Kuchma suspends Kyiv state administration chief
by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau
KYIV - President Leonid Kuchma suspended the duties of Kyiv Mayor Oleksander Omelchenko as the head of the Kyiv state administration on February 11 after the municipal head refused to temporarily step aside while he campaigns for a seat in Parliament.
The presidential decree sharpened the focus on whether government officials could retain their positions or must take leaves of absence during the seven-week period of campaigning in the run up to the March 31 parliamentary election, which began on February 9.
The hugely popular mayor of Kyiv, who has gathered a disproportionate amount of authority in the last several years, called the action an act of reprisal by his political enemies, whom he identified as "oligarchic forces."
"They have lately raised a clamor in the mass media spearheaded against the legal authority of the capital city of Ukraine, including the bugging of phone discussions," said Mr. Omelchenko, who chairs the Yednist Party.
The latter reference was to a highly publicized incident last month regarding an illegally taped phone conversation in which Mr. Omelchenko and Viktor Yuschenko, the head of the Our Ukraine electoral bloc, were heard discussing a parliamentary vote to remove their common political opponent, Social Democratic Party (United) Chairman Viktor Medvedchuk, from his post as first vice-chairman of the Verkhovna Rada.
President Kuchma has insisted that all regional and central government officials take vacations during the course of the campaign season. About half of the Cabinet of Ministers, including Prime Minister Anatolii Kinakh and Presidential Administration Chief of Staff Volodymyr Lytvyn, are running for Parliament. In mid-January President Kuchma went so far as to suggest that he retains the right to dismiss the Cabinet and the prime minister if he believes the government has become paralyzed by the electoral process.
Mr. Omelchenko, who is a popularly elected mayor, but serves in the post of state administration head for the city of Kyiv at the pleasure of the president, had resisted giving up the administration position temporarily, but then agreed to do so if the president replaced him with a person of his own choice. When the president refused, Mr. Omelchenko withdrew his leave of absence. President Kuchma replied by removing him from the post until after the elections via executive order, delivered personally to the mayor by Prime Minister Kinakh.
President Kuchma, who was in western Siberia visiting the Ukrainian community in that Russian region when the decree was issued, said that although he is ready to discuss the situation with Mr. Omelchenko, he is not about to withdraw the order.
"I issued an executive order that must be carried out. It cannot be any other way," said the president, according to Ukrainian Television News.
While strictly insisting that Mr. Omelchenko step aside, the president has been far more accommodating with regard to Mr. Lytvyn, his chief of staff, and Mr. Kinakh, the head of his government.
The president has had little in the way of comment about the status of his own chief of staff, but on January 11 he told journalists that he had granted Prime Minister Kinakh permission to continue to perform his duties. He explained that he warned the prime minister to limit his activities and avoid using government resources or his own post to give him or his political bloc an electoral advantage. Mr. Kinakh is on the slate of the For a United Ukraine Bloc, which is considered the pro-presidential electoral organization. The chairman of that bloc is Mr. Lytvyn.
Mr. Kinakh, in turn, ordered all ministers and government workers running for Parliament to go on vacation for the duration of the campaign season - a move President Kuchma supported, even though the election law does not require it. The president explained that the state secretaries recently appointed to fulfill many administrative responsibilities within the various ministries would assure that constructive work continues and that responsibilities within the government are fulfilled.
President Kuchma has pledged that this year's parliamentary elections would be transparent and untainted. He and his prime minister have also said that they would not allow government administrative resources to be used illegally to give any political party or bloc an undue advantage in the elections.
Nonetheless, leading candidates have already complained that government officials are impeding their campaign plans.
Mr. Yuschenko told journalists after returning from a campaign swing through the central oblasts of Ukraine on February 12 that he had trouble securing sites for appearances, which were earlier agreed to, and that his electoral bloc's television ads were frequently not appearing as ordered.
National Deputy Mykhailo Brodskyi, chairman of the Yabluko Party, said that his party had similar problems in Kharkiv during a campaign stop there, while National Deputy Natalia Vitrenko, head of the Progressive Socialist Party, said she could not get television airtime in Dnipropetrovsk.
In its monthly summary, the Committee of Ukrainian Voters, a civic organization whose mandate is to monitor how the elections are being held, said that campaign violations and improprieties continued in January. It noted six major types of violations, consisting of: governmental pressure on the mass media; extension of cost-free goods and services by political organizations and candidates to influence political viewpoints; disinformation campaigns that smeared competing candidates, commonly known here as "black PR"; pressure on individual voters to support specific candidates; and violations of procedures in developing electoral commissions.
The CUV particularly criticized the way in which district electoral commissions were formed, which it called "chaotic," and the fact that the For a United Ukraine bloc had taken 23.7 percent of the leadership posts of district electoral commissions.
"The observers of the Committee of Ukrainian Voters were troubled by the fact that the leadership of the commissions consists disproportionately of representatives of parties that are part of the For a United Ukraine bloc, which can be considered a violation of the notion of the evenhandedness of the electoral process," stated the CUV in its January report.
The CUV also specifically cited the For United Ukraine electoral bloc for improper use of municipal government posts held by its supporters.
Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, February 17, 2002, No. 7, Vol. LXX
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