Nationwide referendum is scheduled on constitutional questions (01/23/00)

Nationwide referendum is scheduled on constitutional questions

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - An effort promoted by President Leonid Kuchma to put several constitutional questions before the Ukrainian people has culminated in the scheduling of a national referendum for April 16. The plebiscite will include a question regarding dismissal of the current Verkhovna Rada and its transformation into a bicameral body.

President Kuchma issued a presidential decree authorizing the national poll on January 15 after an organized initiative, which the presidential administration maintains was a spontaneous grassroots movement, but which many experts say was organized by those close to the administration. The organizers gathered nearly 4 million signatures, far surpassing the minimum 3 million required by law to bring the questions before the Ukrainian nation.

Leonid Pidpalov, first deputy chief of the presidential administration, said the need for a referendum was driven by a national desire to reinvigorate reforms and make the needed changes to get the country and the government working properly.

"The citizens, voters of Ukraine, well understand the political processes going on, and they realized that changes and reforms must begin. We can no longer dance in place," said Mr. Pidpalov.

Critics of the referendum have called the effort unconstitutional and illegitimate, but there is little reason to believe the presidential decree will be rescinded. The Committee of Voters of Ukraine, a non-governmental organization that tracks elections, said that in accordance with the Constitution only the Verkhovna Rada has the right to approve questions to be placed on a referendum ballot. It also criticized the president's failure to include the Constitutional Court in the process of developing the referendum.

Mr. Pidpalov, however, said that the initiation of the referendum and the president's decree fall fully within the norms of the Constitution.

"The Constitutional requirements were, without question, upheld," said Mr. Pidpalov. He also said the presidential decree can not be canceled because it was issued on the basis of a request by 4 million Ukrainian voters.

The idea for a national referendum - the first of its kind to be decreed by a president - came after Mr. Kuchma initially made public a proposal to transform the Parliament into a two-chamber legislature. Speaking during a meeting with mayors and oblast regional leaders in the fall, he emphasized that the idea was theirs and that he would support it because it would give the regions a stronger voice in the nation's capital. As proposed, the lower house of the Verkhovna Rada would be elected as it currently is, while the upper house would be a representative body of regional leaders.

A petition drive was organized because any change to the Parliament's structure requires amendments to the Constitution. Changes can occur via a national referendum or after a two-thirds vote of the Verkhovna Rada in two different sessions.

According to Ukraine's Central Election Commission (CEC) the various grassroots organizations that organized the petition drive gathered 3,947,955 signatures and fulfilled the requirement that a minimum of 100,000 votes be gathered in at least two-thirds of Ukraine's 26 oblasts and administrative regions.

Ukrainian voters will respond to a total of six questions on April 16. If authorized by voters, the president would gain additional control over Ukraine's legislative body through his ability to dismiss it if it does not meet requirements stipulated in the national poll.

The first question asks Ukrainian voters whether they are willing to express no confidence in the current Parliament and, if so, whether they agree that the Constitution should be changed to allow the president to dismiss the Verkhovna Rada on the basis of a popular vote of no confidence.

The next question asks whether an amendment to the Constitution is needed to give the president the power to dismiss the Parliament if it fails to organize a sustainable parliamentary majority within 30 days or if it fails to pass a budget within 90 days after its submission by the Cabinet of Ministers.

The third question queries voters on whether they agree that immunity from criminal prosecution held by national deputies should be removed.

The fourth one asks that the Constitution be amended to reduce the number of national deputies from 450 to 300, while the fifth one deals with changes to allow for a bicameral Parliament.

The last question asks whether the Constitution of Ukraine must be ratified by an "all-Ukrainian referendum."

Mykhailo Riabets, head of the CEC, said on January 19 that a two-thirds majority on the no-confidence question will be required to dismiss the current Verkhovna Rada, while a simple majority will decide the other five questions. He emphasized, however, that at least 50 percent of all eligible Ukrainian voters would have to cast their ballots for the referendum to be ruled valid.

Unsurprisingly, the decree on the referendum brought an outcry from the Verkhovna Rada leadership. Chairman Oleksander Tkachenko said on January 17 that the national survey was nothing more than an attempt by the president to grab more power for himself and his political oligarchy.

"The declaration of the president for a national referendum is no more than the ambition of the president to obtain unlimited powers, destroy the Parliament and restrict the rights and freedoms of all the citizens of Ukraine," said Mr. Tkachenko.

The Parliament chief - who has faced additional pressures in the last week after a centrist majority coalition formed and declared that one of its central objectives to rid the legislative body of its leftist leadership - said the organizers of the referendum failed to see the possible ramifications of approval of the six points in the referendum.

"The Parliament is dismissed, so what? But then who passes the legislation needed for the reduction of the number of deputies, for a bicameral body, or for that matter, who will pass the budget? I do not think they foresaw that," said Mr. Tkachenko.

Although the new parliamentary majority - which was established last week and has promised to bring an end to the legislative impasse that has crippled movement on economic reforms has officially stated that it supports the presidential decree, criticism has already emanated from within its ranks.

The National Rukh of Ukraine Party, the Reforms and Order Party, and the Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists, whose parliamentary factions are part of the 11-faction parliamentary majority, issued a statement on January 17, which noted that "the illegitimate initiation of changes to the Constitution undermines its authority and trust in it as the essence of a democratic, law-governed state."

The statement said that the referendum could lead to the de-legitimization of the current Constitution and cause a further decline in democracy and an increase in separatist tendencies.

Several political analysts have agreed that there is no clear answer about how the process begun with President Kuchma's decree will end. Mykola Tomenko, a prominent political analyst in Kyiv who runs the Institute of Politics, said the April 16 referendum could spawn at least two more national plebiscites, as well as two national elections within the next two years. He explained that after the first referendum a second one might be needed to ask the nation whether it wants a new Constitution, followed by a third referendum ratifying that Constitution.

If voters call for the dismissal of the current Parliament, then an election would have to be scheduled to replace it. That could be followed by elections to the new upper house, if it is indeed to be an elected, and not an appointed body, which nobody has yet to make clear. Then there are the elections already set for March 2002, when the mandates of the current national deputies are scheduled to expire.

"Ukraine will then become known around the world as the country of referendums," said Mr. Tomenko.

Mr. Tomenko did not mention another referendum currently in the works, which the Communists are organizing in an attempt to abolish the office of the presidency. The CEC acknowledged on January 17 that it had received petitions from the Communist Party, but had not yet reviewed them. A referendum cannot be scheduled earlier than three months from the date the required petitions have been accepted.

If indeed the Communist Party has succeeded in gathering at least 3 million signatures then sometime soon Ukrainians will also be asked whether the presidency is needed and whether the country should give more power to local councils.

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