The decision of the District Administrative Court to suspend Ulana Suprun from the leadership of the Ministry of Healthcare is a strange and unusual case which should be described and analyzed. So…
Who plays this story? Here we can see a weird and complicated dance of opposition that is dependent on the authorities and the authorities who pretend to be opposition. Our left-wing politics managed to nurture in their voters’ hatred towards the “American woman without education who ruins our medicine”. The parliamentary coalition, the president and almost the entire Cabinet of Ministers make as if to support Ulana (in fact – they are only tolerating her, the greatest real support of her is from Prime Minister Groisman and Sayenko, Minister of the Cabinet of Ministers). The real support of Suprun goes from the liberal part of society, NGOs, youth, western councils etc. It must be separately noted that Mrs. Minister (even though she is just the interim head) succeeded in building effective communication with society (although only with the part which supports her). The medical environment treats Suprun with a silent Fronde, which sometimes bursts out with curses of those who are pushed back from the mangers by her reforms.
Ulana Suprun was the interim Minister from July 2016. Given the mood of the vast majority of People’s Deputies, her candidacy for the Minister was not even suggested – there was no chance of approval. But why the decision on her suspension was implemented right now and exactly in this way – through the court at a lawsuit of deputies from the faction of Oleh Lyashko?
The reason – the upcoming elections. Previously, Poroshenko’s team solved the issue of victory in the second round (ideally – over Boyko), but now, after an impressive start of Zelensky, the president has to compete for getting into the final. To compete with Tymoshenko
And to fight against Tymoshenko’s getting into the second round, in the opinion of the presidential strategists is best… with Oleh Lyashko. That is, with the increase in ratings of the radical leader – by the means of the rating of Tymoshenko. In fact, this technology has been long used in Ukrainian politics. It was Vitrenko who has bitten off the per cent from Petro Symonenko. And a whole group of pseudo-nationalists came out against Yushchenko in 2004 with the slogan “Your wife is an American!”. The important fact of this case is that it is this court, the District Administrative Court will not pass such a decision without a direct order from Bankova.
So what is Suprun up to here? Suprun or the suspension of the interim Minister will be used to boost the support of Oleh Lyashko by lumpen-electorate. The electorate that he shares with Yulia Tymoshenko and that could be not enough for getting into the second round. The electorate that deeply hates Ulana.
And then Poroshenko and Zelensky would meet for a duel.
But this is a completely different story…
Dmytro Simansky