Opposition leaders criticize president, call for reforms to strengthen democracy (04/20/03)

Opposition leaders criticize president, call for reforms to strengthen democracy

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - Ukraine's four oppositionist political leaders issued a declaration on April 14 calling for constitutional reforms they said would return democracy and accountability to government. They criticized the political reform package that President Leonid Kuchma has presented to the Parliament as nothing more than an attempt to promote authoritative presidential rule.

"The president's proposals are dangerous to society. They will lead to a usurpation of authority by giving a small circle of people the right to approve strategic decisions, and to the destruction of society as a whole," the four leaders stated in the document.

President Kuchma has called for extensive political reforms to constitutionally mandate the parliamentary majority in the Verkhovna Rada to form the government and approve the prime minister. The president's proposals would give the executive the authority to dismiss the Parliament should it not be able to fulfill its new mandates within a defined period, and under other conditions. The president has also called for enacting a proportional electoral system and a bicameral parliamentary system.

The oppositionists said that central to their aims is to make sure that the president does not achieve his desire for a bicameral Parliament and that elections to all elected positions - president, national deputies and local elected officials - do not take place in the course of a single year, as the president has proposed, but remain staggered as they currently are.

Kyiv Mayor Oleksander Omelchenko echoed the general sentiment of those opposed to a bicameral legislature when he told the Verkhovna Rada on April 16 that, if a second chamber consisting of oblast leaders became a reality, then the elected oblast chairman would simply ignore central control from Kyiv, effectively resulting in Ukraine's transformation into a federation of loosely aligned Ukrainian oblasts.

"After oblast chairmen start getting elected by the people within their oblasts, do you think they will have a desire to listen to what Kyiv tells them to do?" queried the Kyiv mayor.

The four oppositionist leaders, Oleksander Moroz of the Socialist Party, Petro Symonenko of the Communist Party, Yulia Tymoshenko of the eponymous political bloc and Viktor Yushchenko of the Our Ukraine bloc, stated in the memorandum that the purpose of their statement was to "ensure that authorities remain under the control of the people and responsible before them and that political actions remain transparent and foreseeable."

While not disagreeing with the need for constitutional reform, the foursome said their objectives are diametrically opposed to the results sought by President Kuchma.

The memorandum depicted the type of government practiced today by President Kuchma and his associates "the main brake on effective social-economic development, the reason for the political crisis and a spiritual decline, and the reason for the unclear nature of domestic and foreign policy."

However, the memorandum demanded many of the same changes President Kuchma has proposed in his political reforms, including proportional, by-party elections; creation of a parliamentary majority that would control the appointment of the government; authority for the president to dismiss the legislative body under certain conditions; and the need for a public dialogue to discuss the proposed political reforms, which the four opposition leaders said should take the form of television debates and the president said should be in the form of a roundtable.

While President Kuchma said in his state of the nation address the day after the oppositionist document was released that he was pleased that the two sides agreed on certain aspects of political reform and "a majority of the president's proposals," at least one of the oppositionist leaders indicated there was nothing further from the truth.

"The president lied," stated Mr. Moroz. "He lied because it states in the memorandum that we do not support the president's initiatives."

Mr. Yushchenko, the leader of Our Ukraine, was more accommodating and less critical in his assessment of President Kuchma's political proposals. The popular politician said the president had to be ready to wait out a process of public debate and circumspection, and to monitor how public opinion had developed before pushing for such dramatic changes in the country's political system.

"The issue of political reform always tends to exasperate me, especially this idea of 'let's get it done quickly,' "explained Mr. Yushchenko in remarks to The Weekly. "The first thing we need to do is to determine what type of system our society needs. What is the desire? What are the needs? We need to begin with extensive public debate to confirm the vision that the people as well as the politicians have. First we need to hear one another."

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