Tymoshenko officially nominated as presidential candidate

Yulia Tymoshenko, the frontrunner in the presidential
elections, gained her official nomination as candidate at the Jan. 22
convention of the Fatherland party she founded two decades ago. Among those
extending their support was first Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk, former
Odesa Regional Administration Head Mikhail Saakashvili, and European People’s
party Head Joseph Daul. She repeated her call for an immediate referendum on a
new Constitution, shifting much of the president’s authority to the prime
minister, removing political immunity from members of parliament (MPs),
reducing the number of MPs to 350 from 450, and entirely overhauling the
corrupt judicial system.

Tymoshenko pledged to keep Ukraine’s course towards EU
and NATO integration. She said her Ukraine’s New Course economic program will
provide micro-financing loans without collateral, provide for innovative
development and enable wages and pensions to more than triple to levels
currently enjoyed in Poland. She said Ukraine would gain energy independence
within five years, including natural gas, coal, nuclear fuel and oil. She
promised to impose a tax on capital flight to replace the profit tax and a flat
farmland tax per hectare on agricultural producers.

Zenon Zawada: Tymoshenko
has everything in place to become president, including a comfortable lead in
the polls. She is popular because she has demonstrated that she is capable of
launching populist political initiatives and fulfilling at least a few of her
promises, whereas President Petro Poroshenko has a reputation for failing to
deliver on most promises.

We view removing political immunity from MPs, reducing
the number of MPs and overhauling the judicial system as positive proposals.
Offering loans without collateral, however, appears to be the standard
Tymoshenko scheme to redistribute government funds to the public. As for energy
independence, Ukraine is capable of achieving this but such an effort would
require a massive overhaul of the corrupt economy and removal of oligarchic
schemes. In short, it would require an authoritarian-style revolution.

This is among the biggest reasons why Tymoshenko is
viewed by the financial community as posing a high destabilization potential
for Ukraine. Tymoshenko has shown that she is entirely willing and capable of
overhauling Ukraine’s energy market, which landed her in prison for 2.5 years.
This is why we believe the oligarch establishment, led by Poroshenko, will do
everything possible to keep her from becoming president as she is a direct
threat to their current energy structures and shadow schemes, and their many
future plans.

So the main question is to what extent Poroshenko
will go to undermine her candidacy. At minimum, he will employ state resources
to affect the vote outcome. As an extreme measure that we view as more likely than
not, he has already demonstrated that he is capable of attempting to manipulate
a military conflict with Russia to his advantage. In our view, this is the
easiest way to avoid a Tymoshenko presidency, despite the heavy consequences
for the country.