Opposition groups walk out of Parliament as anti-presidential demonstrations continue (09/29/02)

Opposition groups walk out of Parliament as anti-presidential demonstrations continue

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - After several days marked by more political instability and another wave of demonstrations, four parliamentary factions threw the Verkhovna Rada into paralysis on September 26 when they announced they would not take part in any legislative votes.

After pro-presidential lawmakers rejected their call for a special session to address the political situation in the country, the four factions, two leftist and two rightist, which have formed an unorthodox opposition coalition and organized street demonstrations under the banner "Arise, Ukraine" left the session hall together.

The move, which opposition leaders had threatened the previous day, came after nine pro-presidential factions turned back the proposal to put the issue on the daily agenda by a vote of 96 to 5, with 228 national deputies not registering. Verkhovna Rada Chairman Volodymyr Lytvyn reminded the lawmakers after the vote that a failure of the legislative body to pass any legislation over the course of a month would be, according to the Constitution, grounds for dismissal of the lawmaking body and new elections.

It was the culmination of a week during which up to 10,000 demonstrators - a substantially smaller amount than on September 16 - gathered once more in Kyiv, with thousands more taking to the streets also in cities such as Lviv, Zhytomyr, Kirovohrad, Dnipropetrovsk and Kharkiv, to protest their disaffection with the ruling elite and disgust with the alleged corruption within the administration of President Leonid Kuchma.

The United States caused additional serious political tremors in Kyiv after Washington announced on September 25 that it would halt $54 million in aid because of possible evidence that Ukraine may have transferred anti-aircraft technology to Iraq in violation of United Nations sanctions barring such sales to Baghdad. (See adjoining story.)

Volodymyr Filenko, a leading figure in the Our Ukraine faction, said at the opening of the September 26 session that the president and his supporters have failed to heed the demands of Our Ukraine and the political opposition and to begin a dialogue on a proper distribution of political power in the country. Mr. Filenko said it was time for an appropriate response. Led by the popular lawmaker Viktor Yushchenko, Our Ukraine joined three opposition factions in the anti-Kuchma demonstrations and in calling for the special parliamentary hearing on the crisis in Ukraine.

"The situation in the country has become unworkable and the authorities have failed to begin a dialogue that would address the problems," Mr. Filenko underscored.

Afterwards, national deputies of the four factions - of whom many who had not even bothered to register for the daily session believing the motion had no chance of passing - left the session hall.

The week began with an unsuccessful attempt by leaders of the three staunchest opposition parties, the Tymoshenko Bloc, the Communist Party and the Socialist Party, to commandeer the evening news program of the government television channel UT-1 on September 23. About 15 minutes prior to the beginning of the broadcast, Ms. Tymoshenko of the eponymous bloc, Mr. Moroz of the Socialists and Mr. Symonenko of the Communist Party entered the building and gained access to the studio set, where they sat down and demanded an opportunity to read a statement to the nation.

After failed negotiations - during which the opposition leaders rejected assurances by UT-1 Director Ihor Storozhuk that they would get airtime on another day and refused to leave the set - the nightly program was canceled in favor of pre-recorded programming.

The next morning, as 7,000 to 10,000 supporters of the opposition coalition chanted "Kuchma Out" before the Verkhovna Rada Building, debate raged inside the session hall on how to get out of what was quickly becoming a major political crisis, with the opposition demanding to place the impeachment of the president on the parliamentary agenda. While the oppositionist leaders leveled charges of corruption, criminality and political authoritarianism at President Kuchma and his administration, pro-presidential politicians maintained that the only way out of the situation was to continue normal business and heed presidential proposals to form a parliamentary majority and then a coalition government.

"There is nothing that gives the pro-presidential side of this session reason to act as if everything is normal," said Ms. Tymoshenko. "Nothing can be normal because of the illegal and artificial way in which the pro-presidential faction obtained parliamentary leadership and control."

Ms. Tymoshenko was referring to what is perceived by opponents of the president as the underhanded way in which Mr. Kuchma assured himself at least a temporary majority by allegedly intimidating, pressuring and bribing some lawmakers to join a coalition that elected a parliamentary leadership he favored. The strategy hardened an opposition that already had criticized tactics used by the government and the administration during the March elections to Parliament and sent Our Ukraine - which had attempted to maintain a political dialogue with the president - into the opposition camp.

In a speech belying his reputation as a stiff and detached speaker, Mr. Yushchenko, the Our Ukraine leader, said during the morning session of Parliament that the reason for the political crisis in Ukraine is very simple.

"The nation votes for one set of lawmakers, while another set takes power," explained Mr. Yushchenko, whose bloc took 30 percent of the electoral vote in the March elections.

Mr. Yushchenko indicated even then that his political bloc was ready to paralyze the work of the Verkhovna Rada and force its dismissal and pre-term elections. He said the country was close to a point at which negotiations may cease to be an option because emotions are running high and rational decision-making might no longer be possible.

"Until the Parliament becomes independent of [the presidential administration], this crisis will not end, my dear colleagues. Either the Parliament decides or the streets and the squares will decide," explained Mr. Yushchenko.

Minister of Internal Affairs Yurii Smirnov and Procurator General Sviatoslav Piskun also addressed the lawmakers. The two law enforcement officials were treated to catcalls and chants of "Kuchma Out" as they attempted to explain the reason demonstrators and the tent city that was erected in front of the Presidential Administration Building on September 16 had to be removed.

Mr. Smirnov and Mr. Piskun said the demonstrators blocked thoroughfares, which they called "communication transport routes," causing traffic hazards and denied non-involved Kyiv residents the right to go about their daily business. Mr. Smirnov also noted the large amount of trash that had accumulated.

"We needed to get city workers out there to clean the area up," explained a straight-faced Mr. Smirnov. "Imagine how much garbage was out there, not to mention the sanitation situation because of the way individuals openly conducted themselves."

The demonstrators, who listened to the morning session through loudspeakers placed on the square before the Parliament building, marched to the president's offices a few blocks away after the lunchtime recess, with national deputies at the head of the column. When they forcefully broke through a police line that had been established approximately 30 feet from the wrought iron barricade that fences off the administration building, some 400 special forces militia clad in riot gear and holding large metal shields, raced to form a human barricade to block any further possible movement forward.

Forty-nine national deputies, representing the four opposition factions, led by Ms. Tymoshenko and Messrs. Moroz and Symonenko - with Mr. Yushchenko not among them - then used their legislative accreditations to gain access to the building to demand a meeting with President Kuchma.

The situation remained tense and the lawmakers were even held at gunpoint, according to several accounts, until the president's chief of staff, Viktor Medvedchuk, met with them and said that Mr. Kuchma would not see them because he did not believe a meeting could achieve constructive results. The group of 49 decided to spend the night and proclaimed a hunger strike to last until they met with Mr. Kuchma to present him with their resolutions and demand his resignation.

The next morning, after an about-face President Kuchma agreed to a face-to-face with four leaders, one from each of the four factions. In separate comments to The Weekly opposition leaders, explained that the 15-minute meeting proceeded tensely and in the end was unproductive.

"We told him Ukraine no longer wished to see him, that he should resign," explained Ms. Tymoshenko, who said the four offered Mr. Kuchma a September 28 deadline in which to respond. "He answered that he didn't need time to decide, that he had no intention of resigning," added the opposition leader.

Ms. Tymoshenko and Mr. Moroz said the president had a tremor in his voice as he tried to control his anger and that his hands shook. Mr. Symonenko said his behavior "bordered on hysterics."

Mr. Medvedchuk later told the Novyi Kanal program "Reporter," that the president would not heed demands made outside the political process, especially by individuals behaving lawlessly.

"The president was constitutionally elected by a majority of the people and he will continue to carry out his duties and execute his mandate until normally scheduled elections in 2004," said Mr. Medvedchuk.

The "Arise, Ukraine" movement announced on September 26 that it would continue to organize demonstrations in the days ahead and had begun a petitiongathering effort in order to bring the impeachment of President Kuchma to a vote in a nationwide referendum they hoped to organize.

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