Yushchenko-Yanukovych pact: what exactly does it entail? (10/02/05)

Yushchenko-Yanukovych pact: what exactly does it entail?

by Yana Sedova
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - So just what was it that President Viktor Yushchenko and his former nemesis Viktor Yanukovych signed?

The one-page Memorandum of Understanding Between the Government and Opposition, already nicknamed the Yushchenko-Yanukovych Pact, contains 10 points. A few are critical, and most are redundant, political experts said. Much of the agreement needs to be read between the lines, they said.

"There were some secret agreements behind this pact," said Volodymyr Kornilov, a political expert and director of the Center for Strategic Planning.

Perhaps no other part of the agreement raised more alarm than the condition that President Yushchenko submit to the Verkhovna Rada a bill providing amnesty to those responsible for committing election fraud in last year's presidential election.

Amnesty would apply to everyone except those who ordered the falsifications, said Mykola Martynenko, a national deputy and leader of the Our Ukraine faction in the Rada.

"Unfortunately, several thousand criminal cases concern people who were ordinary (election) commission members," Mr. Martynenko said. "Among them are teachers, cleaning women who threw two ballots when the trains were running all over Ukraine," he said, referring to those who engaged in massive falsification from city to city.

The clause on amnesty most directly applies to ordinary Ukrainians who received orders to violate the law, said Vasyl Stoyakin, the director of the Center for Political Marketing.

When informing the press about the amnesty provision, Party of the Regions National Deputy Vitalii Khomutynnyk said it applies to representatives of election commissions, without offering more specifics.

His press secretary, Ihor Khokhych, said the amnesty provision refers to ordinary people who worked in election commissions.

Politicians and their observers questioned whether Mr. Yushchenko had the right to single-handedly grant amnesty when an entire judicial system exists to determine whether crimes were committed.

"The pact cannot grant amnesty, even if it is signed by top officials," said Yurii Kliuchkovskyi, a national deputy of the Our Ukraine faction. "Only the law can do this."

In the memorandum, Mr. Yushchenko also agreed to expand immunity from prosecution to city council deputies, many of whom played key roles in the electoral falsification.

The immunity would extend from the local level all the way to Rada deputies, alleged leaders of the Pora political party at a September 27 press conference.

They sharply criticized the memorandum, saying Mr. Yushchenko "betrayed the 'maidan's' values," and said they would fight to ensure punishment for all who engaged in voting fraud. They demanded that Mr. Yushchenko veto any bill that would provide criminal and administrative immunity, particularly the provision in the memorandum that referred to protecting local council deputies.

It's highly unlikely that the top organizers of vote falsification will face prosecution because proving it will be extremely difficult in court, Mr. Stoyakin said. Too many people were involved, he said.

The memorandum also contained a provision urging a law about the status and rights of the opposition, which would guarantee that opposition leaders chair Rada committees in matters such as the budget and freedom of the press.

The Party of Regions, headed by Mr. Yanukovych, needed "immunity guarantees for business elites at the local level," Mr. Kornilov said.

Such immunity means ceasing the aggressive reprivatization campaign waged by former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko to return to the government property that was either illegally or unreasonably privatized during the Kuchma presidency.

Three particular clauses in the memorandum forbidding reprivatization are "legislative regulation of private property guarantees," "inadmissibility of pressure on juridical bodies," as well as guarantees for opposition politicians to chair the Rada's Special Commission for Privatization Issues. Mr. Khomutynnyk of the Party of the Regions said these provisions essentially put an end to reprivatization.

Any future reprivatization efforts will end, Mr. Stoyakin said, but the government will complete all those that have already been initiated.

Courts have already decided to reprivatize such high-profile properties as Kryvorizhstal, the Kremenchuk oil-refining plant and the Nikopol Ferroalloy plant.

Mr. Yushchenko signed the agreement between a half-hour and an hour before the Verkhovna Rada voted to approve his nomination of Yurii Yekhanurov to replace Ms. Tymoshenko as prime minister.

Most political experts said Mr. Yushchenko signed the pact because he wasn't sure whether he had enough votes in support of Mr. Yekhanurov, despite a meeting with 18 faction leaders the evening before.

By signing the pact, Mr. Yushchenko not only secured the Party of the Regions' 50 votes and Mr. Yekhanurov's candidacy, but perhaps saved his presidency as well.

"If Yekhanurov's candidacy would have been rejected for the second time, the crisis would have become irreversible and uncontrolled," said Volodymyr Fesenko, the chair of the Center for Applied Research. "We wouldn't have gotten a government crisis, but a crisis of presidential power."

What Mr. Yushchenko should do is to finally define the difference between "political repressions and responsibility for law violations," Mr. Fesenko said.

After the vote, Mr. Martynenko made the dubious claim that it was not the 50 votes that prompted Mr. Yushchenko to sign the memorandum, because "before voting, we clearly understood that we already had enough votes without the Party of the Regions."

Having extended a hand to Mr. Yanukovych, Mr. Yushchenko followed the slogan of the Orange Revolution: "East and west are together," Mr. Martynenko said.

It's possible Mr. Yushchenko's Our Ukraine People's Union will join forces with Mr. Yanukovych's Party of the Regions in the future, Mr. Stoyakin said.

"[Mr. Yushchenko] in general has a Kuchma-style approach," he said. "From the very beginning, the president created a system of counterbalances to Tymoshenko, such as his Secretariat and National Security and Defense Council. Now Mr. Yanukovych is supposed to counterbalance Ms. Tymoshenko."

Not everyone was impressed with Mr. Yushchenko's political maneuvers.

"Mr. Yushchenko failed to become an authoritative leader who is able to put Ukraine's national interests over interests of business elites and private ambitions of his circle," Pora stated in a September 27 press release.

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