Ukraine's Parliament gridlocked over committee chairmanships (06/09/02)

Ukraine's Parliament gridlocked over committee chairmanships

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV- The Verkhovna Rada continued to remain mired in political gridlock over appointments to the remaining leadership posts on June 6, a week after a chairman and two assistants had been elected, and six weeks since elections had brought in a new group of national deputies.

The Ukrainian Parliament has essentially split into two coalitions with four factions - Our Ukraine, the Socialists, the Communists and the Yulia Tymoshenko faction - which have been dubbed the "Parliamentary Four" in opposition to the Social Democrats (United) and United Ukraine, the largest faction in the new convocation.

The Verkhovna Rada remained in adjournment for the better part of the week as the leadership of the six factions spent most of their time behind closed doors unsuccessfully trying to hammer out a compromise over who should get how many committee chairmanships.

To a large degree, the paralysis has centered on how to assuage the Parliamentary Four and especially National Deputy Viktor Yushchenko's Our Ukraine faction, which continues to insist that as the political organization that received the most electoral support in the March 31 elections it should have a greater say in how the government and the parliamentary leadership is formed.

Mr. Yushchenko has called the various political strategies and games that went on before the May 28 vote for the Parliament Presidium - which some lawmakers have said came about through vote-buying and resulted in the United Ukraine and Social Democratic (United) factions grabbing the chairmanship and two vice-chairs by a bare majority of 226 votes - "unethical" and "immoral."

As the Parliament remained adjourned through most of the first part of the week, public debate among the national deputies took place on Ukraine's television screens, as one side defended its actions and the other took them to task on various news programs.

Oleksander Karpov of United Ukraine explained on June 4 that members of the Parliamentary Four keep forgetting that the by-party voting in the March 31 elections was only half the process and the only part that Our Ukraine won.

"Don't forget that ours is a mixed system of by-party and majoritarian votes, where half the seats were won by political parties and half by individuals running in districts," explained Mr. Karpov on one such television program. "[Our Ukraine] was the winner in one portion, but we were the winner in the other part, which was decisive."

Many in the Our Ukraine bloc have said that the process was far from being fair, as United Ukraine drew more than 100 winners from the 226 districts of Ukraine to its political bloc through a process of coercion and pay-off, which resulted in the political bloc attaining by far the most seats in the new Parliament.

Petro Symonenko, chairman of the Communist Party, which remains in an ideologically unwieldy coalition with the center right-oriented Our Ukraine political bloc - both are in common opposition to the two pro-presidential factions, explained that the Parliamentary Four must resist any compromises that will not be to their advantage.

"We must fight with the powers-that-be because the only thing they want to do is to find political and financial advantage for themselves. They are leading us to an Asian or African situation," explained Mr. Symonenko.

Mr. Yushchenko of Our Ukraine has proposed a comprehensive agreement to move the Parliament out of crisis, which would be signed by the president, the prime minister and the leaders of the Parliament and would set forth a common set of goals for political, economic and social development. His proposal is supported by the Socialist faction.

Our Ukraine released a document on June 4, in which it states that it recognizes only "a comprehensive approach to the system of power and the intensification of economic and social change," and that it is "categorically opposed" to the apportionment of parliamentary portfolios other than as "an instrument for the reform of the political, economic and social spheres."

Currently several other proposals on how to break the impasse have been proposed by the Parliamentary Four. One such option calls for a second vote on the presidium posts, while another one calls for the Parliamentary Four to receive an overwhelming number of committee chairmanships, including the powerful Budget Committee, in return for acceptance of the current presidium.

While several leading members of the SDPU and United Ukraine, including ex-President Leonid Kravchuk and Serhii Tyhypko, have expressed a desire to find a compromise and get to work, Volodymyr Lytvyn, the head of United Ukraine, has kept a low profile before the press and preferred to do his talking at the bargaining table.

Mr. Lytvyn and other leaders of the two factions have put together a list of chairpersons from all the factions based on the proportion of the seats they currently have in the Verkhovna Rada - a proposal they hope that, with some tweaking, will become acceptable to the Parliamentary Four. Mr. Kravchuk said that he supports such a proportional division of committee chairmanships. However, the Parliamentary Four have essentially rejected such a division of responsibility.

"I could even see a few extra committees for the four factions, but no way can we expect that they should get all the committees," explained Mr. Kravchuk. "If the four do not accept any compromise, however, somebody will have to take responsibility upon themselves to break the paralysis. The Rada was elected to work."

On June 5 Mr. Yushchenko met with President Leonid Kuchma in search of a solution. While neither man commented on the meeting afterwards, the president's press secretary, Olena Hromnytska, said that an agreement had been worked out that would apportion the committee chairmanships according to the number of seats each faction controls, as Mr. Lytvyn, the president's former chief of staff, would like.

She said that the political agreement Our Ukraine had proposed also was discussed, but she did not state whether the president had accepted it as a basis for negotiations. She said, however, that Mr. Kuchma is interested in a compromise agreement.

"Ukraine needs an efficient Parliament with a stable majority," Ms. Hromnytska quoted the president as saying.

A day after the meeting, no political compromise had been announced and the leaders of the various factions remained in negotiations.

| Home Page |