Kuchma surprises nation with talk of changing Ukraine's political system (09/01/02)

Kuchma surprises nation with talk of changing Ukraine's political system

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - President Leonid Kuchma made an unexpected appearance on television as the country celebrated Ukrainian Independence Day on August 24, to announce that he was calling for a change in the political system that would give the Parliament responsibility over the government.

However, several days of negative political feedback from key political players suggested that the issue was far from resolved.

Stating that it was time to move from a "presidential-parliamentary" system to a "parliamentary-presidential" system and allow lawmakers to form a majority that would run the government, Mr. Kuchma said the change was needed to stimulate and sustain economic and political change that would help Ukraine move smoothly towards European integration.

"I am convinced there is no need to build a uniquely Ukrainian bicycle," explained the Ukrainian president. "The mechanism has long existed. It consists of a coalition government that is based on a stable parliamentary majority. The parliamentary majority forms the coalition and is responsible for it."

President Kuchma said the changes should take place in stages with the formation of a stable parliamentary majority coming first, which he would then authorize to form a government and appoint a prime minister. That having been done, the Verkhovna Rada would then make the needed constitutional changes to give it permanent authority over the government. The current Constitution of Ukraine reserves that power exclusively for the president.

Mr. Kuchma also said he was ready to support a new electoral law that would have Ukraine's lawmakers elected on a strictly proportional (by-party) basis. The president had vetoed similar bills approved by the Parliament in the year prior to the March elections on four separate occasions.

In a 15-minute speech that began with an emphasis on revitalizing the health and education sectors of Ukraine, initiate a war on poverty and start extensive pension reform, the president also indicated that it was time to give municipalities and lower-level administrative bodies self-rule and independent budgets.

On August 28, during a meeting with key lawmakers and government officials regarding his Independence Day pronouncement, Mr. Kuchma received assurance from Prime Minister Anatolii Kinakh that he supports the presidential plan.

However, Viktor Yushchenko, the most popular politician in Ukraine whose political bloc, Our Ukraine, took nearly a third of the proportional vote in the country's mixed election system in the March 31 parliamentary elections, said in an initial response the day after the president's television appearance that the problem was not the type of system - because both were effective - but the type of politician.

Mr. Yushchenko was expressing continued disgruntlement and mistrust in Mr. Kuchma and his cronies after they denied Our Ukraine the relevant political power it should have wielded in the new Verkhovna Rada. In the parliamentary power play that followed the elections, the pro-presidential forces ended up obtaining a plurality by drawing independent lawmakers to their faction through deals, intimidation and blackmail, Mr. Yushchenko has suggested.

Mr. Kuchma has pursued the formation of a pro-presidential parliamentary majority with very limited success. His efforts were aimed at giving him sway over a legislative body that has had little success and much paralysis in effecting national reforms. In 2000, several months after overwhelming his Communist opponent in the presidential elections, Mr. Kuchma succeeded in stimulating the formation of a parliamentary majority that to some extent supported his policies. It held together until Prime Minister Viktor Yushchenko was unceremoniously dumped in a parliamentary vote of no confidence in mid-2001 after President Kuchma failed to express support for him.

Now the president believes he has a chance for a second go at it. While pro-presidential political organizations gained only some 30 percent support in the March elections to Parliament, they gained a majority in the Verkhovna Rada after much presidential wheeling and dealing - and, in the opinion of some, such as Mr. Yushchenko and the members of the Our Ukraine faction, during which underhanded pressure was applied. The result was that many independent lawmakers joined the ranks that support Mr. Kuchma.

In the end, the president achieved a plurality of support in the Parliament, but fell short of his much-desired majority. Today the six parliamentary factions that once made up the For a United Ukraine electoral bloc plus the Social Democratic Party (United) faction remain loyal to Mr. Kuchma.

The president has said that to build a sustainable majority he needs the support of an ideologically cohesive political group, one that will not move in and out of the alliance as suits its political objectives. Such a view has put the focus on Mr. Yushchenko's faction as a potential partner to the other pro-presidential factions. Mr. Yushchenko had remained close to the president even after his ouster as head of government but lately has felt strong pressure from one side of his bloc to cut support for certain presidential policies and move into an opposition coalition.

Mr. Yushchenko has voiced severe displeasure with state authorities and condemned the political manipulations and tactics that set the stage for a temporary pro-presidential majority in Parliament that elected National Deputy Volodymyr Lytvyn, Mr. Kuchma's former chief of staff, to the Rada chairman's seat, even though Our Ukraine had taken a plurality of Parliament seats.

At a press conference called on August 29 in response to the president's television address, Mr. Yushchenko said that Our Ukraine would consider joining a parliamentary majority only under very specific conditions. He added that the danger exists that if its interests were not secured it could be co-opted and consumed by the other factions of a pro-presidential majority. He explained that, in his estimation, a true democratic majority could be formed within days, but that process could begin only if a specific accord was signed among the three branches of power.

"Democratic powers must do everything within their power to force negotiations, and the state authorities must take part in such talks," said Mr. Yushchenko, who was nearly 35 minutes late to the scheduled press conference because he was called to a meeting with President Kuchma to discuss an open letter to the president that the Our Ukraine faction had released the previous day.

A little later the former prime minister added, "If the authorities remain outside of a dialogue, then I will be there on [September] 16.

The September 16 date is important to many politicians because the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc, the Communist Party and the Socialist Party have called for extensive, nationwide demonstrations against state authorities to commence in conjunction with the second anniversary of the disappearance of journalist Heorhii Gongadze. The Our Ukraine bloc has yet to fully commit to participation in the protests.

Mr. Gongadze was the editor of one of Ukraine's first Internet newspapers and a vocal opponent of President Kuchma. He disappeared on September 16 and his beheaded body was eventually found in a shallow grave outside Kyiv. Mr. Kuchma and the current Parliament chairman, Mr. Lytvyn, as well as a former internal affairs minister, have been suspected of complicity in the affair after digital recordings of conversations between them regarding Mr. Gongadze became public several months later. The Tymoshenko Bloc, the Socialists and the Communists have taken a political stance in opposition to the administration of President Kuchma and have called for his impeachment.

The open letter from Our Ukraine to the president underscores that state authorities carried out "a revision of the results of the [parliamentary] vote," by utilizing "pressure, blackmail, bribery and threats" against some national deputies, after Our Ukraine had garnered the most votes of any political organization in the March 31 elections. The letter declares that the actions of state authorities today are a threat to the national interests of Ukraine, its national security and independent status, and calls for a national forum for the unification of all democratic forces to guide the country out of crisis.

Mr. Yushchenko also voiced concern about what he believes is the undue and possibly dangerous influence of the recently appointed presidential chief of staff, Viktor Medvedchuk, over President Kuchma. Mr. Medvedchuk, chairman of the Social Democratic Party (United) and perhaps the most powerful man in Ukraine besides the president, is considered an archopponent of Mr. Yushchenko and is thought to have been responsible for organizing his ouster from the prime ministerial chair in 2001. Mr. Medvedchuk was appointed to the post after Mr. Lytvyn was elected by lawmakers as chairman of the Parliament.

"The president's administrative head has already appointed the head of the Parliament. Now he is trying to appoint the government. Soon he will be appointing the president," Mr. Yushchenko commented.

| Home Page |