PACE expresses concern over Rada's new move on constitutional reform (07/04/04)

PACE expresses concern over Rada's new move on constitutional reform

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) reacted negatively on June 23 to word that the pro-presidential majority coalition in Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada had successfully moved an initial reading of a new effort at Constitutional reforms.

National Deputy Borys Oliinyk, head of the Ukrainian delegation, which had returned from the weeklong summer session of PACE on June 24, said PACE members were "shocked" to hear that the pro-presidential forces in the Ukrainian Parliament had attempted to revive the political reform legislation after the Verkhovna Rada had failed to muster the necessary two-thirds majority on April 8 to allow changes to the Constitution of Ukraine. The changes, if they had been approved, would have transferred much of the powers of the president to the prime minister and set up a system in which the Parliament chooses the head of government.

PACE issued a statement on June 24 in which it expressed reservations about continued attempts by certain forces within the Verkhovna Rada to force through changes to the Constitution only months before presidential elections were to be held. Mr. Oliinyk said during a press conference in Kyiv that PACE members had stated that they would take a very serious look at the situation in Ukraine during the organization's autumn session.

"It looks like we are going to have very serious problems in October," commented Mr. Oliinyk.

On June 23, 276 national deputies approved the first draft of a new piece of legislation introducing changes to the Constitution and turning Ukraine from a system dominated by the president to one dominated by the Parliament. In such a system lawmakers would form a majority coalition that would appoint the prime minister and his Cabinet, severely reducing the president's authority.

Opposition members have stated that political reform, while needed, is being pursued by the pro-presidential forces at this time to head off what looks like a better than even chance that National Deputy Viktor Yushchenko, head of the oppositionist Our Ukraine bloc, can win the presidential election on October 31. There is fear that a new president could cause a major upheaval in the country's power structure and leave many in power today vulnerable to criminal prosecution.

The June 23 vote was the first stage in the second attempt to move through the process required to amend the Constitution. In the next step, the Verkhovna Rada should review the first reading during its next session, in this case in the autumn, and then obtain a two-thirds majority in a vote in support of the resolution.

While the 276 votes cast in this latest effort were far more than the 226 ayes required for a simple majority, they fell well short of the 300 that the pro-presidential forces would need in the next round to get the Constitution amended.

National Deputy Yulia Tymoshenko, whose eponymous faction opposed the effort, along with the Our Ukraine faction, said after the vote that the bill had no chance in the fall.

"There will be no reforms in the autumn within the context of [the political reform] bill because 276 votes is not 300 votes. The reform has no chance," Ms. Tymoshenko said.

However, the opposition's forces had expressed confidence that they would not allow the political reform bill to come to a vote again, after they had helped quash it back in April.

While national deputies from the Our Ukraine and Tymoshenko factions circled the chairman's dais during most of the June 23 session, attempting to disrupt and block any attempt at a vote, the matter finally came to a head when Socialist Party chairman and faction leader Oleksander Moroz, whose members had long been staunchly in the opposition camp, proposed that a discussion take place on two proposed bills: No. 4180, the pro-presidential bill and No. 3207, which the Socialist faction had co-authored and at one point Our Ukraine leader Yushchenko had said he might be able to support.

As it turned out, Our Ukraine and the Tymoshenko Bloc abstained from voting on either of the two bills. The Socialist faction bill received only 118 votes, while the pro-presidential draft found a rousing majority.

Coincidentally, the vote occurred less than a week before the country marked Constitution Day on June 28. In the run-up to the national holiday, lawmakers from the opposition decided to renew a demonstration tradition that had been used effectively in recent years. On June 24 they constructed the beginnings of a tent city on the edge of Mariinsky Park, which adjoins the Verkhovna Rada Building. By June 28 four pup tents had been erected, belonging to lawmakers from the Our Ukraine and Tymoshenko parliamentary factions.

The tent city was organized as a protest against what is considered an unlawful second attempt at constitutional reform, as Ukrainian law provides that once a reform effort on a specific matter dies, it can be revisited by the Verkhovna Rada only in the following session. One of the signs in the tent city read: "Change the state leadership not the Constitution."

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