Verkhovna Rada votes to oust Yuschenko (04/29/01)

Verkhovna Rada votes to oust Yuschenko

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - An unlikely, even if only temporary, political coalition of business oligarchs and Communists succeeded in removing Prime Minister Viktor Yuschenko on April 26, just over 16 months after the popular, reform-minded former banker took the helm of the government and made the first sustained attempts at economic reform in the country's nearly 10-year history.

Three pro-business political factions in the Verkhovna Rada joined a resurgent Communist Party faction to oust Ukraine's second-longest serving prime minister by a vote of 263-69, with 77 national deputies either not voting or abstaining.

In accordance with the Constitution of Ukraine, the president has 60 days to nominate a new prime minister.

Speaking in the session hall after the vote, Mr. Yuschenko said he believes the decision taken by the lawmakers will have serious consequences.

"As a private citizen, I am convinced that democracy in Ukraine has received a serious setback today," said a weary-looking, but otherwise emotionally restrained Mr. Yuschenko, who added that he would stay in politics and continue to fight for democracy as his backers on the parliamentary floor and in the visitor's gallery shouted, "Yuschenko, Yuschenko!"

Minutes later the ex-prime minister appeared outside the main doors to the Verkhovna Rada Building before which nearly 15,000 vocal supporters had gathered as the vote took place inside. Mr. Yuschenko, showing more emotion, told the cheering throng that he was not embarrassed for what he and his government had accomplished.

"A year ago I had said we would move strongly on a program of national well-being. I said that I would not be embarrassed at the end to exit through the front doors of this building when the end came and to face the nation. Today that time has come," said Mr. Yuschenko.

He also asked the restless crowd, which repeatedly shouted for the ouster of President Leonid Kuchma, to remain calm and refrain from violence. Protesters then marched to the Presidential Administration Building, located two blocks away, where they continued their peaceful demonstration under the watchful eye of hundreds of state militia officers, many in riot gear.

The vote that brought down the government came from a highly unusual and, most experts believe, unsustainable coalition of the Communist faction with the ostensibly capital-oriented factions of the Labor Ukraine Party led by Serhii Tyhypko, Oleksander Volkov's Democratic Union and the Social Democratic Party (United) of Viktor Medvedchuk, who is also the Parliament's first vice-chairman.

Officially, the government's failure to move the country out of its precarious financial situation and to better the lives of the Ukrainian people was given in the resolution as the reason for the removal of the Yuschenko government. However, there is little doubt among political experts that the three pro-business political organizations, which are close to President Leonid Kuchma, had opposed the prime minister's efforts to bring the economy out of the shadows and make it more transparent. His decisive steps to stop barter operations and bring a degree of transparency and reform to the energy sector particularly affected the oligarchs' commercial interests.

Experts also believe the leaders of the factions wanted to secure the prime minister's seat for themselves as a strategic move in preparation for Verkhovna Rada elections next March.

The resolution the lawmakers supported, which was submitted by Communist faction leader Petro Symonenko, was one of three that were proposed. Progressive Socialist Party leader Natalia Vitrenko submitted a similar resolution, while Ukrainian National Rukh leader Yurii Kostenko proposed a resolution that would have suspended examination of a vote of no confidence for two weeks. Mr. Kostenko's resolution received only 111 votes. It takes 226 votes to attain a simple majority in the Verkhovna Rada.

President Kuchma was not present for the final vote. He failed to appear to defend his prime minister at any of the three votes in the last week that led to the fall of the Yuschenko government.

The president has flip-flopped in public statements in the support he has expressed for Mr. Yuschenko. Although it appeared until the week prior to Mr. Yuschenko's report on the state of the government - given in the Verkhovna Rada on April 17 - that the president would tilt his hat in favor of his prime minister, several days before the speech Mr. Kuchma took a non-obligatory, neutral stance and said that Mr. Yuschenko would have to reach an acceptable compromise with the Verkhovna Rada himself and that it was not the president's place to take sides.

The president, who has had his own problems with the oligarchs, yet owes them political favors for their support during the presidential elections and in the current political crisis surrounding the Gongadze affair, maintained that stance until April 23, when he seemed to imply that he might just support Prime Minister Yuschenko because a change of government would do Ukraine no good.

"For any country, and that includes Ukraine, a stable economy and stable politics, including a stable government, is a necessary condition of its development," said President Kuchma while on a visit to Lithuania on April 22, reported Interfax-Ukraine.

On the eve of the fatal vote, however, after a special combined meeting of leaders of parliamentary factions and the Cabinet of Ministers, the president failed to express support for his prime minister. He merely repeated his call for the need for stability, while asking national deputies to make an intelligent and weighted decision.

Those supporting the ouster of Mr. Yuschenko had maintained in the last days before the vote that the Yuschenko government had failed to offer a compromise that would have allowed for serious negotiations to proceed. Mr. Tyhypko of Labor Ukraine had stated repeatedly that his faction would seriously consider retaining Prime Minister Yuschenko if he was ready to hand them 10 or so ministries. On April 21 Mr. Tyhypko said Mr. Yuschenko was not bargaining seriously.

"It has been two days since his government was threatened, and we still haven't received a serious offer from him," said Mr. Tyhypko.

During a press conference on April 23 Mr. Yuschenko rebuffed the accusation and stated that he had made a compromise offer, but would not accept demands that would make him a figurehead leader of the government. He also said he did not understand how the same lawmakers who had supported his "Reforms for Well-Being" economic program a year ago, including Mr. Tyhypko and many members of the Labor Ukraine Party, could now do an about-face and criticize the details of that program.

"It is a paradox: the only government that has survived to report on its affairs and managed to develop positive economic dynamics now receives a negative evaluation," said Mr. Yuschenko, referring to the April 19 parliamentary vote that graded the government's work in 2000 as unsatisfactory.

Mr. Yuschenko had conducted unsuccessful negotiations with the parliamentary opponents of his government for nearly two months prior to his ouster over demands that he form a coalition government to represent the parliamentary majority in the Verkhovna Rada. The prime minister had maintained that no constitutional or statutory basis exists for such a move.

He had, however, agreed to negotiate an agreement of cooperation between the two branches of power. Those negotiations ended in a stalemate over disagreements on who could legally endorse such an accord.

The Yuschenko government actually survived two days longer than its opponents had expected. On April 23 the conciliatory committee of the Verkhovna Rada agreed to set a vote of no confidence on the government for the next day, in keeping with a law that requires that a vote to dismiss the government take place no sooner than five days and not later than 10 days from the moment such a resolution is introduced into the parliamentary agenda. The Verkhovna Rada had approved the vote on April 19, the same day it criticized the government's work.

On April 24, however, the final vote on the government was sidetracked after pro-government lawmakers demanded that it be put off because Prime Minister Yuschenko, who was on government business in Greece, should have the customary right to defend himself and his government. Lawmakers also noted that President Kuchma, who was in Lithuania, also should have the right to be present, if he so desired.

The decision to move the vote to April 26 came only after members of four minority factions defending the government - Ukrainian National Rukh, National Rukh of Ukraine, Reforms-Congress and Batkivschyna - blocked the main podium and participated in a violent shoving match with deputies of the pro-business factions.

Meanwhile, some 2,000 supporters of the ill-fated government and its prime minister - including nine university students who had declared a hunger strike the day before to last until assurances were made that the government would survive - chanted, "Communists to Moscow, oligarchs to jail."

After the ouster of the government on April 26, the four factions, along with representatives of the Sobor faction, said they would not take part in the formation or approval of a new government and would henceforth remain in opposition.

According to Mykola Tomenko, director of the Institute of Politics, with the ouster of the ninth government in 10 years, Ukraine now faces a further turn towards Moscow because both the Communists and the oligarchs have interests in moving that way.

"For the Communists the choice is tied to their ideology," explained Mr. Tomenko in an article for Ukrainska Pravda. "For the oligarchs it is related to the character of their daily work. Their attempts to succeed in the European market, generally speaking, ended in failure. Many of the oligarchs are under criminal investigation and for all practical purposes are unable to travel to the West today."

It is expected that Mr. Tyhypko of the Labor Ukraine faction, who has expressed a strong desire to hold the post and who led the initial assault on the Yuschenko government, will become the next prime minister. Other possible candidates include Verkhovna Rada First Vice-Chairman Medvedchuk and the chairman of the State Tax Administration, Mykola Azarov.

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