ANALYSIS
The new Verkhovna Rada and the questions of justice
by Jan Maksymiuk
RFE/RL Poland, Belarus and Ukraine Report
This week the newly elected Verkhovna Rada convenes for its first session. The main issue on the agenda is, of course, the election of parliamentary leaders (the chairman and two vice-chairmen) and the heads of two dozen parliamentary committees. A special group of deputies preparing the new Parliament's first session has agreed on a great number of procedural matters but failed to adopt a clear stance on how to distribute parliamentary posts among the six blocs represented in the Verkhovna Rada: United Ukraine, Our Ukraine, the Communist Party, the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc, the Socialist Party and the Social Democratic Party (United).
It is known that the distribution of parliamentary posts will be made in two separate stages (or, as deputies themselves refer to this process, in two "packages"): first, the voting for the three leading positions; second, the voting for the posts of committee heads. It is also known that the leaders of the six parliamentary blocs, who met together for the first time on May 10 - that is, more than a month after election day - agreed to share parliamentary posts "justly," the Ukrainska Pravda website reported. But justice seems to mean different things for different parties.
United Ukraine and the Social Democrats (the pro-presidential forces) want the parliamentary positions to be distributed proportionally to the number of deputies in the parliamentary caucuses, as they were formed after the process of recruiting some of those deputies who ran as independents in single-mandate constituencies. The other four forces want these positions to be distributed proportionally to the number of seats won by individual blocs only in the nationwide constituency. They argue that the authorities resorted to unfair methods in making United Ukraine - which finished third in the nationwide constituency - the largest parliamentary caucus, therefore its current composition does not reflect the people's will expressed on March 31.
From a theoretical point of view, since Our Ukraine, the Communist Party, the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc and the Socialist Party control 226 votes, they may distribute all parliamentary posts solely among themselves, without conceding anything to the pro-Kuchma blocs. But it appears that such a development would be too "unjust" when viewed from any side; therefore, as regards the election of the heads of parliamentary committees, a compromise involving some notion of proportional representation will be adopted by the six blocs.
It is quite a puzzle as to who will get the top three posts in the Verkhovna Rada of the fourth convocation. Three alliances seem to be possible for dealing with this "package" of postelection gains:
Thus, the election of the Verkhovna Rada chairman and two vice-chairmen will be of paramount importance to further political developments in Ukraine, since it will determine to a considerable extent the distribution of political sympathies and antipathies in the parliament.
Communist Party leader Petro Symonenko signaled on May 13 that his comrades may support a chairman from another party. "We will vote for the package that will create the most advantageous prerequisites for productive work of our caucus in the Parliament," Mr. Symonenko said in what seems to be an overt bargaining proposal directed to both Volodymyr Lytvyn's United Ukraine and Viktor Yushchenko's Our Ukraine.
Many Ukrainian commentators tend to agree that a stable, permanent majority based on consistent ideology is not possible in the current Verkhovna Rada, and that there will be many "situational majorities" depending on the issues submitted for voting. But the upcoming election of the parliamentary leadership is widely expected to politically structure the current legislature to a greater extent than the preceding one and show the dividing line between the pro-government forces and the opposition more clearly.
It is also expected by commentators that the issue of the government will not be tackled by the Verkhovna Rada earlier than during the autumn legislative session. Current Prime Minister Anatoliy Kinakh gave up his parliamentary mandate and preferred to remain in the government. Thus, Mr. Kinakh has several more months to prepare and submit a government program of actions to the Parliament - the task he has not yet fulfilled because of the parliamentary election.
President Leonid Kuchma decided that Volodymyr Lytvyn, the chief of the presidential administration, will continue to lead the United Ukraine bloc and oversee the ongoing political maneuvering in the Verkhovna Rada.
Mr. Kinakh's test will come a bit later, after lawmakers take all that is up for grabs in the legislature and ask for more elsewhere.
Jan Maksymiuk is the Belarus, Ukraine and Poland specialist on the staff of RFE/RL Newsline.
Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, May 26, 2002, No. 21, Vol. LXX
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