Center-right majority elects Pliusch as new chairman of Rada (02/06/00)

Center-right majority elects Pliusch as new chairman of Rada

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - The political rupture within Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada continued on February 1 as the center-right majority elected a former chairman to lead it once again, while the leftist minority barricaded itself in the Parliament and vowed not to give up the building.

A majority coalition of lawmakers, now numbering 259, once again met at a venue outside the regular Verkhovna Rada session hall, where they opened what they claimed to be the legitimate spring session of Ukraine's legislature.

They elected Ivan Pliusch, who previously held the Parliament's chairmanship in 1991-1994, as their new chairman and approved 21 new committee leaders. The majority coalition, which maintains that all its actions have been taken with an eye on constitutional propriety, voted unanimously to give the chair to Mr. Pliusch, who ran unopposed. Three national deputies did not vote and one abstained.

Along with Mr. Pliusch, who is a member of the National Democratic faction, the deputies agreed on Viktor Medvedchuk of the Social Democratic (United) faction as the first vice-chairman and Stepan Havrysh of the recently formed Regional Rebirth faction as the second vice-chairman.

The national deputies, acting with no opposing voices and little debate, also decided to dub the current assembly of the Verkhovna Rada as its third convocation. Even though Ukraine attained independence in 1991, the three democratically elected Parliaments since then - the 12th, 13th and 14th convocations - had continued to be numbered as a continuation of the Ukrainian Supreme Councils of the Soviet era.

The lawmakers also reasserted their intent to remove Soviet era symbols from the facade and interior of the Verkhovna Rada building.

Speaking after his election, Mr. Pliusch told a group of well-wishers that the time for change had come. "After 16 million voters said they supported the course of reforms presented by Leonid Kuchma, we decided that we had no choice but to form a majority, and that the Verkhovna Rada can no longer be controlled by a minority," said Mr. Pliusch.

President Leonid Kuchma, who spurred the formation of the center-right majority in declarations he made during his re-election campaign, greeted the election of a new parliamentary leadership as "an outstanding event."

Ukraine's Parliament has been in crisis since January 21, when a newly formed majority coalition of 11 parliamentary factions overwhelmingly ousted Chairman Oleksander Tkachenko and his first deputy chair, Adam Martyniuk, for grave and persistent breaches of parliamentary rules of procedure.

The decision to remove Mr. Tkachenko came after he had ignored a majority ruling that all floor votes should be conducted in open voting. When Mr. Tkachenko then refused to bring to a vote a proposal from the floor to suspend him and the first vice-chair for their violation of the Parliament's rules of procedure, the majority walked out. The next day, in a separate plenary session held at the Ukrainian Home Exposition Center, the majority stripped Mr. Tkachenko of his post.

The election of Mr. Pliusch came on a day of demonstrations not seen in Kyiv for quite some time. Early in the day more than 2,000 supporters of the majority coalition faced off with some 1,500 supporters of the left in front of the Verkhovna Rada Building, where Mr. Tkachenko and 157 national deputies of the Communist, Socialist, Progressive Socialist and Peasant factions continued to hold what they maintain are the only constitutionally legitimate plenary sessions.

The two sides hurled barbs and objects at each other, as militia formed barricades to keep the opponents at a distance. A planned initiative of the Ukrainian National Rukh Party to lead a group of volunteers to dismantle the Soviet-era symbols that still mark the Verkhovna Rada building was derailed by the hundreds of militia present on the square adjacent to the building.

Around noon another 1,000 supporters of the majority gathered before the Ukrainian Home Exposition Center, where Mr. Pliusch briefly addressed them. The center-right national deputies have held their plenary session at the Ukrainian Home since they boycotted the Verkhovna Rada building, which has remained occupied by members of the leftist minority since the majority ousted Mr. Tkachenko.

The same day that Mr. Pliusch was elected, Natalia Vitrenko and her Progressive Socialist faction announced a hunger strike in the Verkhovna Rada building that she said would last until "the people took back their Parliament."

As the leftist forces hunkered down they said they were ready for a lengthy stay. "We will not leave the session hall and will not allow its capture by the illegal majority," said Olena Mazur, a colleague of Ms. Vitrenko. The chairman of the All-Ukraine Workers Union, Serhii Bondarchuk, added, "Ukraine is in the midst of a Parliament-incited revolution, organized by political oligarchies. We have the ability to rebut any actions of the conspirators and to secure the hall with our own forces."

Mr. Tkachenko has continued to maintain that he remains the chairman of the Verkhovna Rada. On February 1 he said that documents would be presented to the Constitutional Court that day, which he said would show that the majority had acted unconstitutionally. Mr. Tkachenko said he would step down willingly only if the rebel majority forces returned to the confines of the Verkhovna Rada building and voted him out as chairman under strict rules of procedure.

But he also called for a three-week moratorium on any such action, while the Verkhovna Rada reviewed and voted on the 2000 national budget, which has yet to be passed.

Members of the majority quickly rejected the olive branch extended by Mr. Tkachenko. National Deputy Medvedchuk, the second vice-chairman under Mr. Tkachenko's leadership, who led the majority uprising and had presided over its plenary sessions until Mr. Pliusch's elections, said the offer had come too late. "Mr. Tkachenko can resign no longer, he has already been ousted," he said.

The international community has had little to say on the developments in the Ukrainian Parliament, but it is becoming clearer with each passing day that they have accepted the notion that Mr. Tkachenko's leadership has ended. Lord David Russell-Johnston, chairman of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, has stated that the parliamentary crisis in Ukraine is an internal affair, and representatives of the many diplomatic missions in Kyiv have met with the leaders of the majority, while canceling meetings with Mr. Tkachenko and his representatives.

National Deputy Roman Bezsmertnyi, a member of the NDP and President Kuchma's official representative in the Parliament, said that in several meetings with members of the international diplomatic corps, few questioned the constitutionality of the majority's actions. "The main concern they voiced was that democratic norms must be maximally adhered to," said Mr. Bezsmertnyi.

What is not clear is how the majority will reclaim the Verkhovna Rada building now controlled by the leftist minority, or whether it will even make the attempt. Mr. Bezsmertnyi emphasized that a confrontation of the type that Boris Yeltsin instituted against the Russian State Duma in 1993 would be avoided at all costs. "The president and the majority are categorically opposed to force in resolving the conflict," said Mr. Bezsmertnyi.

While stating that the possibility exists that the Procurator General would be asked to pass a ruling evicting the lawmakers who have barricaded themselves inside the Verkhovna Rada building, he offered three other options that are being considered.

In the first, the Ukrainian Home would become the new quarters of the Verkhovna Rada after proper facilities had been constructed. In the second scenario, the majority coalition would slowly return to the current Verkhovna Rada after a natural attrition of the forces holding the building had occurred, or a compromise reached, during which the Ukrainian Home would remain the temporary setting for the Parliament's plenary sessions. In the third scenario, the Ukrainian Home also would temporarily house the Parliament while a new Parliament building would be constructed.

Mr. Bezsmertnyi said the third scenario provided the most interesting options and perspective.

"We would then leave the current building for our children and for tourists to view as part of history - and for the [leftist] micro-Parliament, if it should remain, to gather in - as a sort of living museum," said Mr. Bezsmertnyi.

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