Interior minister adviser attacks president for exploiting EuroMaidan

Ilya Kiva, an advisor to Interior Minister Arsen
Avakov, attacked President Petro Poroshenko for exploiting the 2013-2014
EuroMaidan protests to get elected and enrich himself at the expense of its
supporters. On the days when law enforcement authorities were killing
EuroMaidan activists, Poroshenko was drunk, Kiva told a political talk show on
Nov. 22. “It was scary. We wanted to ask someone for help and hear what we
should do further because we were getting killed,” he said. “And I went to that
second floor (of the Trade Union building), where a drunk Poroshenko was
walking around. It’s true! When he stumbled onto the street drunk and was
barely able to speak. That’s also true!” He added, “One set of people stood on
the stage, while others died. Revolutions are created and paid for with one set
of lives, while another profits off of them.”

Zenon Zawada: Kiva’s
accusations themselves are not important and could otherwise be dismissed. Even
if they are true, Poroshenko was among the limited numbers of politicians
appearing at the EuroMaidan, supporting Ukraine’s Euro-integration course and
calling for peace throughout the protest, when it was possible. What’s
significant about Kiva’s accusations is that his close confidante, Internal
Affairs Minister Arsen Avakov, is hostile to the president, otherwise he
wouldn’t have made such an offensive smear. That means that Poroshenko won’t be
able to count on Avakov’s loyalty if tensions escalate during the presidential
elections. He also won’t be able to turn to Avakov to assist in fraud during
the elections to tip the scales in his favor.

So this is a negative factor in Poroshenko’s
re-election chances. With limited allies (including having lost the loyalty of
PM Volodymyr Groisman as well), it’s entirely possible that the president’s
recent secret meetings with Viktor Medvedchuk of the Opposition Platform party
were held to form an elections alliance. Poroshenko is backed by former
President Yushchenko, who also formed an alliance with the Yuriy Boyko-Dmytro
Firtash business group (Opposition Platform party this time around) in order to
defeat Yulia Tymoshenko politically in 2010. That alliance seems to have
resurfaced ahead of these elections.

Therefore, it’s also conceivable that Poroshenko
has allowed for the Opposition Platform group to have influence over the
elections process (and results) in the Russian-oriented southeastern regions,
so long as they restrict themselves to playing the supporting role of the
Russian-oriented opposition. After all, among Poroshenko’s advantages is in
retaining control of the Central Election Commission. In exchange for strong
results in the southeastern regions (and being allowed to form the
parliamentary opposition), the Boyko-Firtash-Medvedchuk alliance would gain
business preferences after the new government and parliament emerges. This
scenario seems entirely logical, considering that Poroshenko and Medvedchuk
have been in active consultations recently. And most certainly not about
Ukrainian prisoners in Russia, unfortunately.