Oleksander Moroz's surprise

by Zenon Zawada
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - It had come as a shock to most Ukrainians.

Socialist Party of Ukraine National Deputy Yosyp Vinskyi announced on the afternoon of July 6 that the party's chairman, Oleksander Moroz, had betrayed the democratic coalition he had entered into with Roman Bezsmertnyi of Our Ukraine and Yulia Tymoshenko of the eponymous bloc.

As part of the parliamentary coalition agreement, the Socialists were supposed to support Our Ukraine's nominee for chairman of the Verkhovna Rada, no matter who it was.

"Socialist national deputies and Moroz personally created a system of absurd, imagined and unjustifiable arguments as justification for their anti-party position," stated Mr. Vinskyi, who was first secretary of the Socialist Party's Political Council until he resigned in protest to what he saw as Mr. Moroz's betrayal of the party.

"The goal of these arguments was to hide the true intention of a part of the faction, which is trying to form a coalition with the Party of the Regions," Mr. Vinskyi added.

Just a few hours later, the Socialists nominated Mr. Moroz as their candidate for the Verkhovna Rada chair, a position he had coveted ever since he lost it in 1998.

Suddenly, it was apparent that the Party of the Regions was willing to give Mr. Moroz what the Our Ukraine bloc had refused.

President Viktor Yushchenko was the most responsible for this turn of events, which resulted in the collapse of the democratic Orange coalition, said Mr. Vinskyi.

At 11:14 p.m. July 6, it was announced in the Parliament that a de facto coalition involving the Socialist Party, the Party of the Regions and the Communist Party of Ukraine had given 238 votes to Mr. Moroz - enough to return him to the Verkhovna Rada chairmanship after an eight-year absence.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, July 16, 2006, No. 29, Vol. LXXIV

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