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Kyiv, Ukraine – With her trademark crown braid, Yulia Tymoshenko was the Orange Revolution’s poster girl.
In 2004, mass pro-Western protests overturned what the demonstrators said was the fraudulent election of Viktor Yanukovych, a Moscow-friendly presidential candidate – and made Tymoshenko Ukraine’s first female prime minister.
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But “scandal” is the word mostly associated with Tymoshenko’s subsequent political trajectory along with a recent ideological tilt towards neo-conservative nationalism that largely resonates with United States President Donald Trump’s rhetoric.
Despite her chameleon-like populism, Tymoshenko, a prominent opposition politician, sank in the polls and unsuccessfully ran for president three times, including in 2019 when Ukrainians voted in Volodymyr Zelenskyy, a comedian with zero political experience.
Last week, Tymoshenko called Zelenskyy a “narrow-minded dictator” and accused him of orchestrating corruption charges against her to bar her from taking part in a new presidential race.
Observers have told Al Jazeera that her dismal approval ratings mean she is not a rival to Zelenskyy while her rift with the president may weaken wartime decision-making and her obstruction of new cabinet appointments constitutes an “outrageous crime”.
Anticorruption investigators who charged Tymoshenko on Wednesday with “buying” lawmakers’ votes have proved their independence from Zelenskyy by going after his closest allies and lawmakers from his Servant of the People party.
Investigators searched the office of Tymoshenko’s Motherland party for 12 hours and published a recording of Tymoshenko talking to a Servant of the People lawmaker discussing bribes of $10,000 per vote.
“If we agree with you today, then we’re recording who’s with you, … and I’ll be paying you,” Tymoshenko is heard saying in Russian on the tape.
Prosecutors with the National Anti-Corruption Bureau and the Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office pointed out that the scheme was long term.
“These were not one-off arrangements but a regular mechanism of cooperation that involved advance payments and was designed for a long period,” they said. “Lawmakers were to receive instructions on voting and in some cases on abstaining or not participating in the vote.”
While discussing the alleged payments, Tymoshenko is heard saying the goal of her party’s rigged voting would be against the appointment of new defence and energy ministers.
The Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine’s lower house of parliament, has so far failed to vote in Denys Shmygal as the new energy minister amid debilitating, hours- and even days-long blackouts caused by Russia’s methodical missile and drone strikes on energy infrastructure.
Former digital development minister Mikhail Fyodorov was voted in as the new defence minister on Wednesday.
Tymoshenko accused of ‘outrageous’ conduct
Tymoshenko’s party holds a mere 25 seats in the 450-seat Verkhovna Rada, but its votes have become increasingly essential for Zelenskyy, whose control over the 227-seat majority held by Servant of the People has been slipping.
“The ruling party has no majority, and other partners haggle with it, and it’s pretty logical at this stage,” Kyiv-based analyst Igar Tyshkevych told Al Jazeera.
Tymoshenko’s reluctance to facilitate the appointment of key ministers is nothing short of criminal, according to a four-star general.
“When the nation is at war and the defence minister’s post is of utmost importance, when the nation is cold, without heating and running water, the energy minister is really important,” Lieutenant General Ihor Romanenko, former deputy head of Ukraine’s General Staff, told Al Jazeera.
“This is, undoubtedly, a crime, the most outrageous crime during the war, and that’s what she should be held responsible for,” he said.
He said Tymoshenko has a record of obstructing government decisions related to Ukraine’s defence against Moscow’s aggression. In early 2014, she advocated against the use of force against tens of thousands of Russian soldiers who swarmed Crimea during an interregnum that followed the toppling of Yanukovych.
Yanukovych won the presidency in 2010 and orchestrated a trial in which Tymoshenko was sentenced to seven years in prison for “abuse of power”.
After he fled to Russia, she was freed by pro-Western protesters.
“She said that no soldier should leave the barracks and no tank should leave the box,” Romanenko said.
Tymoshenko has said the current corruption probe against her is aimed at barring her from taking part in a presidential election – even though elections are banned during the war against Russia’s invasion, which will enter its fifth year in February.
“It looks like the election is closer than it seemed, and someone decided to purge the rivals,” she wrote on Facebook on Wednesday, apparently referring to Zelenskyy. “… I’ve been fearless for a long time as I know I am honest before myself, the people and Ukraine.”
‘No competitor for Zelenskyy’
Analysts ridiculed her claim.
Tymoshenko is “no competitor for Zelenskyy”, Volodymyr Fesenko, head of the Penta think tank in Kyiv, told Al Jazeera.
She has “no chances of even making it to the second round,” he said, citing opinion polls that give Tymoshenko approval ratings of 3 to 4 percent and name her one of the “most hated” politicians in Ukraine.
“If presidential elections were held now, in the best case scenario, she would be number six, seven or eight,” Fesenko said.
However, the investigation and Tymoshenko’s diatribes against Zelenskyy could change the speed and efficiency of wartime decision-making.
Motherland sided with Zelenskyy on most bills, and the rift may jeopardise his control over the Verkhovna Rada.
So, despite what Tymoshenko claims about her alleged danger to Zelenskyy during a presumed presidential campaign, the investigation is detrimental to the president and the overall war effort, Fesenko said.
Anticorruption investigators are focused on Tymoshenko’s role as one of the Verkhovna Rada’s puppet masters.
She is “one of the few influential politicians in the Rada who deal with shadowy financial matters”, Fesenko said. “She’s been doing it her whole life.”
In late December, anticorruption bodies charged two dozen lawmakers, including five with the Servant of the People, with corruption and vote rigging.
The scandal is going to boost media attention on the anticorruption bodies even though convictions of the alleged wrongdoers are far from guaranteed.
“She is going to get away with it,” a former Motherland lawmaker told Al Jazeera on condition of anonymity because he fears “retaliation” from Tymoshenko.
“She hates Zelenskyy’s guts. She thinks he stole her presidency” in 2019, he said. “And now she thinks that he [activated anticorruption officials against] her because she could win the vote, which is absurd because her ratings are way below his.”
Tymoshenko has posted bail of 33 million hryvnia ($761,000) and is not allowed to leave the Kyiv region.
On Tuesday, a court will decide whether her assets should be frozen. Her trial may begin in months.
