INSIGHT INTO THE NEWS: Kyiv and the power struggle in Crimea (08/06/00)

INSIGHT INTO THE NEWS

by David Marples

Kyiv and the power struggle in Crimea

On May 31, the Crimean Parliament backed down on a decision to dismiss the government of the autonomous republic, thereby ending for the moment a three-week political crisis. The decision followed meetings of President Leonid Kuchma with the Premier Serhii Kunitsyn and the chairman of the regional legislature, Leonid Hrach in both Crimea and Kyiv.

Mr. Kunitsyn's problems had begun with the arrest of two Cabinet ministers on May 10 for alleged abuses of their positions: Minister of Agriculture Mykola Orlovskyi and Minister of Finance Lyudmila Denisova. The latter maintained that her detention, which was very brief, was politically motivated (Krymskaya Pravda, May 16). According to Mr. Kunitsyn's account, the Crimean government had committed itself to a business deal worth 120 million hrv with an e-mail agreement. Ms. Denisova refused to be bound by this agreement, which included the Black Sea Ban of Reconstruction and the Slavyanskiy Bank and took place when Mikhail Vitkov was the minister of finance. As a result of the Ms. Denisova's refusal to be bound by an agreement of a previous government, she has received death threats (these are not uncommon in Crimea; in February 1998, Aleksandr Safontsev, the first deputy prime minister of the autonomous republic, was assassinated when a bomb exploded near his car) and her action alienated certain business circles in the region. Mr. Kunitsyn also refused to be bound by the financial deals made by his predecessors.

Clearly a sustained assault on the regional government was under way. On May 24, the Crimean Parliament, headed by the Communist Party leader Mr. Hrach since May 1998, voted to dismiss the Kunitsyn government by a vote of 68-20, thereby attaining more than the two-thirds majority required by the Constitution of Ukraine.

In the murky world of Crimean politics, it is not always easy to discern the motives behind events, but in this case a power struggle has clearly been under way for some time. Mr. Kunitsyn has been prime minister of the autonomous republic for just over two years. Formerly he was the mayor of Krasnoperekopsk and the leader of the National Democratic Party (NDP), which, after the Communist Party, was the largest political faction on the peninsula. The appointment of Mr. Kunitsyn was clearly a compromise: Mr. Hrach, a powerful figure in the Communist Party of Ukraine, agreed to the appointment in consultation with Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma in order to ensure his own appointment as Parliament chairman. President Kuchma evidently was content to play off the two Crimean politicians rather than see a united front of the legislature and government that might be directed against Kyiv.

At that time, the summer of 1998, the economic situation in Crimea was catastrophic, with long backlogs for wage payments and a decline in living standards that considerably exceeded those in Ukraine as a whole. The decline in industrial output, for example, was 10 times worse than in Ukraine. Mr. Kunitsyn, while hardly a radical reformer, was at least well-disposed toward Kyiv and announced his intention to weed out corruption, which has plagued the economy of Crimea, where Russian business circles have long held extensive property and holdings, and which remains the prime vacation spot for the Russian business and political elite. In practice, however, the two sides have constantly fought for supremacy over the past two years and their actions mirror those of the early period of Crimean politics within post-independence Ukraine.

At stake ultimately is Crimea's position within Ukraine and the rights of the Ukrainian president. Neither the position of republican prime minister nor that of Parliament chairman has been stable over the past nine years. In January 1994, Yurii Meshkov, leader of the Russia Bloc, was elected the first president of Crimea and immediately declared his intent to hold a local referendum on independence and to transfer the peninsula to the Russian ruble zone. His party subsequently gained a majority in the Crimean Parliament, but the president's high-handedness soon led to a conflict with Parliament Chairman Sergei Tsekov.

In January 1995, with encouragement of some deputies in the Russian Duma, Crimea declared economic sovereignty, prompting the Kuchma government to take prompt action to restore the status quo. On March 17, 1995, Kyiv annulled the Constitution of Crimea and by the end of March Crimea was brought under the direct rule of the Ukrainian government, pending the adoption of a new Constitution acceptable to the political leadership in the Ukrainian capital. In June 1995 the troublesome Mr. Tsekov was replaced as parliamentary leader by a more conciliatory figure, Yevhen Supruniuk.

The 1994-1995 crisis was made more complex by the gradual return of the Crimean Tatars, whose descendants had been deported by the Stalin regime at the end of the World War II, but who now constitute more than 12 percent of the 2.2 million population of the peninsula. They tended to be more supportive of the Ukrainian government and opposed to Russian influence on the peninsula. The crisis was also made more complicated by the negotiations between Russia and Ukraine over the status of the port of Sevastopol and the future of the Black Sea fleet.

The signing of a Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation between Russia and Ukraine in 1997, by which Russia agreed to recognize the existing territorial boundaries of Ukraine, including the Crimean peninsula ceded to Ukraine in 1954, greatly eased the situation and provided Kyiv with more room for maneuvering. It did, however, leave behind a power vacuum and a complex sharing of responsibility between Parliament and the local government. Even prior to the Kunitsyn-Hrach conflict, there was open confrontation. Thus, in early 1997, the Parliament tried to remove the government from office, but President Kuchma suspended the decision. However, both the Parliament Chairman Vasyl Kyselyov and his successor from February 1997, Anatoly Hrytsenko, were moderates who were well disposed toward Kyiv. The appointment of Mr. Hrach on May 14, 1998 altered the picture dramatically.

In mid-December 1999, Mr. Kunitsyn engineered a split within the Parliament, joining with deputies from the Zlahoda and Respublika caucuses and backing a motion, which succeeded by a narrow majority, to dismiss the presidium led by Mr. Hrach. This conflict ended when the Ukrainian government dispatched mediators to Symferopol on December 17 but there have been several other occasions when the clash between Messrs. Kunitsyn and Hrach came to a head.

At issue, essentially, is the authority of Ukraine to deal with disputes in the autonomous republic. Several sources have pointed to the ambiguous nature of Article 136 of the Constitution of Ukraine, which stipulates that the Crimean parliament can appoint and dismiss the head of the local government with the "knowledge and consent" of the president of Ukraine. Yet, if more than two-thirds of parliamentary delegates vote for such a decision, then the president, in theory, is obliged to agree to the decision.

Thus, the Crimeans are taking advantage of a loophole in the Constitution that in effect allows them more authority than might appear on paper. Conversely, according to the head of the presidential administration, Volodymyr Lytvyn (Den' June 2), the Ukrainian president has the option of appealing to the Constitutional Court on the grounds that there were procedural violations during the parliamentary debate.

President Kuchma, however, chose the route of negotiation and appears to have deflated this stage of the long-standing dispute without bringing about a constitutional crisis. The issue is a serious one because an appeal to the Constitutional Court would have been tantamount to circumventing the Constitution. In turn, had the Crimeans objected to presidential intervention, it is difficult to see how Ukraine could have resolved the situation by democratic means. The Crimean predicament reflected in miniature President Kuchma's own problems with the Parliament in Kyiv during his first term in office. The president's authority over the Verkhovna Rada has been greatly enhanced by the spring 2000 referendum, whereas legally his authority over Crimea remains ambiguous.

Why was such a significant majority of deputies in favor of the removal of Mr. Kunitsyn? There appear to be several reasons. The Crimean government has begun an anti-corruption drive that has clearly caused some concern among business circles and property owners. It is also trying to distance itself from the business deals conducted by the previous government.

The political impasse can be simplified to the pro-Russia outlook of Mr. Hrach versus the pro-Ukraine leaning government of Mr. Kunitsyn (though he is certainly not anti-Russian). Mr. Hrach himself, according to some observers, is seeking to build his own power base in Crimea. And lastly the NDP appears to be declining as a political force, thereby weakening the authority of the Crimean prime minister. In turn, the Communists have been the most powerful faction in the Parliament since the last elections, but they failed to oust Mr. Kunitsyn, reportedly because of the strong moral support the prime minister received from the president and from the state procurator general of Ukraine, Mykhailo Potebenko.

The Autonomous Republic of Crimea remains the problem child of Ukraine, a perennially sensitive area that frequently threatens to become engulfed in conflict. President Kuchma's task is to ensure that his government has support from the local authorities and to avert an eventual takeover of power by the Communists under Mr. Hrach.

At present, the chances of a crisis that would seriously undermine the stability of Ukraine seem remote. The precedent of presidential rule in 1995 remains an unspoken alternative if an impasse should arise. Moreover, the economic picture has steadily improved under the Kunitsyn administration and the dissatisfaction of the Crimean Tatars with their social and economic standing seems to have subsided. What occurred in May of this year can be described as a "mini-crisis" that was resolved by the prompt actions of the Ukrainian president.

However, the withdrawal of the decision to remove the Crimean government signals the end only of this particular phase of the conflict. Mr. Kunitsyn's position has been badly weakened by such an overwhelming vote against his government, and President Kuchma must now decide whether to support his eventual replacement in Symferopol. In Crimean politics, life in office is short and prime ministers and Parliament chairmen have rarely served more than two years in office.

In addition, there have been frequent challenges to Ukrainian authority from the peninsula, which, like the recent problems, reflect some of the weaknesses of the Ukrainian Constitution. It will not always be possible for Ukraine to resolve these dilemmas through negotiations. In the long term, the peninsula will either be granted more autonomy or the Kyiv government will likely amend the Constitution to give itself more authority over a recalcitrant region, specifically, the president would then have the power to overrule decisions of the Crimean Parliament.

Other imponderables remain, such as the attitude of Russian President Vladimir Putin to the parliamentary leadership of Mr. Hrach and the current separation of the city of Sevastopol from the administration of Crimea. Thus far, however, the latest political storm on the peninsula appears to have blown over.

David R. Marples is professor of history at the University of Alberta in Edmonton and director of the Stasiuk Program for the Study of Contemporary Ukraine at the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, which is based at that university.

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