Viktor Yushchenko

Viktor Andriyovych Yushchenko Віктор Андрійович Ющенко
President of Ukraine
Incumbent
Assumed office 23 January 2005
Prime Minister	Yulia Tymoshenko Yuriy Yekhanurov Viktor Yanukovych Yulia Tymoshenko
Preceded by	Leonid Kuchma
Prime Minister of Ukraine
In office 22 December 1999 – 29 May 2001
President	Leonid Kuchma
Preceded by	Valeriy Pustovoitenko
Succeeded by	Anatoliy Kinakh
Chairman of the National Bank of Ukraine
In office January 1993 – 22 December 1999
Preceded by	Vadym Hetman
Succeeded by	Volodymyr Stelmakh
Personal details
Born	(1954-02-23) 23 February 1954 Khoruzhivka, Sumy, Ukrainian SSR
Political party	OU-PSD
Spouse(s)	Svetlana Ivanivna Kolesnyk(div.) Kateryna Chumachenko
Children	Andriy, Taras, Vitalina, Sofia, Christina
Alma mater	Ternopil Finance and Economics Institute
Website	www.president.gov.ua

Viktor Andriyovych Yushchenko (Ukrainian: ) (born February 23 1954) is the third and current President of Ukraine. He took office on January 23, 2005.

As an informal leader of the Ukrainian opposition coalition, he was one of three main candidates in the October–November 2004 Ukrainian presidential election. Yushchenko won the election through a revote of the runoff between him and Viktor Yanukovych, the government supported candidate. The Ukrainian Supreme Court called for the revote due to widespread election fraud in favor of Viktor Yanukovych in the original run-off. Yushchenko had won in the revote (52% to 44%). Public protests prompted by the electoral fraud played a major role in that presidential election and led to Ukraine's Orange Revolution.

Early life

Viktor Andriyovych Yushchenko was born on February 23, 1954 in Khoruzhivka, Sumy Oblast, Ukrainian SSR, into a family of teachers. His father, Andriy Andriyovych Yushchenko (1919-1992), fought in the Second World War, where German forces captured and placed him in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp as a POW. He survived the ordeal. After returning home, Andriy Yushchenko taught English at a local school. Viktor's mother, Varvara Tymofiyovna Yushchenko (1918-2005), taught physics and mathematics at the same school.

Viktor Yushchenko graduated from the Ternopil Finance and Economics Institute, and began his profession as an accountant. After completing his studies (1975), he worked as a deputy to the chief accountant in a kolkhoz, then served as a conscript in the Border Guard unit of KGB on the Soviet–Turkish border (1975-1976). In 1977, at the age of 23, Yushchenko joined the Communist Party.

Central banker

Yushchenko started a career in banking in 1976. In 1983, he became the Deputy Director for Agricultural Credit at the Ukrainian Republican Office of the USSR State Bank. From 1990 to 1993, he worked as vice-chairman and first vice-chairman of the JSC Agroindustrial Bank Ukraina. In 1993, Vadym Hetman invited him to work in the newly formed National Bank of Ukraine (Ukraine's central bank). After Hetman resigned in 1993, Yushchenko was appointed the head of the bank's supervisory board. In 1997, Ukraine's parliament re-appointed him as the bank's head.

As a central banker, Yushchenko played an important part in the creation of Ukraine's national currency, the hryvnia, and the establishment of a modern regulatory system for commercial banking. He also successfully overcame a debilitating wave of hyper-inflation that hit the country and managed to defend the value of the currency following the 1998 Russian financial crisis.

In 1998, he wrote a thesis entitled "The Development of supply and demand of money in Ukraine" and defended it in the Ukrainian Academy of Banking. He thereby earned a doctorate in economics.

Prime Minister

In December 1999, Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma unexpectedly nominated Yushchenko to be the prime minister after the parliament failed to ratify, by one vote, the previous candidate, Valeriy Pustovoytenko.

In 2001, Yushchenko refused to support the mass protests against Kuchma's regime that erupted after the murder of journalist Georgiy Gongadze. Moreover, he co-signed with Kuchma a highly critical public address that called the protesters "fascists" -- despite the fact that many of them were supporters of Yushchenko's cabinet.

Ukraine's economy improved during Yushchenko's cabinet service. Critics, however, say that Yushchenko's actions had little impact in the improvement. Soon, his government (particularly, deputy prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko) became embroiled in a confrontation with influential leaders of the coal mining and natural gas industries. The conflict resulted in a 2001 no-confidence vote by the parliament, orchestrated by the Communists, which had opposed Yushchenko's economic policies, and by centrist groups associated with the country's powerful "oligarchs". The vote passed 263 to 69 and resulted in Yushchenko's removal from office.

File:Yushchenko OurUkraine.jpg

Official photograph of Viktor Yushchenko, also used in his and Our Ukraine's political campaigns. This photo was taken prior to the dioxin poisoning incident, at which point his face became severely pockmarked and his hair significantly grayer.

Many Ukrainians viewed the fall of Yushchenko's government with dismay, and they gathered four million votes on a petition supporting him and opposing the parliamentary vote. Supporters also organized a 10,000-strong demonstration in Kiev, the country's capital.

"Our Ukraine" leader and political portrait

In 2002, Yushchenko became the leader of the Our Ukraine (Nasha Ukrayina) political coalition, which received a plurality of seats in the year's election to Verkhovna Rada (Ukrainian parliament) . However, the number of seats won wasn't enough for a majority, and the efforts to form it together with other opposition parties failed. Since then, Yushchenko has remained the leader and public face of the "Our Ukraine" ("Nasha Ukrayina") parliament faction.

Yushchenko was widely regarded as the moderate political leader of the anti-Kuchma opposition, since other opposition parties were less influential and had fewer seats in parliament.

Since the end of his term as prime minister, Yushchenko has become a charismatic political figure popular among Ukrainians in the western and central regions of the country. As of 2001–2004, his rankings in popularity polls were higher than those of the president at the time, Leonid Kuchma.

As a politician, Viktor Yushchenko is widely perceived as a mixture of Western-oriented and moderate Ukrainian nationalist. He also advocates the massive privatization of the economy. His opponents (and allies) sometimes criticize him for indecision and secrecy, while advocates call the same attributes signs of Yushchenko's commitment to teamwork, consensus, and negotiation. He is also often accused of being unable to form a unified team free of inner quarrels. Ukrainians often view as more decisive and charismatic one of his former political allies, Yulia Tymoshenko, who was arrested and then cleared of fraud charges relating to gas privatization during Kuchma's presidency.

Since becoming the President of Ukraine, Viktor Yushchenko has been an honorary leader of "Our Ukraine" party. In the latest parliament election in March 2006, the party, led by Prime Minister Yekhanurov received less than 14% of the national vote and took third place behind the Party of Regions, and the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc.

Presidential election of 2004

Main article: Ukrainian presidential election, 2004

In 2004, as President Kuchma's term came to an end, Yushchenko announced that he was an independent candidate for president. His major rival was Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych. Since his term as prime minister, Yushchenko had slightly modernized his political platform, adding social partnership and other liberal slogans to older ideas of European integration, including Ukraine's joining NATO, and fighting corruption. Supporters of Yushchenko were organized in the "Syla Narodu" ("Power to the People") electoral coalition, which he and his political ally Yulia Tymoshenko led, with the Our Ukraine coalition as the main constituent force.

Yushchenko built his campaign on face-to-face communication with voters, since the government prevented most major TV channels from providing equal coverage to candidates. Meanwhile, his rival, Yanukovych, frequently appeared in the news and even accused Yushchenko, whose father was a Red Army soldier imprisoned at Auschwitz, of being "a Nazi".

Dioxin poisoning

The campaign was often bitter and violent. Yushchenko became seriously ill in early September 2004. He was flown to Vienna's Rudolfinerhaus clinic for treatment and diagnosed with acute pancreatitis, accompanied by interstitial edematous changes, due to a serious viral infection and chemical substances that are not normally found in food products. Yushchenko claimed such poisoning to be the work of government agents. After the illness, his face became heavily disfigured: grossly jaundiced, bloated, and pockmarked.

After seeing Yushchenko's deformed face on the evening news, the Dutch toxicologist Bram Brouwer contacted the Rudolfinerhaus to test some of Yushchenko's blood at the Free University of Amsterdam for dioxin. According to Dr. Michael Zimpfer, president of the Rudolfinerhaus, these tests provided conclusive evidence that Yushchenko's condition resulted from high concentrations of dioxin, most likely orally administered. This hypothesis has also been suggested by British toxicologist Prof John Henry of St Mary's Hospital in London because the marks on Yushchenko's face were chloracne, a characteristic symptom of dioxin poisoning. Other scientists suggested that the illness might have been the result of rosacea but this theory failed to account for the severe internal medical problems that Yushchenko suffered. On December 11, Austrian doctors confirmed Yushchenko had been poisoned with TCDD dioxin, and had more than 1,000 times (other sources said 6,000 times) the usual concentration in his body. This was the second highest dioxin level ever measured in a human. Yushchenko's chief of staff Oleg Ribachuk suggested that the poison used was a mycotoxin called T-2, also known as "Yellow Rain", a Soviet-era substance reputedly used in Afghanistan as a chemical weapon.

Yushchenko has linked the poisoning to a dinner with a group of senior Ukrainian officials, including the head of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), Ihor Smeshko, on the evening before Yushchenko fell ill. In connection to that, theories of links to the Russian FSB arose. This hypothesis is disputed by some toxicologists, who claim that symptoms of dioxin poisoning usually take 3-14 days to appear— Prof John Henry, professor of accident and emergency medicine at St Mary's Hospital in London, said "a few months after swallowing" or other contact —and experiencing them a few hours after ingesting the poison would be unusual, though, given the extremely high concentration of dioxin found in his system, not impossible.

On March 27, 2008, the host of the first of the two dinners Yushchenko visited September 5, 2004, businessman Vladimir Shulga, 51, died of a heart attack in the waiting hall of the Shevchenko district militia office in Kiev.

Yushchenko said he was poisoned by three waiters who acted like Andrei Lugovoi (a man accused of Alexander Litvinenko poisoning). The waiters fled to Russia.

Poisoning controversy

On September 28, 2004 a report issued by the Reuters news agency based on a faxed statement assumed to be from Vienna's Rudolfinerhaus Hospital has claimed that "the information disseminated about an alleged poisoning (of Ukrainian presidential candidate Victor Yushchenko) is absolutely unfounded in medical terms". On October 3, 2004 the administration of the Rudolfinerhaus hospital issued an official statement signed by Prof. Dr. Michael Zimpfer, President of the Hospital and Prof. Dr. Lothar Wicke, Managing Director and Chief Doctor of the hospital that revealed this initial report was falsified as part of a black political PR campaign. It was learned that disinformation was circulated by the "Trimedia" PR Agency - but this agency got it from another PR company Euro RSCG (reported to be linked with Kuchma's daughter Elena Franchuk ).

During Yushchenko's third visit to Vienna on December 8, 2004 (about two weeks before the runoff elections), Dr. Nikolai Korpan claimed in a press conference that there was certain proof that his patient had been poisoned. The next day, however, Prof. Dr. Lothar Wicke (who had disagreed with Korpan's statement, and the manner in which it was issued) was removed from his post as medical director. Wicke subsequently sued the Rudolfinerhaus for substantial damages, claiming that he was forced out of his job for refusing to go along with the poisoning diagnosis. The case was scheduled to be heard in March 2005.

Unprecedented three rounds of voting

Main articles: Orange Revolution and Post-election developments in Ukraine, 2004

File:Wiktor Juschtschenko.jpg

Viktor Yushchenko seen during the Orange Revolution.

The initial vote, held on October 31, 2004, saw Yushchenko obtaining 39.87% in front of Yanukovych with 39.32%. As no candidate reached the 50% margin required for outright victory, a second round of run-off voting was held on November 21, 2004. Although a 75% voter turnout was recorded, observers reported many irregularities and abuses across the country, such as organized multiple voting and extra votes for Yanukovych after the polls closed. Exit poll results put Yushchenko ahead in the western and central provinces of the country.

The alleged electoral fraud, combined with the fact that the exit polls recorded a result (an 11% margin of victory for Yushchenko in one poll) so radically different from the final vote tally (a 3% margin of victory for Yanukovych), prompted Yushchenko and his supporters to refuse to recognize the results.

After thirteen days of massive popular protests in Kiev and other Ukrainian cities, that became known as the Orange Revolution, the election results were overturned by the Supreme Court and a re-run of the run-off election was ordered for December 26. Yushchenko proclaimed a victory for the opposition and declared his confidence that he would be elected with at least 60% of the vote. He did win the third round, but with 51.99% of the vote.

President

Inauguration

On January 23, 2005, 12pm (Kiev time), the inauguration of Viktor Yushchenko as the President of Ukraine took place. The event was attended by various foreign dignitaries, including:

• Arnold Rüütel, President of Estonia
• Adrienne Clarkson, Governor General of Canada
• Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga, President of Latvia
• Vladimir Voronin, President of Moldova
• Aleksander Kwaśniewski, President of Poland
• Traian Băsescu, President of Romania
• Ivan Gašparovič, President of Slovakia
• Ferenc Mádl, President of Hungary
• Artur Rasizade, Prime Minister of Azerbaijan
• Jan Peter Balkenende, Prime Minister of the Netherlands
• Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, Secretary General of NATO
• Nino Burjanadze, Speaker of the Parliament of Georgia
• Artūras Paulauskas, Speaker of the Seimas (Parliament of Lithuania)
• Colin Powell, United States Secretary of State
• Special guest Václav Havel, former President of the Czech Republic

Presidency

File:Yushchenko and Bush April 2005.jpg

Yushchenko meeting American President George W. Bush at an April 2005 press conference.

The first 100 days of Yushchenko's term, January 23, 2005, through May 1, 2005, were marked by numerous dismissals and appointments at all levels of the executive branch. Yulia Tymoshenko was ratified by the Verkhovna Rada as the Prime Minister. Oleksandr Zinchenko was appointed the head of the presidential secretariat with a nominal title of the Secretary of State. Petro Poroshenko, a cutthroat competitor of Tymoshenko for the post of the Prime Minister, was appointed the Secretary of the Security and Defense Council.

Yushchenko extensively traveled abroad, having spent the yearly travel budget by mid-April. His most notable visits include Moscow (January 24), the European Parliament in Strasbourg (February 23), and the United States (early April).

In August 2005, Yushchenko joined with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili in signing the Borjomi Declaration, which called for the creation of an institution of international cooperation, The Community of Democratic Choice, to bring together the democracies and incipient democracies in the region around the Baltic, Black and Caspian Seas. The first meeting of presidents and leaders to discuss the CDC took place on December 1-2, 2005 in Kiev.

Dismissal of other Orange Revolution members

On September 8, 2005, Yushchenko fired his government, led by Yulia Tymoshenko, after resignations and corruption claims.

On September 9, acting Prime Minister Yuriy Yekhanurov tried to form a new government. On September 22, Mr. Yekhanurov was ratified by the parliament on second attempt (289 ayes). In the first attempt (September 20), Mr. Yekhanurov fell short of 3 votes (223 ayes, 226 needed).

Also in September, former president of Ukraine Leonid Kravchuk accused exiled Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky of financing Yushchenko's presidential election campaign, and provided copies of documents showing money transfers from companies he said are controlled by Berezovsky to companies controlled by Yushchenko's official backers. Berezovsky has confirmed that he met Yushchenko's representatives in London before the election, and that the money was transferred from his companies, but he refused to confirm or deny that the companies that received the money were used in Yushchenko's campaign. Financing of election campaigns by foreign citizens is illegal in Ukraine.

In August 2006, he appointed his onetime opponent in the presidential race, Viktor Yanukovych, to be the new Prime Minister. This was generally regarded as synonymous with a move by Ukraine back into the Russian fold.

Dissolution of Verkhovna Rada

Main articles: 2007 Ukrainian political crisis and Ukrainian parliamentary election, 2007

On April 2, 2007, Yushchenko signed an order to dissolve Parliament and call early elections. Some consider the dissolution order illegal because none of the conditions spelled out under Article 90 of the Constitution of Ukraine for the president to dissolve the legislature had been met. Yushchenko's detractors argue that he is attempting to usurp the functions of the Constitutional Court by claiming constitutional violations by the Verkhovna Rada as a pretext for his action; the Verkhovna Rada is taking this to the Constitutional Court itself and promises to abide by its ruling. In the meantime, competing protests are being staged and this crisis is escalating. The Verkhovna Rada continues to meet and has banned the financing of any new election pending the Constitutional Court's decision.

Family and private life

Yushchenko is married to Kateryna Yushchenko-Chumachenko (his second wife). She is a Ukrainian-American born in Chicago and a former official with the U.S. State Department, where she worked as a special assistant to the Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs. Much criticized for her US citizenship by her husband's opponents, Kateryna became a Ukrainian citizen on March 31, 2005. During the recent election campaign, Kateryna was accused of exerting the influence of the U.S. government on her husband's decisions, as an employee of the U.S. government or even a CIA agent. A Russian state television journalist had earlier accused her of leading a U.S. project to help Yushchenko seize power in Ukraine; in January 2002, she won a libel case against that journalist. Ukraine's then anti-Yushchenko Inter TV channel repeated the allegations in 2001, but in January 2003 she won a libel case against that channel as well.

Yushchenko has five children and two grandchildren: sons Andriy and Taras, daughters Vitalina, Sophia and Khrystyna, grandchildren Yaryna and Viktor. A practicing member of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Yushchenko often emphasizes the deep role of his religious convictions in his life and worldview.

Yushchenko's speech is heavily loaded with Surzhyk elements. His main hobbies are Ukrainian traditional culture (including art ceramics and archaeology), mountaineering and beekeeping. He is keen on painting, collects antiques, objects of folk-customs and Ukrainian national clothes, and restores objects of Trypillya culture.

Each year he climbs Hoverla, Ukraine's highest mountain. After receiving a checkup in which doctors determined he was healthy despite the previous year's dioxin poisoning, he successfully climbed the mountain again on July 16, 2005.

During that climb Yushchenko and a group of his bodyguards were reportedly struck by a lightning bolt. The incident has never been officially described, although the media cited witnesses stating that President and all but one guard fell unconscious. However, the President's office later admitted that other climbers had been injured or killed by that lightning strike.

See also

• List of national leaders
• Orange Revolution
• Politics of Ukraine
• Ukrainian presidential election, 2004
• Ukrainization
• Victims of poisoning

References

• Сandidate Viktor Yushchenko wins first round of Ukraine election (10 November 2004). Rule of Law Foundation.

External links

Web sites and pages

• My Ukraine — Personal website of Viktor Yushchenko
• President of Ukraine — Official website
• razom.org.ua — Nasha Ukrayina website
• Verbatim Account of the Inaugural Ceremony, January 23, 2005 — Official site of the parliament Template:Uk icon
• youtube.com — video file of Viktor Yushchenko speaking to the Ukrainian nation] Template:Uk icon

News and articles

• BBC News profile
• Viktor Yuschenko in news
• Who poisoned Viktor Yushchenko? (from the Times Online)
• Approval of Yekhanurov: The Price of the Deal (Ukrayinska Pravda's critical article on the agreement between Yushchenko and Yanukovych; September 2005) Template:Uk icon

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