Ukraine Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko is continuing to keep her silence two days after her apparent defeat in presidential elections, as the clock slowly ticks to another potential gas crisis in Europe.
Ms Tymoshenko on Tuesday (9 February) again declined to make any public statement on the vote, which saw her lose to rival candidate Viktor Yanukovych by a narrow margin, according to the Central Election Commission.
The ODIHR (an international monitoring mission), the EU, the US and Russia have all said the election was free and fair.
Rumblings from Ms Tymoshenko's circle indicate that Ukraine's iron lady plans to accuse Mr Yanukovych of fraud in the courts: "Yesterday evening we took the decision to challenge the legality of the voting process," Elena Shustik, the deputy head of Ms Tymoshenko's party, the BYuT, said on Tuesday.
And her public relations machine continues to work as if the election was still in full swing.
"If Yanukovych becomes president, you will have the photograph of a convicted criminal in most school classrooms and police stations across the country," Neil Pattle, from Ms Tymoshenko's UK-based PR firm, Ridge Consult, told EUobserver.
Other BYuT insiders, such as MP Nikola Tomenko, are saying she should step down and go into opposition, however. Rumours are even doing the rounds that the outgoing president, Viktor Yushchenko, will be reincarnated as the new prime minister in a deal with Mr Yanukovych.
Meanwhile, a wintry Kiev is going about its business as normal on Wednesday, with no protesters visible or expected at Independence Square, the scene of Mr Yushchenko's peaceful revolution in 2004.
Oleksandr Sushko, the director of the Institute of Euro-Atlantic Co-operation in the Ukrainian capital, said that the current political 'crisis' is no worse than the several others seen in the country over the past five years.
But it does come at a dangerous time for its economy and its capacity to keep Russian gas flowing to EU states through transit pipelines.
"It's not a total political crisis. The state institutions are functioning. But we do have a budget crisis: We have a huge deficit, which is comparable to the situation in Greece," Mr Sushko told this website.
Bohdan Sokolovsky, President Yushchenko's top aide on energy, spelled out the potential consequences for EU gas supplies if Ukraine cannot balance its books: "The situation at Naftogaz [Ukraine's gas distribution company] is very negative. If it defaults, it means Gazprom [Russian gas supply firm] could not pump gas to Europe," he said.
"Naftogaz can pay Gazprom in March but in April it does not have the money. And it cannot get credit from international institutions or from Ukrainian banks."
http://euobserver.com/9/29444
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