ANALYSIS: To run and when to run - that seems to be the question (11/24/96)

ANALYSIS: To run and when to run - that seems to be the question

by Markian Bilynskyj

KYIV - Speaking at a November 6 press briefing, Volodymyr Horbulin, chairman of the constitutionally created Council on National Security and Protection of Ukraine, declared that "a great deal of tension had appeared within society" over approximately the past month and a half.

He attributed this development to the fact that ever since President Leonid Kuchma's September 16 announcement that he would seek a second term, some politicians have started behaving as though the campaign season had already begun, particularly as regards the presidency. (According to Ukraine's Constitution, parliamentary and presidential elections are not due to be held until March 1998 and October 1999, respectively.) As a result, policy was being distorted by blatant electioneering.

Mr. Horbulin lamented the behavior of some members of the Verkhovna Rada, such as the maverick head of the Committee on the Fight Against Organized Crime and Corruption, Hryhorii Omelchenko, who has recently been leveling a stream of accusations against President Kuchma and top administration officials alleging all manner of violations.

Indeed, a few days ago, the Verkhovna Rada, in what Mr. Horbulin considered a further show of political posturing, had voted on whether to consider impeaching the president for his role - he was prime minister at the time - in facilitating legislation allowing trust companies to work in an unregulated manner. Many of them later collapsed, owing depositors the equivalent of approximately $35 million. The motion failed by 45 votes.

What seemed to irk Mr. Horbulin most in this case, however, was that the number of deputies who had voted "for" clearly did not correlate with the number physically present. But the fact that voting occurs illegally in the Rada is nothing new and is well documented. Moreover, the administration has always turned a blind eye to this reprehensible behavior whenever it has facilitated passage of favored legislation - including the Constitution.

Mr. Horbulin's mood could not have been helped by the fact that he was speaking the day after reports before the Rada by the heads of Ukraine's security agencies had made it clear that the government's 1993-1995 campaign against organized crime had little impact: this, following the November 3 assassination of Yevhen Scherban, a Verkhovna Rada deputy, prominent businessman and brother of the recently removed Donetsk Oblast Council chairman.

Rumor had linked Mr. Scherban to the July attempt on Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko's life. Immediately following Mr. Scherban's murder, hints were made in some quarters alleging that the prime minister might have somehow been behind Mr. Scherban's demise. Mr. Horbulin categorically dismissed this rumor, identifying it as yet another potentially fertile field for speculation and posturing.

Mr. Horbulin added that the current situation also had a foreign, principally Russian, dimension. The Russian Duma's October 23 passage of a law calling for halting the division of the Black Sea Fleet (BSF) plus the likelihood that in mid-November it will adopt legislation declaring Sevastopol a Russian city, has complicated relations at a time when Ukraine and Russia are negotiating new arrangements over 1997 gas deliveries and trade; the implication being that, with winter approaching, any Russian linkage of the two issues was bound to affect Ukrainian society negatively.

Most disturbing for the Ukrainian side has been that this time the initiative in the Duma was taken not by the usual suspects but by the "Our Home is Russia" faction of Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, whom most Ukrainians see as the most pragmatic and predictable Russian leader.

That the BSF issue continues to go a round in circles like a ship with a broken rudder is no surprise. That it might soon also get drawn into the vortex of Ukrainian domestic politics to a greater degree than before seems fairly inevitable.

There is considerable merit behind Mr. Horbulin's interpretation of recent events. But there is also evidence that the administration must shoulder much of the responsibility for domestic political developments. Thus, Mr. Horbulin's continual inference that the president had acted out of genuine altruism and concern for the country while his prospective opponents are little more than opportunists, fails to conceal the fact that, given the current Ukrainian political environment, President Kuchma's September 16 decision merely opened up something of a Pandora's Box. Time might tell whether Mr. Horbulin was spin doctoring and searching for scapegoats, or whether he was simply displaying symptoms of the kind of self-deception all too common in politics.

Soon after President Kuchma's September 16 announcement, his chief domestic policy adviser, Volodymyr Lytvyn, explained the decision "as an objective process that introduces clarity and an element of stability into ... state and society." Policy-making and economic stability were being affected by an air of uncertainty that had permeated all levels and branches of state activity. President Kuchma's declaration, Mr. Lytvyn argued, would help overcome this pervasive and "persistent feeling of impermanence."

Clearly, it has not. Why, then, have things turned out so differently? Moreover, why did President Kuchma feel compelled to announce his intention to seek re-election with three years still to go? Retrospectively, Mr. Kuchma's decision may seem like a mistake, unnecessarily premature. Certainly, President Kuchma appears to have an impulsive streak that occasionally shows and belies his generally laid-back public image. However, it is quite possible that in this case his options were somewhat limited by circumstance.

It is no secret that the contemporary Ukrainian political environment is rather unstructured, even immature. Generally speaking, then, in the absence of political parties and, consequently, lacking the support of any one broad-based party, President Kuchma's chances of re-election will depend in no small measure on his effective control of the executive branch hierarchy, particularly in the localities. The evidence suggests that President Kuchma has been trying to consolidate just this kind of politically reliable and accountable structure. Thus, not only has he over the past several months appointed new oblast chairmen in approximately half of the oblasts, but he has also created a position of deputy chairman for political affairs at this critical level.

However, under contemporary circumstances, loyalty tends to be conditional in the sense that traditional center-periphery differences emerge quite spontaneously and agendas - as well as ambitions - begin to diverge. Under such circumstances, regional officials begin to follow developments at the center with a view to identifying the most likely pretender to that position upon which their long-term political survival ultimately depends - in this case the presidency.

President Leonid Kravchuk had failed to get re-elected in 1994 not least because he could not maintain the confidence of regional officials formally subordinated to him - particularly following his disastrous attempt to get the presidential elections somehow postponed by bluffing relatively late in the game that he would not actually run.

With factions and parties within the Verkhovna Rada coalescing around prospective candidates - such as Rada Chairman Oleksandr Moroz, Prime Minister Lazarenko, and former Prime Minister Yevhen Marchuk - almost as soon as the Parliament reconvened after the summer recess, the pressure obviously increased for the president to begin consolidating his forces. By publicly declaring his intention to run again, therefore, President Kuchma might well have been trying to pre-empt any doubts among his principal constituency as to where their loyalties should lie. It is in this context that Mr. Lytvyn's comments about overcoming a persistent sense of impermanence might best be understood.

Commencing preparations for re-election in the hope that such a move has little negative fallout is clearly a risky trade-off. In the event, it seems to have initiated a kind of action-reaction process on the part of other potential presidential candidates, albeit thus far only on the informal level. In many respects, President Kuchma has been like that sprinter who jumps the gun and takes some of the other runners with him. The difference between the analogy and reality, however, is that there is no going back to the starting blocks.

Circumstantial evidence seems to support the above interpretation.

Mr. Marchuk, for example, is moving ever closer toward formal identification with the wealthy Liberal Party (he already leads the Social Market Economy faction in the Rada, which is closely affiliated with that party).

Chairman Moroz denies that his campaign has opened, but is striving to cultivate the more moderate image he developed in playing his vital role in the adoption of what the Left refers to as the "bourgeois" Constitution. Chairmanship of the recently created consultative council of political parties represented in the Rada provides a convenient platform from which to publicize this more centrist persona.

Prime Minister Lazarenko has stated that he is not interested in running for the presidency. Today, there is no reason to disbelieve him. But three years is virtually an eternity in politics. Besides, he could not have been unaware of the fact that his predecessor had been dismissed for supposedly breaking ranks with the president by cultivating his own political image. With the administration so sensitive to even the slightest hint of disloyalty, discretion is clearly the better part of valor.

Further evidence is provided by developments around key legislation. For example, because they address structure and procedure, the law on local government and the election law will clearly help determine the outcome of the next parliamentary and presidential elections. Two drafts of the local government law were presented for the Rada's consideration recently: the one favored by the president and the other proposing a regressive, quasi-Soviet model preferred by the Left. The president, in a somewhat unusual move, asked that the Rada not waste time considering the latter. But under Mr. Moroz's guidance, that version has been adopted as the reconciliation committee's basic text.

Moreover, recent Rada debates and resolutions on emotive issues, such as the minimum level of welfare payments and compensating all kinds of depositors for savings devalued through inflation since independence, indicate that the Rada will have plenty of opportunity to make life uncomfortable for both the government and the administration - if only because populist rhetoric and measures are cheap and the resources for implementing them non-existent.

And the Black Sea Fleet problem? Given the very real possibility that Ukraine might have to yield more today in order not to have to make greater concessions in the future, the Rada has taken a more high-profile interest in the BSF issue. Responding to the Russian Duma's recent moves, Chairman Moroz simply said that the Duma's actions were not binding on Ukraine and that there was no need for the Rada to return to the BSF and Sevastopol issues because it had already made its view on these matters clear some time ago.

In short, Mr. Moroz and probably the overwhelming majority of the Rada have taken - and will continue to display - a more nationalist line than circumstances might allow the executive to negotiate. The position adopted by the Rada might not be without considerable merit. But, if current trends persist, the temptation to politicize the BSF issue - not least for electoral purposes - would likely prove irresistible.

Markian Bilinskyj is the director of the Pylyp Orlyk Institute for Democracy based in Kyiv, which is supported by the Washington-based U.S.-Ukraine Founda-tion. The Pylyp Orlyk Institute for Democracy was established in 1991 by the USUF as an independent public policy, research and information center.