ANALYSIS: Rada OKs government plan (04/11/04)

ANALYSIS

Rada OKs government plan

by Jan Maksymiuk
RFE/RL Belarus and Ukraine Report

The Verkhovna Rada voted 239-38 on March 16 to approve the government's action plan for 2004, called "Consistency. Efficiency. Responsibility." The vote simultaneously acknowledged the performance of Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych's Cabinet in 2003 as satisfactory.

Most lawmakers from Our Ukraine, the Communist Party, the Socialist Party and the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc did not participate in the vote. A separate motion by the opposition to rate the government's performance last year as unsatisfactory was supported just by 109 lawmakers, well below the 226 votes required for approval.

The vote means that Yanukovych's Cabinet, which was formed in November 2002, obtained one more year of life - that is, at least the Verkhovna Rada may not oust a Cabinet within a year following the approval of its action plan. Of course, Mr. Yanukovych may be sacked by President Leonid Kuchma, but Mr. Kuchma is rather unlikely to do so in the situation where neither the fate of an ongoing constitutional reform nor the issue of who will represent the pro-government camp in the upcoming presidential election have been decided.

Prime Minister Yanukovych presented his 2004 action plan and demanded a parliamentary vote on it a month ahead of his deadline. He apparently took this step with cold political calculation, to secure himself against any nasty surprises on the part of the legislature.

Mr. Yanukovych heads the 67-strong Regions of Ukraine caucus, whose votes are crucial for passing constitutional reform. Therefore, he seemed to be quite sure last week that the Verkhovna Rada could not vote him out of his current post, since such a step would put the entire constitutional reform in jeopardy.

Taking an objective look at the performance of Mr. Yanukovych's Cabinet, the Verkhovna Rada had no reasons to oust him. Mr. Yanukovych told lawmakers with pride that the gross domestic product (GDP) in 2003 grew by 9.3 percent, industrial production increased by 15.8 percent, and the Cabinet implemented the 2003 budget with a 3 percent surplus in collected revenues.

His action plan for 2004 is equally ambitious. It envisages, in particular, a 9.5 percent increase in GDP, a rise in foreign investments by $1.5 billion, the creation of 600,000 new jobs and a 15 percent increase in wages.

"We are confident that the program on the whole meets the need of the state and society, the perspectives of Ukraine's further movement along the path of reform, and the ideas of integration into the global economy," the prime minister said in the legislature.

Mr. Yanukovych, whom many see as the most probable candidate of the pro-Kuchma camp in the presidential race, is now also keeping another option open for himself: he may remain in the post of prime minister, a top political position in Ukraine, after the potential approval of the constitutional reform package.

Mr. Yanukovych said last month that he has not yet decided whether to run in the presidential election, but he added that his decision will depend on whether he will be supported by the "political forces that today represent the centrist bloc, both in Parliament and in the state." Recent surveys suggest that 10 to 12 percent of the electorate support him.

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

| Home Page |