) demonstrated in government, and the circle of her allies, were formed on the basis contrary to state interests,” Yushchenko said.
“Many activities which the prime minister participated in were carried out behind the scenes with the aim of solving her problems,” Yushchenko said.
He said he was completely at peace with his decision to oust her.
“It’s the fourth day that I’m coming to work with a calm spirit,” Yushchenko said.
For many Ukrainians, Tymoshenko symbolized their revolution, a charismatic orator with charm and appealing ethnic symbolism. She rallied hundreds of thousands who massed in Kiev to denounce fraud by the former government in the presidential election and force a new election that Yushchenko won.
“I think if we return to the values that we talked about on (Independence) Square, but not the adventurism which the government has carried out, I will extend my hand to anyone,” Yushchenko said in response to Tymoshenko’s prediction that her party would win March parliamentary elections and land her back in the prime minister’s seat.
She has said the president fired her because he feared her popularity.
Yushchenko acknowledged that his own popularity was slipping, and he blamed the high expectations of Ukrainians, as well as freedom of expression.
“It’s because what the people expected is far from fulfilled,” Yushchenko said.
Yushchenko asked lawmakers Tuesday to approve his choice to lead the government, acting Prime Minister Yuriy Yekhanurov.
Yekhanurov, a little-known technocrat, is expected to take more of a back-seat role than Tymoshenko did.
