EDITORIAL: Tkachenko the "pragmatist" (03/07/99)

EDITORIAL

Tkachenko the "pragmatist"

Oleksander Tkachenko, chairman of Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada, was voted in because at least some Parliament members considered him a pragmatist. With the approval this week of the resolution to join the Inter-Parliamentary Assembly of the Commonwealth of Independent States, Mr. Tkachenko has shown that he can get his agenda passed. We, however, would not call it an agenda of political pragmatism.

Mr. Tkachenko had called for Ukraine to join the IPA-CIS since his election as Parliament's chairman. After two attempts to pass a resolution to join the IPA failed during the fall session, he finally ramrodded the resolution through on March 3. From all appearances, he was ready to vote until either the Verkhovna Rada burned or the resolution was passed.

The leadership style of the "pragmatist" Tkachenko was quite revealing as he worked to pass his pet bill. He forced the Verkhovna Rada to vote on the draft resolution five times - until it was approved - a tactic unheard of in any civilized parliamentary procedure. He attempted to punch Rukh member Pavlo Movchan, who along with other opponents of IPA membership had surrounded the presidium dais and ripped out microphones lest another attempt at a vote take place. Then Mr. Tkachenko called for a 30-minute break for some back-room wheeling and dealing.

One Ukrainian journalist sitting in the press gallery suggested during the break that this was when Mr. Tkachenko would shine. "He'll throw a few bucks around and get the three to six votes he needs," said the journalist who wished not to be named. It is not at all verifiable whether that happened, but in Ukraine's political life that is certainly within the realm of the possible.

Whatever Mr. Tkachenko did, it worked. The "pragmatist" got the job done.

IPA membership may have little consequence for Ukraine. The CIS is, after all, a loosely knit organization with poor organization and no formal agenda. It has little reason to exist, except that it is the vehicle that Communists from all the states that emerged from the ashes of the Soviet Union hope will bring the USSR back from the dead. The IPA is controlled by Communists and is run largely by Russia.

As Rukh member Ivan Zayets told the Verkhovna Rada before IPA membership was voted upon, it is seen as the first step to the return of the Soviet Union.

Ukraine, which has been at the margins of the CIS, carrying only observer status in many of the organization's structures, such as the Economic Council, now will enter one of the organization's main bodies. With that comes the threat that it will become entwined in the efforts of Russia's State Duma to make the IPA a supra-state structure.

For Mr. Tkachenko, however, that is quite okay. That is the Peasant Party leader's own brand of down-home pragmatism: to do whatever is needed to bring Ukraine back into Moscow's fold.

Many leftists have said repeatedly that IPA membership is not a threat to Ukraine's sovereignty. And that may well be true. But Communist domination of Ukraine's Parliament and the CIS's IPA surely is.

With Mr. Tkachenko also proposing that Ukraine join Belarus and Russia in a "Great Slavic Union," we can only wonder what political moves the "pragmatist" Tkachenko has in store for the future. And we can say with certainty that we do not wish him success.

| Home Page |