“Why are you keeping mum?” – Leonid Kravchuk asks Pres Yushchenko

Kravchuk says recent statements by Yushchenko aides humiliate the country and its authorities. “It is abominable and indecent when officials accuse the premier of the gravest crime one can imagine for a politician, with the president buttoning his lips, Kravchuk adds. He doesn’t believe the officials could make such statements without the incumbent knowledge. Kravchuk poses a question: who the boss in the presidential office is if ordinary clerks dare to do whatever they want.

“I am not defending any one, I am for a law-abiding, tolerant and balanced relationships in the Ukrainian executive. I am opposed to ways when officials make irresponsible statements, and the incumbent doesn’t bring them to account,” Kravchuk stresses.

Tymoshenko, he goes on, has been accused of all crimes imaginable, and now the presidential team has accused her of the gravest crime, high treason. “They still have one more crime to pin on Tymoshenko. They can say that there hasn’t been Armageddon yet because Yulia Tymoshenko hasn’t engineered it. When they accuse her of not starting the Armageddon, I will say it out and loud they are nuts, and instead of going in for politics they should be going for treatment in a clinic,” the first president noted.

There shouldn’t be any dismissal of the cabinet as it is working effectively. It is stupid to sack the cabinet because the opposition wants this to happen. Kravchuk is convinced that even if the opposition manages to sack the cabinet, it won’t be able to create a coalition and appoint a new premier. Tymoshenko will only benefit in the end, same as she will from presidential office clumsy stunts, he says.