Verkhovna Rada chairman calls legislative session a success

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - Oleksander Moroz, chairman of the Verkhovna Rada, called the work of the recently completed sixth session of Ukraine's legislature a success. Speaking on January 24, he cited among the legislative accomplishments the enactment of a Constitution and a series of laws designed to improve the social and economic condition of the Ukrainian population.

Putting a positive spin on almost every aspect of the Parliament's work, Mr. Moroz even went so far as to call the relations between the legislature and President Leonid Kuchma "good, as usual," which brought a round of smirks from the journalists attending the press conference held in the Verkhovna Rada Administrative Offices Building.

He did admit that the Parliament and the Cabinet of Ministers had continued to squabble over political power and the direction of economic reform, which he said was no more than the disagreements that have plagued relations between the two bodies for years. "I believe that the Verkhovna Rada, generally, has not been the initiator of the controversies," said Mr. Moroz.

He played down the fact that the legislature had been kept in session after its scheduled Christmas dismissal until January 24 at the urging of President Leonid Kuchma, so that progress could be made on a tax reform package and on the 1997 budget, which has been stalled in the Verkhovna Rada since the end of October. The executive branch and the legislature have tossed the package back and forth, marking it up and rewriting it several times. During the last week of the session Parliament had scheduled approximately 60 bills for a vote, an incredible number even for the most efficient of legislative bodies, which this is not, by far. It acted on few of them.

At the press conference, Chairman Moroz chose to accent the numbers to explain the intensity of the work of the sixth session. The fall 1996 session had enacted 120 laws, more than twice the 62 laws passed by the fall 1995 session and far more than the 47 laws passed in the fall of 1994, he explained. "The sixth session even outdid the very successful fifth session (winter 1996)," said a satisfied Mr. Moroz.

He also defended the Verkhovna Rada's foot-dragging on the 1997 budget. "I think the Verkhovna Rada approached the formulation of the 1997 budget in the proper manner because it dealt with the realistic possibilities that would be acceptable to the body and to the nation," he explained.

The chairman noted the accomplishments of the Verkhovna Rada in the area of social protection, citing the passage of legislation forbidding the assessment of penalties for late payment of utilities; the law on amnesty for people who took part in massive strikes over non-payment of wages, pensions and stipends; and legislation that will cover citizens' losses on bank accounts due to inflation.

As for the future, Chairman Moroz said the seventh session will approve a budget and a tax reform package by the end of the first quarter of 1997 and will enact a new Civil Code for Ukraine. He also mentioned that the administrative structure and committee structure of the Verkhovna Rada must be reviewed although, he explained, any comprehensive changes before elections could be "dangerous" and should, therefore, be left for the new convocation of the Parliament in 1998.

Other members of the Verkhovna Rada had their own views of the work of the Parliament. Holos Ukrainy, the official organ of the Verkhovna Rada, asked several leading members to comment on the session's accomplishments. Their observations were published on January 29.

Yevhen Marchuk, the former prime minister who today retains only his legislative hat, said the work of the Parliament should not be viewed by the numbers. "This doesn't tell the whole story," he explained. He said the legislature's undertaking of economic reform legislation is its major success.

He said he was also satisfied that it finally started to deal with outstanding issues of Russian-Ukrainian relations. "However, I must admit that this is also one of its failures, because it addressed these problems rather late, after Russia-Ukraine relations had broken down fundamentally."

The member of the Social-Market Choice faction suggested that future sessions would be more productive if the Presidium of the Verkhovna Rada would more often take counsel from various political factions.

Serhiy Soboliev of the Reform Faction was more critical. He called the enactment of the Constitution the major accomplishment of the legislature. However, he said, for the most part the proceedings of Parliament were "a theater of the absurd."

Petro Symonenko, leader of the Communist faction, said the failure of tax reform and passage of a 1997 budget should be blamed not on the Verkhovna Rada - but on the executive branch. "In fact, the budget that the Cabinet of Ministers gave the Verkhovna Rada was objectively aimed against the interests of Ukraine," he said.

He said he would not take the blame for the ineffectiveness of the Parliament because his faction did not have a ruling majority to halt "the robbing of the nation" and to "implement a program to alleviate the national crisis."

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, February 2, 1997, No. 5, Vol. LXV

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