NEWS ANALYSIS: Political learnings of Ukraine for make benefit of...? (11/19/06)

NEWS ANALYSIS: Political learnings of Ukraine for make benefit of...?

by Roman Solchanyk

For anyone still harboring illusions about where Ukraine is headed under the stewardship of Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, developments over the past month or so should offer up some sobering "political learnings."

The illusions in question stem from two myths that were assiduously disseminated by President Viktor Yushchenko and some of his "dear friends" in the Our Ukraine coalition in the aftermath of the March parliamentary elections that returned Mr. Yanukovych to power.

The first myth is that, in spite of the diluted powers of the office of the president as a result of the changes that were introduced into Ukraine's Constitution in December 2004 - which cleared the way for the repeat presidential elections and Mr. Yushchenko's subsequent victory - the president continues to hold sway and, indeed, is very much in control insofar as matters of foreign policy, security and defense are concerned.

Proponents of this view routinely point to Article 106 of the Constitution, which, among other things, states that the president "exercises leadership of the state's foreign policy activity, conducts negotiations and concludes Ukraine's international treaties." Additionally, they emphasize that, according to the newly amended Constitution, the president proposes the candidacies of the ministers of foreign affairs and defense to the Parliament for approval.

One does not have to be a legal scholar and nor does one need to compare and contrast the president's prerogatives to those of the Parliament - let's take, for example, Article 85 of the Constitution, which states that it is the lawmakers who "determine the fundamentals of domestic and foreign policy" - to arrive at the conclusion that Mr. Yushchenko's powers in this area are far from clear and by no means incontrovertible.

But why quibble about who has more or less potential authority and whether it is more advantageous to exercise leadership in the foreign policy arena or to determine its fundamentals? Instead, let's take a look at what has actually been happening.

In mid-September Mr. Yanukovych went to Brussels and announced that Ukraine would be putting its quest to join NATO on hold. Simply stated, the prime minister unilaterally called into question - if not revised - a foreign and security policy course that has been firmly enshrined in several Ukrainian legal documents, including the 2003 law on national security. This, in spite of what was apparently an agreement between the president and the prime minister to do the exact opposite - namely, promote an agreement on a NATO Membership Action Plan (MAP) for Ukraine. Several days later the Verkhovna Rada formally expressed its support for the prime minister's position.

The president and his supporters were unhappy with the prime minister's remarks at NATO headquarters, publicly criticized him and appeared to be surprised by this turn of events. Their reaction is rather odd, given that Mr. Yanukovych had articulated the position that he would subsequently convey to NATO already in early August, within a week of taking over the reins of government. In any case, he let it be known that he was not particularly interested in Mr. Yushchenko's criticism since, in his view, it is the Parliament and not the president that will decide this issue.

True, while in Brussels, particularly during his second visit later in the same month, Mr. Yanukovych affirmed Ukraine's strategic course to seek membership in the European Union (EU). But he is on safe ground here, knowing perfectly well that there is no danger of Ukraine being invited to join the club of "civilized nations" in his lifetime.

As the head of the European Commission Jose Manuel Barosso made clear after Mr. Yanukovych's visit, the "last stage of [the current] enlargement will be completed" after the inclusion of Romania and Bulgaria early next year. Mr. Barosso's comment is only the latest in a long string of similar statements that have come from Brussels, which should finally persuade certain officials in Kyiv from further embarrassing themselves by constantly pleading for some kind of a "signal" from the EU. The writing has been on the wall for a long time.

But, lest there be any confusion here about where Mr. Yanukovych's sympathies lie, let's note that the Cabinet of Ministers under his direction proceeded to liquidate the Government Committee on Questions of European and Euro-Atlantic Integration, which had been tasked with coordinating the government's efforts in these areas, within two weeks of coming to power.

Then, in mid-October Prime Minister Yanukovych made a point of emphasizing that his government would be guided by the domestic and foreign policy course outlined by Parliament, adding that it was time to take another look at what he described as the antiquated "law that was adopted in 1993." Presumably, he was referring to a document titled "The Basic Directions of the Foreign Policy of Ukraine" that was approved by a resolution of the Verkhovna Rada in July 1993. At the same time, Rada Chairman Oleksander Moroz stated that Parliament would soon be introducing a new draft law on foreign policy, as well as examining the relationship between the president and the Cabinet of Ministers with respect to the formulation of foreign policy.

More recently, Mr. Yanukovych has made it clear that he would not be opposed to the prolongation of the Russian Black Sea Fleet's presence on Ukrainian territory beyond the 2017 expiration date agreed to in 1997. Interestingly, these remarks came directly after Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed Moscow's interest in precisely such an arrangement. And now efforts are under way to remove the supposedly irremovable ministers of foreign affairs and defense, both of whom are avid supporters of a pro-Western, pro-NATO and pro-EU foreign policy agenda.

So much for President Yushchenko's foreign policy and security prerogatives.

The second myth that was floated by the president and his team earlier this year is that the two Viktors are in fact sharing power, that they are working in unison to bring together and unite an admittedly fractured nation, and that this is reflected in the Universal of National Unity signed in August.

Let's leave aside the fact that the so-called universal has no juridical force and, in fact, does not obligate anyone to anything. Over and above the demarche in the foreign policy field, the prime minister and his political allies have clearly illustrated by their actions - ranging from the refusal to implement decrees signed by the president that have not been countersigned and demands for the dismissal of oblast administration chairs appointed by the president - that it is they and not Mr. Yushchenko who are the top dudes in Kyiv.

Besides, a new draft law on the Cabinet of Ministers sponsored by the prime minister's supporters, if enacted, will probably have the practical effect of circumscribing the president's powers to at best officiating at parades on the Khreschatyk.

And now for the kicker. In a recent lengthy article in the Moscow newspaper Rossiiskie Viesti, Vice Prime Minister Dmytro Tabachnyk, who is responsible for overseeing "humanitarian affairs" in the government - things like culture, language, and the like, which have never been much of a priority for any Ukrainian government - while saying nothing even remotely related to issues within his purview, lays out an argument for Ukraine's integration with Russia through the Moscow-sponsored Single Economic Space.

In the process, Mr. Tabachnyk states point blank that "Ukraine's European vector should be corrected in its essence" and manages to attach such Soviet-style labels as "nationalist forces and their foreign allies," "radical nationalists" and "national-radical forces" to the millions of people who filled the streets of Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities during the Orange Revolution at the end of 2004 in order to put an end to the criminal regime personified by former President Leonid Kuchma and his then prime minister, Mr. Yanukovych.

Those events, according to Mr. Tabachnyk, "artificially interrupted" the "dynamic and progressive" development of Ukrainian-Russian relations, a state of affairs that he and his colleagues intend to rectify.

Mr. Tabachnyk, it should be recalled, served as the head of President Kuchma's administration in 1994-1996 and as a vice prime minister from the end of 2002 to the beginning of 2005. For me, however, much more telling is the fact that in an article published on July 4, 1991, in the Kyiv daily Robitnycha Hazeta - that is, before independence - Mr. Tabachnyk, then a young historian testing his skills in the uncharted waters of Soviet "politologiya," characterized the raising of the blue and yellow national flag in front of Kyiv's city hall the previous year as a criminal act perpetrated by a crazed mob of primitive fanatics.

Against this background, the statement in a recent issue of The Economist attributed to Oleksander Chalyi - one of the newly appointed deputy heads of President Yushchenko's administration and previously the central figure responsible for European integration in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs - that there are "no strategic differences" between the president and the prime minister is well, weird.

As White House spokesman Tony Snow would say: "Are you smoking rope?"

Roman Solchanyk, Ph.D., is an international affairs analyst in Santa Monica, Calif., and author of the forthcoming book "The New Eastern Europe: Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova."

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