Translated by Ollie Richardson and Angelina SiardUkraine received a new master, irrespective of who will take the presidency.
cross posted with https://www.stalkerzone.org/the-new-master-of-ukraine/
Source: https://ukraina.ru/exclusive/20190403/1023202774.html
The master is named Igor Valeryevich Kolomoisky. It is he who detailed and implemented the scenario of the first round of voting in such a way that Poroshenko - who progressed to the second round, Tymoshenko - who didn't progress, Boyko - who took fourth place, and also the oligarchical groups that place a stake on each of them, found themselves being completely dependent on Kolomoisky.
We don't know how he managed to establish control over territorial election commissions, which had to provide the counting of votes for the benefit of Yuliya Tymoshenko. But we can assume that Yuliya Tymoshenko and her headquarters gave him this control within the framework of an agreement on a joint fight against Poroshenko. Yuliya Tymoshenko's mentality and her environment did not allow either of them to assume that Kolomoisky will agree with the president (even if it is temporary). After all, it is precisely Poroshenko who took away "Ukrneft" and "Privatbank" from Kolomoisky, drove him out of the country, and seriously nibbled on his business assets. Therefore, they did not see any problem in tasking Kolomoisky with working with commissions. After all, Zelensky (who was propelled forward by Kolomoisky) succeeded to progress to the second round anyway. Kolomoisky, (according to Tymoshenko) could not come to an arrangement with Poroshenko, and nobody else could compete with Yuliya Tymoshenko in the fight for a place in the second round. Tymoshenko's HQ considered that it will only be profitable for Kolomoisky to build a derby of his candidates in the second round. Besides this, buying off commissions cost a lot, and Kolomoisky is known for paying without bargaining, while Tymoshenko got used to not spending, but earning money during political campaigns. So why not allow Kolomoisky to pay for the loyalty of the commissions? After all, he is an ally, and it's not seen that he has options for changing his partner.
Igor Kolomoisky turned out to be much cleverer than all other Ukrainian politicians. He forecasted the situation further than the first move. It is obvious that as soon as Poroshenko started to lose his chances of keeping the presidency, Tymoshenko's interest in cooperating with Kolomoisky had to promptly fall. Why would she need to share power with his stooge, knowing firsthand how difficult working with Igor Kolomoisky is. It is possible to try to become the sole leader. Especially since the entire Ukrainian oligarchy was afraid of, and hated, Kolomoisky for being too clever and unpredictable and easily outplaying all of them in any conflict.
Generally, by arriving with Zelensky in the second round of voting, Tymoshenko would've - practically with guarantee - started to bring together an anti-Kolomoisky coalition. It shouldn't be excluded that she would've succeeded to make Poroshenko (from the remains of his administrative resource) join this affair, having promised to preserve his property and freedom after her arrival to power. And even if she wouldn't have done this, then she nevertheless had the opportunity, and in politics it's intentions, not opportunities, that are evaluated. Especially since Tymoshenko never thought about fidelity to her colleagues in the fight and sold them every time as soon as the need to have them disappeared and a buyer was found. But Kolomoisky not only did an overtaking manoeuvre, having committed treason before being betrayed himself. This did not solve for him the problem of the second round, because the Poroshenko who progressed to the second round became the same point of assembly for all the anti-Kolomoisky forces, which Tymoshenko could've been instead. And it is unknown who would be more dangerous for Kolomoisky.
Kolomoisky played with two partners at the same time. On the one hand, by using his control over Tymoshenko's commissions, he gave Poroshenko a free pass to the second round. I think that Yuliya Tymoshenko rejected the idea of creating a scandal concerning falsifications not least because they happened in those territorial election commissions where her people were sat. They simply committed falsifications not in her favour. To be indignant with your own appointees, accusing them of falsifications, looks not only stupid, but also dangerous, since nobody will work with you after this.
On the other hand, Kolomoisky ensured a huge advantage in votes for his stooge. Zelensky collected 165,000 more votes than Poroshenko and Tymoshenko combined. This move has huge psychological value. Knowing to what extent Tymoshenko and Poroshenko's electorates are mutually exclusive, nobody will believe that their voters will unite against Zelensky. It's rather the voters of Tymoshenko who will support the stooge of Kolomoisky. There is a similar situation with Yury Boyko's voters too. But Boyko + Tymoshenko + Zelensky = nearly 10.5 million votes. Even if 1.5 million will not come to the election or will vote for someone else, victory in the second round is more than guaranteed.
Moreover, Poroshenko, Tymoshenko, and Boyko's results were located very closely. Between 2nd and 4th place the difference is about 4% and is less than 800,000 votes. This gives Kolomoisky a good reserve for the parliamentary election, which is supposed to take place in the autumn, but can be carried out ahead of schedule (whilst the people's belief in the "noble comedian" hasn't yet deflated). If the parliamentary election correlates in general with the presidential one, then, having entered the list of Zelensky's party "Servant of the People" into parliament, Kolomoisky will receive "golden stock". A possible certain drop in the level of support for Zelensky can be partially compensated for by pointing to the fact that the "oligarchical parliament" does not allow the "people's president" to assert himself. The main compensator, allowing even to improve the parliamentary election result, should be Poroshenko's electorate. In any society 5-10% of active voters vote for any government. But if Zelensky is elected as president, then he will already be "any government", and this means that these 1-2 million voters will join the ranks of his supporters.
If the results of the parliamentary election at least partially correlate with the results of the presidential one (and they will correlate even more than they usually do), then five-six party projects will be able to enter the Rada. Smeshko can join somebody, but independently he will not bring his party to the Rada. The passage of Poroshenko's "Solidarity" party to the Rada is also under question. Taking into account the overflow of votes to Zelensky and their outflow from Poroshenko, a coalition can be formed either with Boyko or with Tymoshenko, or with both of them. If it is necessary, it can be strengthened by the minority party project of Lyashko, who is always ready for services of this sort.
Kolomoisky has already shown how he is able to control voting. So there is practically no doubt that the parties he needs will receive the necessary number of votes. He has one problem - the very probable disloyalty of Zelensky after he becomes president, gains power, and oligarchs will begin to come to him with the offer to have their wallet and their people in state office. But since this problem lies on the surface, Kolomoisky should foresee it, especially since it is possible to solve it in several ways, without particularly straining himself.
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