GOVERNMENT-OPPOSITION RELATIONS IN UKRAINE, 2010–2013

Abstract

Summary. The research aims at defining the key methods Yanukovych’s regime applied to fight the opposition parties and their top leaders. The research methodology is based on historicism and objectivity principles, comprises general scientific (analysis, synthesis, comparison) as well as specified historic methods (those of diachrony, synchrony, historical genesis and retrospective). The article’s scientific novelty is determined by a system analysis of the methods Yanukovych’s retinue applied against his political opponents highlighting their role in building up the fourth President of Ukraine’s authoritarian rule. Conclusions. The specificity of Ukraine’s political and legislative climate under Yanukovych’s rule has been demonstrated. The patterns of the criminal proceedings against the opposition leaders have been defined and researched. The criminal prosecution against Yuliya Tymoshenko, the Preimer and the leader of Batkivshchyna party, following her government’s management audit, serves as a case of Ukraine’s political field’s prime cleanup. The key phases of the criminal prosecution against Yurii Lutsenko, the Orange Top leader, have been defined. The political repressions of more than twenty Tymoshenko’s supporters, the article suggests, serves as a background for preparing and implementing the tax overhaul project authored by V. Yanukovych and S. Tigipko. The fundamentals of this reform, as well as its reception by Ukrainian business elite, have been analyzed in brief to provide the necessary context, i.e., to demonstrate the roles the agents affiliated with the Regions Party had taken and the methods they applied to break the so-called Tax Maidan and to subsequently persecute its organizers and participants. Specific attention has been paid to the fight Yanukovych’s regime initiated against the radical right and nationalist movement, forging the criminal cases against the members of certain nationalist organizations and movements functioning in Zaporizhzhya and Kyiv regions, i.e., "Tryzub" ("The Trident"), "Ukraine’s Patriot", "Social National Assembly". Restraining the forces opposite to the Regions Party and the regime was done through bribing or granting governmental preferences to the business elites. The secret ledgers of the Regions Party serve as an important source for identifying the officials thus corrupted by the regime. To define the corruption scales and the key bribery initiators identities, a thorough analysis of these ledgers (known as "the spreadsheets") has been provided.