What’s the best thing about getting elected president?  You can wrestle control of the legal system and use it to chase down your opponents and aid your business positions.  Maybe there are some grounds behind this reopened case against former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko – it’s clear that there is a complicated past, and it’s not hard to get dirt on any successful Ukrainian – but the timing and handling of this renewed interest by investigators smacks of an arbitrary, politically motivated witch hunt.  My guess would be that Viktor Yanukovych would just like to remind people that he’s willing to let the dogs loose.

From the Financial Times:

Ukraine’s prosecutor’s office said on Wednesday it had reopened a 2004 criminal case against Yulia Tymoshenko, the former prime minister, over accusations that she had tried to bribe Supreme Court judges.

Ms Tymoshenko on Wednesday claimed the opposition was being “repressed” much like under the authoritarian presidency of Leonid Kuchma, when she was jailed for several months. She linked the latest investigation to the May 17-18 visit to Kiev of Dmitry Medvedev, Russian president, saying: “Yanukovich wants to demonstrate how he deals with the opposition.” (…)