Chornovil reaffirmed as leader at special Rukh congress (03/14/99)

Chornovil reaffirmed as leader at special Rukh congress

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - Vyacheslav Chornovil, the embattled leader of the Rukh Party, which has split over the issue of whether the charismatic politician should remain its undisputed leader, held sway on March 7 over a second gathering billed as an all-party congress in as many weeks. The delegates affirmed that the man who has led the organization for nearly 10 years should continue at the helm.

The congress that voted to retain Mr. Chornovil was held a week after a separate, hastily organized extraordinary congress was called by a group of national deputies from the Rukh parliamentary faction and removed Mr. Chornovil, charging that his alleged authoritarian style and abuse of party procedures and statutes were hurting the organization.

For all practical purposes, two Rukh parties have now emerged, with both sides claiming that theirs is the single and true political party that evolved from the movement that helped forge Ukraine's independence.

At a press conference on March 11, Mr. Chornovil defended his political party as the legitimate Rukh, proven by the fact that 16 of Rukh's 26 oblast leaders and their organizations had attended the special congress, which had been announced last fall, and supported him.

"There are not two national Rukhs - but one, which on March 7 absolutely legally held its convention," said Mr. Chornovil.

The congress was attended by 547 delegates, which exceeds the minimum of 510 required by party statutes. Mr. Chornovil said he believed some of the 11 regional party leaders who did not attend would soon return to the ranks of his party.

Rukh has been in turmoil since February 17 when the Rukh faction in Ukraine's Parliament voted to oust Mr. Chornovil from his position as head of the parliamentary group. This was followed three days later by a proposal by Rukh's Central Leadership, controlled largely by the faction members, that the party also should remove him as party chairman. A week later at the extraordinary congress - which the man that many equate with the party itself did not attend - Mr. Chornovil was shelved in favor of Yurii Kostenko, a leader of the intra-party putsch.

Mr. Chornovil has called the February 27 gathering illegitimate and said pronouncements by Mr. Kostenko's group that it was ready to form a coalition government in the Kuchma administration, should it be asked to do so by the president, only showed it had abandoned Rukh ideals.

He did not, however, go as far as two of his party leaders, Les Taniuk and Viacheslav Koval, who spoke of the Rukh Party led by Mr. Kostenko in blunt and inciteful language, calling the leadership "political pimps of the idea of Ukrainian national identity."

"These are people more concerned right now with getting their Mercedes and building their dachas," said Mr. Taniuk.

Mr. Koval added, "A certain mutation has taken place. These 12 to15 people have changed completely. There are parties that have a commercial/criminal base, others are ideologically based. Some want simply to make money, others have ideas."

Mr. Chornovil was much more diplomatic in his criticism, explaining that the misguided decisions of his former allies are a result of "the Soviet system from which we have emerged. "It is a problem within the government and within our party."

But Mr. Chornovil agreed with his two supporters that many of the members of the Rukh parliamentary faction who had staged his removal were trying to turn the party into an instrument for personal gain. He called it the "privatization of the party." None of the three offered details regarding what type of commercial benefit was sought or received by members of the rebel Rukh Party.

Answering a question on why overtures by Mr. Kostenko's Rukh for a single party reunited with Mr. Chornovil as honorary chairman have been rebuffed and answered with flaming criticism, Mr. Chornovil explained, "We are criticizing them because they - not we - began the split in the party."

Mr. Chornovil also explained that members of the new Rukh Party had illegally entered his Verkhovna Rada office the night of March 9, pilfering party documents and computer files, and throwing his personal belongings into the corridor, which did not help any efforts at a peaceful resolution to the split.

"There was a time when we were still looking to find peace, but now that is almost impossible" said Mr. Chornovil, who explained that several meetings had taken place between the two camps prior to the second congress, at which time he did not discern any great desire by his ex-colleagues to find a solution to the rift. After the encroachment on his office, he said that reunion is not likely. "Could you make peace with people who throw your belongings out of your office?" he asked.

The three leaders of Mr. Chornovil's Rukh Party also criticized Mr. Kostenko's Rukh for taking a populist line on reform issues. On March 9 Mr. Kostenko announced that his party is ready to form a coalition government, if it is asked to do so by the Kuchma administration, that could include members of the National Democratic Party and members of the Hromada Party no longer under the control of Pavlo Lazarenko. At the time Mr. Kostenko said that among the priorities of his Rukh organization was a push for administrative reforms and real land reform.

The issue of land reform particularly irked Mr. Chornovil and his two fellow leaders. "Kostenko's call for a referendum on land reform had been put forward by Oleksander Moroz a while back. We are against it," said Mr. Chornovil. "Private ownership is absolutely assured by the Constitution. A national referendum could only cause a Constitutional crisis."

Mr. Taniuk explained that such a proposal showed that Mr. Kostenko was being influenced by Mr. Moroz, leader of Ukraine's Socialist Party and a presidential hopeful. "We are disturbed by Mr. Moroz's statement that it will be easier for him to work with the new Rukh led by Mr. Kostenko rather than with Mr. Chornovil," said Mr. Taniuk.

Mr. Chornovil and his two partners agreed that the latest and most profound rift within Rukh will hurt the party in its efforts to get their candidate, former Minister of Foreign Affairs Hennadii Udovenko, elected president.

However, Mr. Chornovil held out hope that perhaps at the next regularly scheduled party congress in May the atmosphere may have changed sufficiently so that some sort of resolution to the split could take place.

If not, then the two sides could still work together if the proper conditions exist, explained Mr. Taniuk. "If they move away from Mr. Moroz and stop making overtures to Lazarenko's party, and if it turns into a party of ideas that coincide with ours, we could still find common language," said Mr. Taniuk. "Look at how we worked together in trying to get IPA [CIS Inter-Parliamentary Assembly] membership rejected."

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