Kuchma inaugurated president for second term (12/05/99)

Kuchma inaugurated president for second term

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - In an elegant concert hall filled with presidents of foreign countries, international dignitaries and thousands of invited guests, Leonid Kuchma swore the oath of office as proscribed by Ukraine's Constitution on November 30 and began a second term in office during which he will lead the country into the third millenium.

It was a day of pageantry - much more than in previous inaugurations - filled with wreath-laying, toast-raising and anthem-playing for the president as he celebrated his new five-year term after winning a landslide election victory over Communist opponent Petro Symonenko on November 14.

The president, with his wife, Liudmilla, arrived an hour before the 1 p.m. ceremony was scheduled to begin at the Ukraina Palace of Culture, the venue chosen by the president for his inauguration, to welcome dignitaries from 20 nations, including eight heads of state. Among those on hand to witness the event and congratulate Mr. Kuchma were the presidents of most of Ukraine's neighboring countries, including Suleiman Demirel of Turkey, Alexander Kwasniewski of Poland, Valdas Adamkus of Lithuania, Rudolf Schuster of Slovakia, Petru Lucinschi of Moldova, Alyaksandr Lukashenko of Belarus, as well as Prime Minister Vladimir Putin of Russia, who was standing in for an ailing President Boris Yeltsin.

Other dignitaries on hand included the official U.S. representative, Deputy Secretary of Energy T.J. Gaulthier, and the head of the CIS Executive Committee, Yurii Yarov, as well as unofficial ones such as Viktor Chernomyrdin, the gas tycoon and former Russian prime minister, and Boris Berezovsky, the Russian publishing magnate. Also present among the 3,500 guests that packed the Ukraina Palace auditorium was much of Ukraine's political, cultural, scientific and entertainment elite.

Outside, some one thousand people lined the sidewalk across the street from the concert hall to get a glimpse of the powerful, rich and famous that had gathered to witness the ceremony, while millions more watched at home on television.

At 1 p.m. sharp President Kuchma and his wife walked into the auditorium and down the main aisle escorted by a goose-stepping military honor guard dressed in white. Mr. Kuchma ascended stairs and took his seat at center stage.

Oleksander Tkachenko, chairman of the Verkhovna Rada, began the ceremony, which according to the Constitution, should take place during "a solemn meeting of the Verkhovna Rada."

He presided over the proceedings along with his two vice-chairmen, Adam Martyniuk and Viktor Medvedchuk, from a table positioned to one side of the stage. Leading members of the president's Cabinet of Ministers, including Prime Minister Valerii Pustovoitenko, sat at a table at the opposing end.

Following the playing of the national anthem, Mr. Tkachenko made a brief opening remark and then invited the president to approach the podium. With the chief judge of the Constitutional Court, Viktor Skomorokha, at his side, Mr. Kuchma placed his right hand across a Bible and, for the first time, the new Constitution of Ukraine as well, and invoked the oath as proscribed by Ukraine's fundamental law:

"I, Leonid Kuchma, elected President of Ukraine by the will of the people in taking this high post solemnly swear allegiance to Ukraine. I assume the obligation to defend the sovereignty and independence of Ukraine in all my affairs, to care for the homeland and the well-being of the Ukrainian people, to defend the rights and freedoms of its citizens, to uphold the Constitution and laws of Ukraine, to execute my responsibilities in the interest of my fellow countrymen, to raise the authority of Ukraine in the world."

The oath was followed by the singing of "Bozhe Velykyi Yedynyi," a religious hymn by the renowned Ukrainian composer Mykola Lysenko.

Chief Judge Skomorokha then presented the president with the symbols of his office: a medallion engraved with the national symbol, the trident; a ceremonial executive stamp of the president's seal; and a gold bulava (mace), a symbol of authority.

In making the presentation Chief Judge Skomorokha, said that with this presentation, a first for a presidential inaguration - the country was resuming a custom grounded in the "tradition of Ukrainian statehood."

He was followed by Central Election Commission Chairman Mykola Riabets, who offered congratulations and a certificate recognizing Mr. Kuchma's election victory.

Next, Prime Minister Pustovoitenko ceremonially offered the resignation of his Cabinet, as required under the Constitution that was adopted during Mr. Kuchma's first term in office.The president, while accepting the tenders, announced that the current government would continue to perform its duties, by his decree, until a new one had been approved by the Verkhovna Rada.

After being sworn in, the president, in a 35-minute inaugural address to the nation, accepted blame for many of the shortcomings of his first term, declared that Ukraine had overcome the Communist peril in giving him the nod for a second term, and announced that he would proceed quickly with radical economic and administrative reforms.

In a day filled with the introduction of new traditions, the inauguration at the Ukraina Palace, Kyiv's showcase concert hall, also was a break from custom, albeit not a well-established one. President Kuchma, beginning his first term, and his predecessor, Leonid Kravchuk, both swore their oath of office in the Verkhovna Rada chamber before the country's national deputies.

This time President Kuchma said he wanted a larger ceremony, and that the parliamentary facilities would not suffice. He maintained that the Verkhovna Rada chambers had insufficient room to accommodate the thousands of guests that had been invited. Furthermore he noted that the Constitution clearly stated that he was to swear before the nation, not the national deputies. He threatened to bypass the Parliament and change the venue via a presidential decree if he could not get its approval.

National deputies, mostly members of the Communist and Socialist factions, had insisted that the president was violating the Constitution and breaking with tradition in moving the venue. Nonetheless, two hours to the inauguration, the national deputies relented and approved a change of venue by a slight margin.

The Communist faction, however, decided to boycott the swearing-in and held a demonstration instead before the concert hall to protest what they believe to be an unfair and tainted election.

Only Mr. Martyniuk, second party secretary, was given permission to be present at the inauguration, and that was in his role as the first vice-chairman of the Verkhovna Rada.

The completion of the inauguration ceremony at the Ukraina Palace merely signaled the beginning of the president's day that consisted of quick stops at many of Kyiv's cultural and historical landmarks during which of the president attempted to connect the current Ukrainian state with its historic legacy.

President Kuchma and his wife first laid flowers at memorials to two individuals closely tied to Ukrainian national self-identity. At the Taras Shevchenko monument in Shevchenko Park, and the monument to Ukraine's first president, Mykhailo Hrushevsky, located beside the Central Rada Building, where he declared an independent Ukrainian state in 1918, hundreds of students from Kyiv State University gathered to congratulate the couple.

At St. Sofia Sobor, Ukraine's most renowned religious landmark, the president met with the leaders of all of Ukraine's mainstream religions. In Glory Park, Mr. Kuchma placed a wreath at the tomb of the (Soviet) unknown soldier, a monument to the many lives lost during World War II.

Mr. Kuchma's hurried excursion ended at the Mariinsky Palace, the president's official residence. There he reviewed a contingent of Ukraine's armed forces after being greeted by Minister of Defense Oleksander Kuzmuk, in a ceremony emphasizing the president's role as the head of the military.

Inside the palace, invited international dignitaries and a ceremonial banquet awaited the president. This was followed by a gala concert back at the Ukraina Palace that evening.

| Home Page |