Kuchma will face new difficulties (04/05/98)

Kuchma will face new difficulties

by Pavel Politiuk
Special to The Ukrainian Weekly

KYIV - Speaking on the eve of election day, leaders of popular Ukrainian political parties predicted that the results of parliamentary elections scheduled for March 29 would make it increasingly difficult for President Leonid Kuchma to remain an effective head of state, which could threaten his re-election in 1999.

"Unfortunately, we should recognize that the chances for political parties that can be considered pro-presidential to form a majority in the future Parliament are very small," said Ivan Pliushch, a leader of the pro-presidential National Democratic Party (NDP).

"We are a single political party that stated directly that we are supporters of the Ukrainian government and have full responsibility for the economic situation in the country. And we will not deny it," said Mr. Pliushch.

Vyacheslav Chornovil, the leader of the national-democratic Rukh party, added, "This situation, in which political parties that have declared their opposition to President Kuchma will form the parliament's majority, means that Kuchma's chances to be president of Ukraine [again] are seriously hindered."

"President Kuchma and some of his allies claim the Parliament and opposition parties do not want to cooperate with the president, and that the absence of this cooperation is the cause of slow economic and political reforms in Ukraine," said former President Leonid Kravchuk, today a leader of the Social Democratic Party - United. He added that he thinks what the president really wants is to be the one to set the nation's agenda. "We will cooperate with Kuchma, as well as with any other president, only when our vision and the president's ideas are the same."

President Kuchma has said he is ready to cooperate with the future Parliament but only if lawmakers are ready to cooperate with him.