Kinakh chooses to head government rather than serve in Verkhovna Rada (05/12/02)

Kinakh chooses to head government rather than serve in Verkhovna Rada

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - Prime Minister Anatolii Kinakh announced on May 7 that he had decided to remain at the helm of the government and decline his parliamentary mandate.

Mr. Kinakh's decision was one of several made in the last days by government officials who have been elected to the new Verkhovna Rada. Election law gave them until May 7 to make a choice and to inform the Central Election Committee. While admitting that he could not be certain that he would remain in his current post, Mr. Kinakh said he felt a responsibility to carry on reforms.

"Aware of the burden of personal responsibility for the country's social and economic development and the need to ensure the effective work of state authorities, I have decided to give up the mandate of a national deputy in favor of government service," explained Mr. Kinakh in a written statement released to the press.

During a press conference later that day Mr. Kinakh acknowledged he was taking a risk inasmuch as the post of prime minister was one of the objects of the negotiations currently under way between parliamentary factions over the formation of a political majority in the Verkhovna Rada. The Our Ukraine faction, the second largest in the new Parliament, has suggested that a key condition for a coalition with the dominant United Ukraine faction (formerly the For a United Ukraine election bloc) would be the seat of prime minister for its leader, Viktor Yushchenko.

"I think you understand that with my political experience I am well aware of the risk," explained Mr. Kinakh, "but I firmly believe that the priority [focus] must remain on the general national and social well-being and the goals set by this government."

Prime Minister Kinakh said he wanted to continue to foster closer relations with the Verkhovna Rada to develop his program against poverty and to secure a new tax code for the country, which he called critical to the continued growth of the economy, as well as to supervise pension and agricultural reforms.

Joining Mr. Kinakh in resolving to stay in government were Vice Prime Minister Volodymyr Semynozhenko and Minister of Education Vasyl Kremen. While Mr. Semynozhenko belongs to the For a United Ukraine election bloc along with the prime minister, Mr. Kremen is a member of the Social Democratic Party (United).

Three other key figures in the Kinakh government, Vice Prime Minister of Agriculture Ivan Kyrylenko, Minister of Industrial Policy Vasyl Hureyev and Minister of Transportation Valerii Pustovoitenko, all members of For a United Ukraine, opted to join the ranks of Verkhovna Rada national deputies a couple of weeks ago, as did President Leonid Kuchma's chief of staff, Volodymyr Lytvyn, the leader of the bloc.

The six political organizations that achieved the minimum 4 percent of electoral votes required to attain seats in the new Ukrainian Parliament have spent the weeks since the March 31 elections unsuccessfully searching for political coalitions that would allow them to be part of a majority.

National Deputy Adam Martyniuk, a member of the Communist faction and chairman of the ad hoc committee charged with organizing the initial work of the Parliament, said that at the moment most national deputies believe that the only workable majority will be a shifting, situational one. Mr. Martyniuk gave assurances, however, that the Verkhovna Rada would work constructively.

"Despite the disparate configuration of today's Verkhovna Rada, it will be effective," he assured reporters at a press conference on the ad hoc committee's work.

Mr. Martyniuk, whose Communist faction will only be the third largest in this Verkhovna Rada after holding the most seats in the previous three, was chosen to head the organizing committee after Our Ukraine and United Ukraine couldn't agree on one of their own to head the group.

He said the representatives of the six factions had agreed that the legislative leadership, which consists of a chairperson and two vice-chairpersons, would be chosen as a slate. Mr. Martyniuk also explained that committee chairs and members would be assigned on the basis of the proportion of seats individual factions had won in the election.

He said, however, that the number of committees to be organized remained unresolved and in dispute, shifting between 23, as was the case in the last convocation, and up to 27. The national deputy said another open issue was whether minimum membership needed to declare a faction should remain at 14 deputies, as the smaller factions are requesting, or be raised to a requirement for 19 members.

Finally, he said that seating arrangements are still unsettled because all the factions are pushing for places in areas of the session floor that are clearly visible from the press galley.

On May 14 Slava Stetsko, at age 82 the oldest member of the Verkhovna Rada, will open the new convocation as she did in 1998.

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