ANALYSIS: No resolution in sight for Ukraine (02/20/00)

ANALYSIS

No resolution in sight for Ukraine

by Jan Maksymiuk
RFE/RL Poland, Belarus and Ukraine Report

PRAGUE - By choosing Ivan Pliusch as the new chairman of the Verkhovna Rada on February 1, the center-right majority made the current standoff in the Ukrainian Parliament even worse.

A compromise between the two warring factions seems very unlikely since the leftist minority - composed of the Communist Party, Socialist Party Progressive Socialist Party, and the Peasant Party caucus - is demanding that the majority revoke all former decisions and submit them to a repeat vote by the entire house.

As for the majority, it wants opponents to accept a fait accompli.

President Leonid Kuchma on February 4 pushed the standoff even further down an irreversible path by signing into law two bills passed by the majority on February 1 - one abolishing the holiday commemorating the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, the other on renumbering independent Ukraine's legislatures to make the current Verkhovna Rada the third rather than the 14th.

The latter bill is believed to be a ruse on the part of the majority to avoid the dissolution of the Parliament should the April 16 constitutional referendum result in a popular vote of no confidence in the Parliament. In such a situation, some commentators suggest, the vote will affect only the "old" legislature, that is, the leftist minority. In other words, the president will "dissolve" the leftist faction, leaving the center-rightists untouched.

Whatever President Kuchma's true intentions, both factions of the Parliament are now fully at the mercy of the president. If they fail to reconcile their differences by mid-February, Mr. Kuchma may disband the legislature under the constitutional provision stipulating such a punitive measure if lawmakers are unable to convene a session within 30 days. Even if both factions were to unite for a session, the Verkhovna Rada will still face a dissolution threat in two months, following the April referendum (which many regard as a mere formality in passing a vote of no confidence in the legislature as a whole). This dual threat is sufficient to make the majority deputies approve all bills required by the executive.

However, there seems to be a danger that the current parliamentary crisis may go far beyond the immediate need to create a docile legislature that could approve a 2000 budget and vote for a number of reforms. Many analysts argue that not only the current Parliament but also the future of the parliamentary system in Ukraine may be doomed if the constitutional referendum gives Mr. Kuchma the go-ahead to amend the Constitution.

What is more, collateral damage in the standoff and the referendum may be evident in the growth of public distrust in independent Ukraine's constitutional system. In fact, that system may be subject to significant reconstruction without having had a chance to secure its foundations.

Even some majority deputies feel that the resolutions adopted by their faction, including those on the parliamentary leadership, are unconstitutional and unlawful because they were adopted without consent of the legally elected chairman and outside the parliamentary building.

If those decisions are enforced by the president in practice, they may spark a crisis of the executive power's legitimacy similar to that in neighboring Belarus. The only difference will be that, whereas Belarus has removed its center-rightist opposition from the political process, Ukraine will seek to do the same with its leftist forces.

If President Kuchma decides to disband the Parliament and call for new elections, the country - which is under the immediate threat of financial bankruptcy and social upheaval - will become engaged in yet another turbulent political campaign, meaning that the resolution of urgent socio-economic problems will once again be pushed back to some later date, if not dropped altogether.

In that case, it is highly probable that a presidential dictatorship will be introduced in Ukraine. The idea that it is possible to go toward a market economy with the help of a dictatorship is not new, but it has so far not been put to the test in the post-Soviet area. Indeed, the example of Belarus suggests that a post-Soviet dictatorship would serve to push the country as far backward as possible.

On the other hand, many in Ukraine, including both political elites and ordinary citizens, may be longing for the rule of a "strongman," especially as Ukraine's "experiments with democracy" over the past nine years have proved so inefficient in the economic sphere. But with President Kuchma in Kyiv running the country (like President Alyaksandr Lukashenka in Miensk) by means of decrees and edicts, Ukraine will put itself at risk of losing the West's material and moral support.

Some cynics may argue that Mr. Kuchma's policy of seeking rapprochement with the West is not Mr. Lukashenka's "back-to-the-USSR" drive, therefore the West will not abandon Kyiv as quickly as it did official Miensk. Therefore, in the short run, autocracy for Ukraine might not prove as bad as some fear.

Unfortunately, the country's problems cannot be resolved in a year or two. And this means that autocracy in Ukraine could become not only an emergency measure but a preferred way of rule for many years to come.

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