Kuchma decree adds state secretaries to Cabinet structure (06/10/01)

Kuchma decree adds state secretaries to Cabinet structure

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - On the day the Ukrainian Parliament confirmed Anatolii Kinakh as the new head of government, President Leonid Kuchma quietly issued a presidential decree that changes the structure of the Cabinet of Ministers the prime minister will lead - a move that has caused more friction between the executive and legislative branches of government.

In what the presidential administration is calling administrative reform, Mr. Kuchma ordered on May 29 that the prime minister and all Cabinet ministries now will have state secretaries assigned to them at a position one notch below the ministerial level. The secretaries will have subordinates answerable only to them, chiefly a first deputy and two deputies. The new positions will be presidential appointments not subject to changes in ministerial portfolios for a five-year term to coincide with that of the president.

The state secretaries will exercise administrative responsibility, including the daily bureaucratic and financial functions of the Cabinet of Ministers and its various ministries, while the ministers will concentrate on political work.

President Kuchma said it was a needed structural change within the executive branch to give some administrative stability to the government.

"Governments will come and go, but stability will remain," explained Mr. Kuchma while in Miensk for the CIS summit, according to the Kyiv weekly, Dzerkalo Tyzhnia.

President Kuchma explained that too often in the past prime ministers and ministers had undertaken extensive cadre changes, appointing political partners and not professionals. He said the creation of the state secretaries now would assure continuity and professionalism at the ranks immediately below the ministerial level.

Prime Minister Anatolii Kinakh said the day after his appointment that he supports the new structure. "It is necessary that we are clear on this matter, that in Ukraine we have had a problem with the quality and professionalism at the professional level of the government," he explained.

The creation of the new posts, however, has brought widespread criticism from the Verkhovna Rada in the days since the decree was introduced. Most severely criticized is the decision to make the state secretaries independent of the government's mandate and outside ministerial authority to fire subordinates.

The Communist Party, which has joined national democratic elements on the political right criticizing the move, called it "another step on the road to the establishment of an authoritarian dictatorship."

Speaking from the Verkhovna Rada rostrum on June 5, Communist Party leader Petro Symonenko said the directive "will turn ministerial portfolios into a sham," and will make the president the de facto head of government.

Viktor Pynzenyk, leader of the Reforms and Order Party, said he was holding consultations on testing the legality of the presidential order before the Constitutional Court.

Political expert Mykola Tomenko, whose Institute of Politics is closely associated with Mr. Pynzenyk's party, said the presidential decree contradicts the Constitution "to a significant extent." He explained that the law on the Cabinet of Ministers, which the Parliament has passed but has yet to be signed by the president, should regulate the work of the government. Mr. Tomenko said the president's decree "violated the constitutional status of the Cabinet."

Mr. Tomenko also questioned the role a prime minister will have when authority might now travel directly from the president to his state secretary.

"Kinakh will become a sort of presidential representative or advisor to deal only with managing the regional system of power, some economic branches and individual enterprises," explained Mr. Tomenko, according to RFE/RL Newsline.

Mr. Kuchma expressed surprise at remarks made by Mr. Pynzenyk and others on the right when he told Interfax-Ukraine in Miensk that the new structure he had created is very similar to government structures in Europe.

"I am amazed that the opposition members make their remarks so offhandedly," President Kuchma commented. "I want to emphasize that these assertions are being made by reformists who are oriented on Western models. They can't be so uninformed as to not realize that this is an element of the Western model."

Meanwhile, Viktor Medvedchuk, the influential first vice-chairman of the Verkhovna Rada and leader of the pro-presidential Social Democratic Party (United), said he agrees, for the most part, with the presidential decree.

"In any ministry there must be a single political center, while departmental policy must be sustained by specific mechanisms, one of which will be the offices of the state secretaries, the first assistants and their assistants," explained Mr. Medvedchuk.

Mr. Medvedchuk questioned whether the Constitutional Court would consider an appeal from national deputies to review the merits of the presidential decree. He explained that the court's authority extends only to legislation and the Constitution.

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