Eight weeks later, Verkhovna Rada still has not elected a chairman (07/05/98)

Eight weeks later, Verkhovna Rada still has not elected a chairman

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - Eight weeks after it began what should have been a routine process, Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada still has not found a chairman to lead it.

In the last week, with no end in sight and after three more failed attempts to elect a chairman, the national deputies have turned to expressing their frustration and cynicism through the nominating process.

On June 30, besides the nominations of legitimate contenders, the names of several leading Russian and American political figures were put into nomination.

Leonid Yakovenko of the Communist faction, in the course of the nominating procedure, proposed the candidacy of Zbigniew Brzezinski, the former U.S. national security advisor who had recently visited Ukraine.

In reply Vyacheslav Chornovil, leader of the Rukh faction, nominated Russians Vladimir Zhirinovsky of the extremist Liberal Democratic Party and Gennadii Zhuganov of the Communist Party of Russia.

The Parliament has been paralyzed by a membership that is so evenly divided into the political left and right that neither side has sufficient votes for a majority nor is willing to look for compromise.

Volodymyr Cherniak , a member of the Rukh faction, expressed a sentiment that has appeared more and more often in Kyiv's newspapers when he stated after the 17th failed attempt to elect a chairman: "I have sat here for two months now, and I can only say that this is a phenomenon of collective insanity."

From the political left, Progressive Socialist Party leader Natalia Vitrenko said the proceedings of the Verkhovna Rada are becoming "an increasingly disgraceful spectacle."

President Leonid Kuchma, who addressed the nation on June 25 regarding the Verkhovna Rada's paralysis, met with leaders of factions to express his concern over the stalemate on June 29, but after the meeting stated that he does not believe that a move to dismiss the Parliament would be in Ukraine's interest, a move that many political pundits believe is becoming a possibility.

Because it is clear to all the national deputies that no one candidate will be able to receive the 226 votes needed to take the leadership of the Parliament under the current voting procedures, in the last week several proposals to change the rules have been made during meetings of the conciliatory commission, a temporary committee of representatives of the eight factions and independent national deputies in the Verkhovna Rada.

On June 29, the commission had agreed that the Parliament would nominate one candidate at a time, alternately a representative from the centrist coalition, and then from the left block. With this agreement came a pledge from the coalition of four centrist factions that they would no longer boycott the vote when they thought it politically expedient.

The agreement lasted for two rounds. In the 16th round centrist candidate Yurii Kostenko, a member of the Rukh faction, came 14 votes shy of being elected, the second highest vote total since the election process began on May 12.

The next day, the leftist nominee, Petro Symonenko, chairman of the Communist Party, who has tried and failed to get elected six times, couldn't muster the needed majority again, receiving only 207 nods.

The agreement had been teetering because the centrist candidates had nominated their own nominees in the 17th round, although all had withdrawn their candidacy. It fell apart in the 18th round when the name of Oleksander Moroz, leader of the Socialist Party, was put into nomination, a round that should have featured a representative of the political right.

Ivan Chyzh, of the Leftist Center faction to which Mr. Moroz belongs, defended the decision to put the former chairman's name in nomination. "When there is an agreement to vote, but nobody takes ballots, then the agreement is broken," said Mr. Chyzh.

In the end, Mr. Moroz could garner the support of no more than 211 national deputies.

That vote, however, was voided and a re-vote was called by the tallying committee, after the committee received numerous official complaints about procedural irregularities that did not allow many national deputies to properly vote.

After changing a procedural rule that will move the location of voting from a side room into the main session hall, the national deputies were to vote on July 2 on whether to implement a rule that would force all deputies present during a vote to cast ballots.

With the new Verkhovna Rada still in disarray and not looking like it will soon be able or be willing to elect a chairman, a proposal by one national deputy before the 18th round on June 30 was greeted by a hearty round of applause, at least from one side of the session hall:

"I propose that we bless the Verkhovna Rada. We should invite the bishops of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church - Kyiv Patriarchate, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church - Moscow Patriarchate, the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church and the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. When God's blessing finally is upon us, we will be able to make a decision."