Ukraine’s Yulia Tymoshenko fights to keep presidential hopes alive

Once the face of a popular uprising, nicknamed the “gas princess” for her time as an energy tycoon and imprisoned by a rival — former Ukrainian prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko has a reputation as a political survivor.

But demands for change from Ukrainians fed up with corruption and low living standards may yet jeopardise her third and possibly final attempt to become the country’s president at this month’s elections.

She claims her experience negotiating with Vladimir Putin will help her end a smouldering war on Ukraine’s eastern border by expanding talks to include the US and UK — even if her past dealings with the Russian president make her an object of suspicion to some Ukrainians. “She has backbone and spine — that makes her able to return people’s trust,” said Hryhoriy Nemyria, deputy head of her party Fatherland.

But while Ms Tymoshenko comfortably led polls throughout last year, recent allegations of corruption and the emergence of Volodymyr Zelensky, a 41-year-old comedian with no political experience, have dented her hopes, and those of Petro Poroshenko, the president seeking another term.

Mr Zelensky is now in first place ahead of the March 31 election. His surge has left Ms Tymoshenko desperately battling Mr Poroshenko, who is also fighting allegations of corruption, to a spot in a likely second round on April 21.

She hit her ceiling last year, she’s used all her aces already and it’s not clear what she has left up her sleeve

In an effort to regain ground, Ms Tymoshenko has touted populist measures aimed at older voters, such as slashing gas prices in half, raising pensions threefold, and returning savings to Soviet bank depositors. These have alarmed investors who fear they could jeopardise crucial financial assistance from the IMF, which Mr Poroshenko has vowed to uphold.

In speeches last month she made baseless accusations that Mr Poroshenko had appointed a US-born health minister at the behest of “foreigners” who wanted to “experiment on Ukrainians”.

With Ukrainians eager for change, however — both she and Mr Poroshenko have disapproval ratings in the 70s — her populist offerings may not be enough. Media reports of $6m worth of donations to her presidential campaign prompted questions about their provenance. These reports threaten to tarnish her comeback. She denies any wrongdoing. “Nobody in their right mind will believe she’ll do what she says,” said Viktor Andrusiv, an expert at the Ukrainian Institute for the Future, a liberal think-tank. “She hit her ceiling last year, she’s used all her aces already and it’s not clear what she has left up her sleeve.”

Responding to a question from the Financial Times at a briefing on Monday, US envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker questioned the benefit of Ms Tymoshenko’s call for the US and UK to play a bigger role in peace talks through a so-called Budapest Memorandum format, a plan that takes its name from a 1994 agreement that saw Kiev surrender its Soviet nuclear arsenal in return for security assurances.

“What we have is not a lack of an appropriate format, what we have is a lack of will from Russia” to withdraw from Crimea and Ukraine’s far east, Mr Volker said adding that Moscow “occupies” both regions.

Ms Tymoshenko’s attempted metamorphosis is the latest in a long career. The former energy tycoon only spoke Russian when she went into politics in the late 1990s but successfully reinvented herself as a nationalist, pro-western reformer — complete with mannered Ukrainian and a blonde peasant braid.

Her populist stump speeches made her a star of the 2004 Orange Revolution that reversed pro-Russian candidate Viktor Yanukovych’s fraud-tainted election win. She served two stints as prime minister but lost favour with voters after she agreed a 2009 gas import deal that saw prices rise. Mr Yanukovych returned to power in 2010.

He then had her jailed over the gas deal and paid US political consultant Paul Manafort — who has since been convicted as part of an inquiry into Russia’s meddling in the US election — to deliver a report justifying her arrest. Ms Tymoshenko dismisses allegations of past corruption — she was not indicted in US charges in which her mentor Pavlo Lazarenko was jailed in 2006 for laundering $114m in stolen funds — as “Manafort’s propaganda”.

Many observers thought her career had waned when she failed to win an election after being released from prison in 2014. “She went back to school,” Mr Nemyria said. “It's not just decorations, slogans, and all that. There really are papers, there are working groups.”

Ukraine’s western backers and investors, however, believe Ms Tymoshenko would have to choose between making good on her populist pledges and appeasing the IMF, whose support is conditional on utilities reform.  IMF managing director Christine Lagarde said after meeting Ms Tymoshenko last month that she had “highlighted the urgency for Ukraine to safeguard the gains made in restoring macroeconomic stability and to press ahead with the deeper structural reforms”.

Ms Tymoshenko’s fiery rhetoric no longer draws the huge crowds of a decade ago. Support in her former stronghold in western Ukraine has ebbed so much that aides have bussed in supporters to make rallies look bigger, according to a local party member.

But Ms Tymoshenko’s dogged pursuit of power means few are ready to write her off just yet. “She believes that Ukraine is too big for small dreams,” Mr Nemyria said, paraphrasing Ronald Reagan. “Every dream begins with a dreamer.”