Kuchma says he will move ahead with amendments to Constitution (03/09/03)

Kuchma says he will move ahead with amendments to Constitution

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - President Leonid Kuchma announced on March 5 that he would move forward with a plan to amend the Constitution of Ukraine to reform the country's political system and shift the balance of political power towards a parliamentary system. He said the amendments were needed to bring the country into step with most other European systems.

"We need to go to a system that is like those found in Europe, a parliamen-tary/presidential system," said Mr. Kuchma.

The Ukrainian leader explained that while Ukraine had required strong presidential rule in its first years of existence to guarantee its sovereignty, peace and stability, now the country must "go further to strengthen the Constitution."

In a 15-minute address to the nation carried by all the major television networks, the president said he would soon submit a series of bills to the Verkhovna Rada to begin the process to make the needed Constitutional amendments. He pressed for widespread debate on the matter within Ukraine's Parliament and also in the media and on the streets.

For the most part, Mr. Kuchma repeated a proposal he had originally made last year on Ukrainian Independence Day, which called for changing the current system from one in which the president holds the advantage in the balance of power among the government branches.

Just as last August, this time the announcement also came days prior to a planned demonstration by the "Arise, Ukraine" political opposition movement bent on removing Mr. Kuchma from power for alleged corruption and criminal misrule, including accusations that he planned the disappearance of the Ukrainian journalist Heorhii Gongadze. Several of the political groups involved in the movement, including the Batkivschyna Party, have long called for parliamentary government rule.

President Kuchma offered a brief criticism of their attempts to bring about similar reforms on their terms, calling them "primitive" attempts to grab a share of power.

Mr. Kuchma linked the new, proposed Constitutional changes to ones that were apparently approved in April 2000, but have lain dormant for the past three years. He announced that he would reinvigorate implementation of the results of a national referendum held then, which the Verkhovna Rada had since failed to bring to a ratification vote. He also suggested the changes might not need parliamentary approval. The president said the changes approved by the nation in 2000 and the current Constitutional amendment he was proposing complemented one another.

The 2000 plebiscite, widely considered within the country to have been manipulated by pro-presidential supporters, called for the development of a two-chamber Parliament, a reduction in the current number of national deputies from 450 to 300, transfer to the president of the right to dissolve the Parliament under certain conditions and revocation of the criminal immunity that lawmakers hold.

In the proposed changes that Mr. Kuchma repeated yesterday but first put forward on Independence Day, he called for the Verkhovna Rada to approve amendments to the Constitution that would give Parliament the authority to form a government and ratify a prime minister nominated by the president. It would require, however, that the Verkhovna Rada first establish a working parliamentary majority.

"Everybody will finally understand who is responsible for what," explained Mr. Kuchma during the television address. "If the government and its lawmakers cannot fulfill their promises, then I know you will vote them out next time."

Mr. Kuchma said the president would retain his role as guarantor of the Constitution, and guardian of the country's sovereignty and the integrity of its borders. The head of state would also retain responsibility for the country's foreign policy. In those roles, the president would remain the head of the armed forces and continue to appoint the ministers of internal affairs, foreign policy, defense and emergency situations.

Mr. Kuchma underscored the need for the Verkhovna Rada to cede some powers to the president, as approved in the national referendum, most importantly the power to dismiss the national legislature if it failed to form either a working majority or a government within a set period of time or could not pass a budget by a given deadline.

Mr. Kuchma outlined in more detail his vision for the changes that should occur as a result of the 2000 national referendum. He said that one chamber of the new Parliament structure would retain the name the Verkhovna Rada and would consist of lawmakers elected based on a proportional electoral system. The other chamber would be called the House of Regions and would consist of seats reserved for both elected and appointed officials: oblast chairmen, local representatives of the presidential administration and mayors.

In a radical break with the consensus among politicians for the three years since the national referendum was approved, the president suggested that parliamentary ratification was not needed to implement the four proposals.

"The referendum should not have to be ratified by a government body," declared Mr. Kuchma. "The voice of the people should not be subject to further approval."

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