ANALYSIS: Will political reform lead Ukraine out of its crisis? (03/23/03)

ANALYSIS

Will political reform lead Ukraine out of its crisis?

by Taras Kuzio
RFE/RL Newsline

President Leonid Kuchma submitted draft political reforms to the Verkhovna Rada on March 6, but those proposals are unlikely to overcome Ukraine's profound political crisis.

The need for change was highlighted by the findings of an opinion poll reported by Ukrainska Pravda on March 11, according to which 45 percent of respondents backed radical change, 38 percent supported revolutionary reform and 11 percent backed revolutionary changes. Only 6 percent believed changes were unnecessary.

That level of discontent notwithstanding, the authorities are continuing to put a brave face on things. Looking to next year's presidential elections, presidential administration chief Viktor Medvedchuk said he is convinced that "the authorities firmly believe in their victory in the future political battles."

Such optimism is largely unfounded. President Kuchma's popularity is at an all-time low, hovering at 5 to 8 percent. In contrast, the presidents of Russia, Moldova and Belarus enjoy popularity ratings of 72, 67, and 27 percent, respectively. A November-December 2002 poll by Democratic Initiatives Fund found that 55 percent of Ukrainians distrust Mr. Kuchma, while three-quarters would like to see him step down early.

The political crisis has its roots in the delegitimization of Ukraine's ruling class, the former Communist Party of Ukraine elite who became "sovereign communists" in the late Soviet era and "centrists" after Ukraine won its independence.

This delegitimization makes it impossible to arrange a transfer of power similar to the one that occurred in Russia in 1999-2000, when Boris Yeltsin passed the torch to Vladimir Putin. Since President Kuchma is widely perceived as "an extremely unpopular and incompetent leader," his endorsement would prove "a heavy weight that could drown" any potential presidential candidate, Razumkov Center President Anatoliy Hrytsenko wrote in the weekly Zerkalo Nedeli of March 8-14.

Pro-presidential leaders are unpopular because of the public perception of the elites as corrupt, amoral and indifferent to the needs of the population. Not surprisingly, therefore, a Razumkov Center poll found that 81.6 percent are opposed to Mr. Kuchma standing for a third term, while a similar percentage opposes any potential attempt at granting him immunity from prosecution.

The front-runners from the first round of the 1994 presidential elections who went on to the second round were Leonid Kravchuk (37.27 percent) and Mr. Kuchma (31.27 percent), while Mr. Kuchma (36.49 percent) and Mr. Symonenko (22.24 percent) advanced in the 1999 elections. In various opinion surveys, pro-presidential figures poll 5 to 8 percent, making it difficult to see how they could increase this figure to the more than 20 percent needed to win a place in the second round of the 2004 elections.

By contrast, opinion polls since 2000 have consistently indicated that Our Ukraine leader Viktor Yushchenko wins ratings of 23 to 30 percent, with Communist leader Petro Symonenko in second place with 11 to 16 percent. Mr. Yushchenko is also the only candidate with a consistently higher positive than negative rating.

With such public support, Mr. Yushchenko would be virtually guaranteed a place in the second round of the 2004 elections, where he might face Mr. Symonenko, whom he would presumably defeat (as Mr. Kuchma did in 1999). As Mr. Hrytsenko concluded, "If this leadership carries on with its policies, it is doomed, and none of its candidates will get as far as the second round." Mr. Medvedchuk's claim in an interview in the newspaper 2000 that "the authorities are now stronger than ever before," therefore, rings hollow.

Despite the clear need for radical reform, the changes that President Kuchma has proposed as a means of defusing the crisis are merely a reworking of those put to a referendum in April 2000, the results of which were not recognized by either the Council of Europe or the OSCE. In 2000 voters were asked to approve or reject four proposals: a reduction in the size of Parliament from 450 to 300 deputies; the creation of an upper house comprising regional representatives; the president's power to dissolve Parliament if no majority is formed within a month or no budget is passed within three months; and the abolition of deputies' immunity from prosecution. Mr. Kuchma's new proposals include the first three of the 2000 proposals, but not the question of deputies' immunity.

In addition to reintroducing three of the four 2000 referendum questions, President Kuchma has added fully proportional elections to the lower house. In 1994 and 1998, 50 percent of parliamentary deputies were elected in single-mandate constituencies, while the other 50 percent won seats under a proportional (party-list) system. In 2002 Mr. Kuchma opposed holding fully proportional elections, but changed his mind after the elections were over. Under his most recent proposals, elections to the lower house would be conducted under a proportional system.

President Kuchma's proposals for a fully proportional election law were discussed in the Verkhovna Rada in February but failed to win the required number of votes for approval. The draft was backed by the ideologically driven left (Communists, Socialists) and the right (Our Ukraine, Tymoshenko Bloc). Most of the pro-presidential and ideologically amorphous "centrist" parties voted against the draft - the one exception being the Social Democratic Party-United (SDPU), which is the only "centrist" party to have invested resources in developing a nationwide party structure, as a result of which it became the only "centrist" party to surmount the 4 percent threshold in the proportional vote in the 2000 elections.

Under Mr. Kuchma's proposals, the upper House of the Regions would include three representatives from each of Ukraine's 24 oblasts, the Crimean autonomous republic, and the two cities (Kyiv and Sevastopol) with special, (formerly called all-union) status, as well as former presidents. This would allow Mr. Kuchma to become a senator for two additional years after he leaves the president's office, tiding him over until the next lower-house elections in 2006.

When similar proposals were discussed in the 1990s, eastern Ukrainian elites rejected the creation of an upper house, saying it would give the less populous and rural western Ukraine an equal standing with the more populous east. As Mr. Kuchma opposes introducing elections for regional governors' posts, the appointed upper house would act as a pro-presidential body - a counterweight to the lower house. (A similar model is in place in Kazakstan, Belarus and Russia.)

The 2003 proposals thus reintroduce what Mr. Kuchma wished to obtain in the 2000 referendum, when Mr. Yushchenko was prime minister and there was a non-left majority comprising the "center" and the center-right. This unity was irrevocably destroyed by the "Kuchmagate" crisis that began eight months later, in November 2000. After the 2002 elections, President Kuchma sought to create a majority purely from the "center" to revive the 2000 reforms and ensure his own immunity from prosecution. One factor in the aim to transform Ukraine from a semi-presidential to a parliamentary-presidential republic is ensuring that if elected, Mr. Yushchenko would not inherit the extensive powers that Mr. Kuchma now wields.

President Kuchma's reforms are to be the subject of Soviet-style public discussion throughout the country. As in the Soviet era, the authorities already claim that telegrams in support of the proposals have been received from workers' collectives. But Ukrainian journalists have pointed out that a free discussion is impossible because the media - especially television - are controlled by the state and oligarchs.

Taras Kuzio is a resident fellow at the Center for Russian and East European Studies, University of Toronto.

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