ANALYSIS: Our Ukraine seems to be losing sway over country's constitutional reform (02/15/04)

ANALYSIS

Our Ukraine seems to be losing sway over country's constitutional reform

by Jan Maksymiuk
RFE/RL Belarus and Ukraine Report

The Verkhovna Rada voted on February 3 to excise the clause allowing the election of an "interim" president by direct election in 2004 and the subsequent parliamentary selection of a head of state in 2006 from a contentious bill on political reform that was preliminary approved on December 24, 2003.

The amendments to the bill were passed by 304 deputies, that is, by four votes more than are necessary for the final adoption of the constitutional reform in the second reading. This became possible due to the opposition Socialist Party, whose lawmakers threw their support behind the bill, arguing that it is now generally in accord with their own intent to transform the political system in Ukraine into a more democratic one.

Our Ukraine and the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc, by destroying microphones in the session hall and unleashing turmoil, unsuccessfully tried to prevent the Verkhovna Rada from voting.

The February 3 vote took place during a short, "extraordinary" parliamentary session preceding the opening of a regular session later the same day. The pro-presidential majority in the Verkhovna Rada apparently resorted to this stratagem in order to meet the constitutional requirement for passage of constitutional amendments in two regular plenary sessions, thus making it possible for them to become law before the presidential ballot that is expected in October.

If the bill is passed by the Verkhovna Rada in the second reading before May 1, when the presidential election campaign is expected to begin, then a new president elected this coming fall will have significantly fewer prerogatives than Leonid Kuchma is enjoying now. The center of power in Ukraine will be shifted from the presidency to the prime minister and Parliament. Many in Ukraine as well as abroad see the constitutional reform in Ukraine as President Kuchma's and his aides' ploy to strip Our Ukraine leader Viktor Yushchenko, a leading presidential candidate, of real executive power in the event he is elected president.

The recent siding of the Socialist Party with the presidential majority in pursuing the constitutional reform does not necessarily mean that now the reform bill will be cleared by the Verkhovna Rada without difficulties.

Another hurdle is the adoption of a law on fully proportional parliamentary election that is the sine qua non for support of both the Communist Party and the Socialist Party to the constitutional-reform bill in the second reading. Many lawmakers in the pro-presidential majority, who were elected under a first-past-the-post system, are reportedly not particularly happy with this idea, feeling that an all-proportional system would spell defeat for many of them in the next elections.

The carrot for them is reportedly the idea currently circulating among pro-presidential forces to lower the threshold for winning parliamentary representation by a party to 1 percent from the current 4 percent. However, such a prospect will hardly satisfy the Communists and the Socialists, who are opting for a fully proportional, party-list system to prevent political small fry from winning parliamentary mandates and thus augment their own parliamentary gains. Some large parties in the pro-Kuchma majority may also be opposed to the lower-threshold idea.

Mr. Yushchenko and Ms. Tymoshenko filed a complaint against Rada Chairman Volodymyr Lytvyn with a Kyiv district court on February 5, charging that Mr. Lytvyn approved an illegitimate vote on a constitutional-reform bill in the Verkhovna Rada on December 24, 2003. The two argue that videotape of the December 24, 2003, session shows that the bill was supported by just 154 deputies, not the 276 deputies written in the official records. Surprisingly enough, the complaint was also signed by Oleksander Moroz, whose Socialist Party supported the amendments to this very bill on February 3.

Moreover, Mr. Yushchenko and Ms. Tymoshenko filed another court complaint, charging that Mr. Lytvyn called an illegal extraordinary session on February 3 to vote on amendments to the constitutional-reform bill. Mr. Yushchenko and Ms. Tymoshenko appear to be seeking to gain time in the constitutional-reform game - as long as the complaints are considered in court, they argue, the introduction of any constitutional amendments should be halted, according to the Civil Procedure Code.

Related petitions regarding the December 24 and February 3 votes have also been filed by Ms. Tymoshenko and Mr. Yushchenko with the Ukrainian Constitutional Court.

As matters now stand, the court litigation by Mr. Yushchenko and Ms. Tymoshenko and the potential discord over the parliamentary-election system may now be the only impediments to the adoption of a constitutional reform that evidently does not suit Mr. Yushchenko's presidential ambitions. Critics of Mr. Yushchenko point out that he has already lost the opportunity when he could side with Mr. Moroz - a staunch supporter of the shift to a parliamentary-presidential republic in Ukraine - and take the initiative in shaping a constitutional reform with his own hands. Those critics argue that presidential administration chief Viktor Medvedchuk, whom many see as the main author of the reform, outwitted Mr. Yushchenko by striking a political deal with Mr. Moroz.

Even if it is not clear what immediate gains are expected by Mr. Moroz from his situational alliance with the pro-Kuchma camp, it is not difficult to predict that the current lack of political harmony between Messrs. Yushchenko and Moroz bodes ill for their potential cooperation in the upcoming presidential election campaign.

Jan Maksymiuk is the Belarus and Ukraine specialist on the staff of RFE/RL Newsline.

| Home Page |