Kuchma predicts unless democrats unite presidential victory will go to the left (12/27/98)

Kuchma predicts unless democrats unite presidential victory will go to the left

by Pavel Politiuk
Special to The Ukrainian Weekly

KYIV - Less than a year before presidential elections, Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma forecast that they would be a repeat of last spring's Parliament referendum, when Ukrainian centrist and right-wing parties could not unite and allowed the left to win more than half the seats in the Verkhovna Rada.

"I am sure that the situation with presidential elections will be analogous to the situation during the Ukrainian parliamentary elections," President Kuchma told regional journalists during a meeting on December 15.

"Democrats cannot unite themselves, which is to the detriment of Ukraine," he said. "Each sees himself with the bulava" [mace - a symbol of authority].

During the past few months Mr. Kuchma several times has called on centrist and right-wing parties to unite in collaboration with the president and the government against a front of powerful Communist and Socialist political forces.

But center and right-wing political leaders have expressed concerns that President Kuchma is merely trying to compromise the democratic forces and pull them toward him in the run-up to presidential elections because he has little chance of obtaining their support otherwise. Few believe that he would be nominated by any of the current center or center-right parties.

Analysts say the president is afraid to lose his current status as the only candidate who is fighting against Communist influences in government and is trying to convince voters that other political leaders do not have the power to combat the leftist threat.

Even as President Kuchma criticized the lack of unity in the democratic political bloc, a move toward coalition had begun. Early this month, two strong parties - Rukh, which is led by National Deputy Vyacheslav Chornovil and the Reform and Order Party of Viktor Pynzenyk, a former vice prime minister in the Kuchma administration - united in a pre-election political bloc, creating the first potentially powerful election coalition.

"This is a union of two center-right wing parties that has a real chance to win the presidential elections next year," said Mr. Pynzenyk, who quit the government last year after accusing it of not being truly dedicated to economic reform.

Ivan Zayets, a leader of the Rukh Party, added at the press conference announcing the union that it is open to other democratically oriented political parties.

Taras Stetskiv, head of Lviv branch of the National Democratic Party, whose best-known member is Prime Minister Valerii Pustovoitenko and which sides with President Kuchma on most issues, said his party is discussing the possibility of joining the Rukh-Reform and Order coalition.

"The union of Rukh and the Reform and Order Party is an extremely positive event for Ukraine, and I expect that a few other centrist parties, including the National Democratic Party, might join the union," said Mr. Stetskiv. "This coalition is the real opponent to the left's re-entrenchment in Ukraine - not Kuchma," he added.

President Kuchma faces uncertain times because both left- and right-wing political parties blame the him for the country's unsuccessful economic policies. Both sides accuse the president of doing too little to steer the former Soviet republic out of its prolonged economic slump - one that has been aggravated by the spill-over effects of the crisis gripping neighboring Russia.

Some leftists have resisted attempting to topple the current government before presidential elections to avoid sharing the blame for the economic situation. President Kuchma has said that he would invite Communists to form a government if the current Pustovoitenko-led Cabinet of Ministers is forced to resign.

The president and his government face grave problems, including payment of more than $2 billion in arrears to workers and pensioners who have gone without pay for months, and finding a way to repay domestic and foreign debts. Average monthly wages are equivalent to $60, while pensions range from $15 to $17.

President Kuchma also suggested at the press conference with regional press representatives that the president's constitutional right to issue economic decrees - a temporary provision in the 1996 Constitution that is to expire in June 1999 - should be extended for another five years.

The president said he is considering calling a national referendum to make the needed constitutional change and other possible amendment. "I do not see any other way in the future but to hold an all-Ukrainian referendum on major articles of Ukraine's Constitution," said Mr. Kuchma.

Among the amendments he proposed is a provision to replace Ukraine's single-chamber Verkhovna Rada, whose Communist-led leadership has blocked much of President Kuchma's economic reform legislation, with a bicameral body.

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