ANALYSIS
Subduing the Parliament with a referendum
by Jan Maksymiuk
RFE/RL Newsline
Russia resolved its parliamentary crisis in 1993 with tanks. Ukraine, facing a similar situation in 1999, opted for a referendum. Nonetheless, the Verkhovna Rada fiercely opposes this choice. That's how the pro-presidential Kyiv-based Segodnia newspaper commented on President Leonid Kuchma's decree to hold a constitutional referendum on April 16, which may result in the ouster of the current uncooperative legislature.
The implication of the comment is obvious: Ukraine is far more moderate than Russia regarding its choice of methods for developing democracy, so there is no ground for apprehensions. However, one almost automatically starts having such apprehensions as soon as one recalls the 1996 constitutional referendum held by Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka. Will President Kuchma follow in President Lukashenka's footsteps?
Taken at face value, the constitutional referendum - decreed by the president following the collection of some 4 million signatures by citizens - is aimed at creating a legislature with a workable majority. The government needs such a majority very urgently.
First, the Parliament must pass an austerity budget, which is a necessary condition for the International Monetary Fund and other Western lenders to resume providing credits to Kyiv. Ukraine is obliged to repay more than $3 billion this year and another $3 billion next year, and faces an immediate default without Western money.
Second, Mr. Kuchma wants to capitalize on his recent election success by introducing as soon as possible the market-oriented reforms he had long pledged to the West. Again, this can be done only with prompt and reliable legislative support.
Ukrainians on April 16 will be asked as many as six questions. Each of those questions, if answered in the affirmative, could entail essential changes in the Constitution. The first question is on a vote of no confidence in the current Parliament. Ukrainians will also be asked to give the president the right to disband the Parliament if it fails to form a majority within a month or adopt a budget in three months; to abolish lawmakers' immunity from criminal prosecution; to reduce the 450-seat Parliament to 300 seats; to create a second chamber; and to provide for the possibility to adopt the Constitution via a referendum.
All Ukrainian commentators tend to agree that President Kuchma will win the referendum on all points, including the question about a bicameral Parliament, which is an almost completely mystifying idea for the overwhelming majority of Ukrainians. The government-controlled media, those commentators argue, have already ingrained the conviction in the broad masses that the current Verkhovna Rada is a hotbed of unpunished "thieves and bandits."
There will be no difficulties for those media - as last year's presidential elections amply testified - to air more messages favorable to Mr. Kuchma and detrimental to his parliamentary foes, notably to Verkhovna Rada Chairman Oleksander Tkachenko and the Communist Party parliamentary caucus led by Mr. Kuchma's rival in the recent presidential elections, Petro Symonenko.
Anticipating the president's move, more than 300 national deputies voted to introduce a temporary ban on referendums in Ukraine, but Mr. Kuchma paid no attention to it. Then 241 deputies from center and right-wing caucuses and groups formed a majority, claiming that they will support the government.
This move sparked a full-scale parliamentary crisis and a split of the legislature into two irreconcilable factions. Some 180 leftist deputies remain loyal to Chairman Tkachenko, while the 261-strong majority is temporarily coordinated by former President Leonid Kravchuk. Both factions have already held parallel sessions, claiming to be legitimate Parliaments, and no immediate resolution of the impasse is in sight. Such a situation benefits primarily the president.
President Kuchma told the January 15, Zerkalo Niedieli that he is not interested in dissolving the Parliament if it proves to be "able to function." However, some Ukrainian political analysts argue that following the referendum, which is expected to overwhelmingly endorse the vote of no confidence in the Verkhovna Rada, the Parliament will be doomed.
The president will be carried away by the course of events and will have to dissolve the legislature that is not trusted by the people. What is more, some analysts even say that Ukraine's current Constitution may be called into question if the decreed referendum provides an affirmative answer to the question about approving the country's basic law via referendum. Thus, Ukraine may likely face early parliamentary elections and a referendum on approving a new Constitution following the April 16 plebiscite.
Socialist Party leader Oleksander Moroz called President Kuchma's referendum decree a "constitutional coup d'état." It should be noted that a similar view is shared not only by Mr. Kuchma's leftist foes, but also by many politicians far from the left. When the opposition is deprived of free access to the media (as was the situation in Belarus notorious referendum of 1996), the Parliament may be easily made the only scapegoat for the failures of socio-economic policies in Ukraine under the Kuchma administration and, as a consequence, popularly voted out.
As a result, the balance of power in Ukraine may be irreparably damaged or even eliminated, confirming many pessimists' much-publicized belief that democracy is good for the West, while the East prefers autocracy.
Ukraine - after what seemed to be a nine-year period of trudging toward Western democratic values - now appears to be taking a step backward.
Jan Maksymiuk is the Belarus, Ukraine and Poland specialist on the staff of RFE/RL Newsline.
Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, February 6, 2000, No. 6, Vol. LXVIII
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