New Parliament convenes, but fails to elect leadership (05/19/02)

New Parliament convenes, but fails to elect leadership

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - With 447 recently elected national deputies in freshly assigned seats looking on, Ivan Pliusch, chairman of the outgoing Verkhovna Rada, brought the new, fourth convocation of Ukraine's legislature to order at 10:05 a.m. on May 13.

Then Yaroslava Stetsko, at 82 the oldest national deputy, exercised her right as the senior member of the legislative corps to administer the oath to her colleagues, who were elected legislators in national voting on March 31. She also told the lawmakers that she hoped they would not forget why and by whom they were elected.

"I expect that this Verkhovna Rada will not concern itself with personal and corporate interests, but only with the matters of the Ukrainian nation," said Mrs. Stetsko, who is a member of the Our Ukraine faction.

After a short adjournment to allow the deputies to put their signatures to individual oaths, a temporary leadership headed by Adam Martyniuk of the Communist Party and elected by representatives of the six political organizations that won places in the new Parliament, took over and held several votes on procedural matters before the body got down to the first serious business at hand.

And while many had hoped that the election of a new leadership, including three members of the presidium and 23 committee chairs, would end swiftly, it soon became apparent that the elections could quickly get bogged down in ambitions, personalities and politicking.

By the beginning of the third day of the new session, with four leadership slates already rejected, many were predicting another marathon of voting, similar to what occurred in 1998 when it took two months and dozens of rejected candidates before Oleksander Tkachenko was chosen to chair the Verkhovna Rada.

"Everyone said they wanted to avoid a marathon, but it has begun," said Viktor Musiaka, a member of the Our Ukraine faction and one of the nominees to the parliamentary presidium in the first rounds of voting.

He explained that part of the problem is that United Ukraine and Our Ukraine, the two largest factions with 177 and 119 members, respectively, had failed to maintain a political dialogue.

On the second day of the new session, four of the six political factions presented what they believed were electable slates for consideration by the Parliament, but all four "packages" as the national deputies are calling them, which consisted of nominees for chairman, first vice-chairman and vice-chairman, failed to gather a majority in a series of votes that lasted until midnight.

The package put forward by the United Ukraine faction, which mirrored the proposal of the Social Democrats (United) faction - Volodymyr Lytvyn, head of United Ukraine, as the nominee for chair, with Mr. Martyniuk in the second spot and Oleksander Zinchenko of the Social Democrats (United) faction in the third - came closest to obtaining the 226 votes needed for a majority, falling 17 short of the tally.

The Our Ukraine slate, with current Chairman Pliusch in the No. 1 slot, followed by Mr. Martyniuk in second and Oleksander Turchynov of the Tymoshenko Bloc faction in third, could muster but 140 votes, while the Communist faction submission, with Mr. Martyniuk at the top of the list, Mr. Musiaka second and Petro Tolochko of the Tymoshenko Bloc faction in the third, received only 172 votes in support.

Although the procedure agreed upon by all the factions called for consultations and the development of additional packages, by the end of the following day the process seemed frozen with no new slates proposed by any of the six caucuses.

However, it has become quite clear that the Communists would have their say in deciding who would lead this new Parliament. With Our Ukraine and United Ukraine unable to find a compromise on a leadership package, each of them has been forced to woo the Communists.

"The influence of the Communists continues to rise, more and more," said Mr. Musiaka, whose faction, ironically, contains many staunch anti-Communists. He explained that Our Ukraine had no choice but to search for compromise with the leftists if it was serious about grabbing back legislative leadership, which practically was stolen from it when United Ukraine convinced well over a hundred national deputies who had successfully run outside the party lists in individual districts to join its ranks.

The tactical maneuvering - which some are calling scare tactics and outright intimidation - undertaken by United Ukraine since the March 31 election, during which it won barely 13 percent of the popular vote, has resulted in the faction growing tremendously. On the second day of the parliamentary session its official membership was announced at 175, before two more members, defectors from Our Ukraine, were added that evening.

Our Ukraine, which took nearly 25 percent of the vote comes next with 119 members, followed by the Communist faction with 63, the Social Democratic (United) faction with 31, the Tymoshenko Bloc faction with 23 and the Socialist faction at 22. There are also 14 remaining independents.

In an effort to stop the bleeding of his ranks, on May 15 National Deputy Viktor Yushchenko, head of Our Ukraine, met with President Kuchma. According to Studio 1+1 television, Mr. Yushchenko was to tell the Ukrainian president, whose interests are represented by United Ukraine in the Parliament, that there was increasing pressure on members of his faction who are closest to the business community to jump to the United Ukraine faction or face the wrath of Ukraine's tax police and that the unethical tactics needed to be suspended.

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