Parliamentary coalition collapses (07/09/06)

Parliamentary coalition collapses

Moroz and Azarov are candidates for Rada chair

by Zenon Zawada
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - Just two weeks after signing a parliamentary coalition pact with the Our Ukraine and Yulia Tymoshenko blocs, Socialist Party of Ukraine leader Oleksander Moroz betrayed his Orange Revolution partners and formed a de facto union with the Party of the Regions and the Communist Party.

Recognizing that he lacked enough votes, Our Ukraine National Deputy Petro Poroshenko withdrew his candidacy for the Verkhovna Rada chair during the Parliament's July 6 session.

The Socialists then nominated Mr. Moroz and the Party of the Regions nominated Mykola Azarov, a former first vice-minister who spent most of his life in the Russian Federation. As of The Weekly's press deadline, the vote for the Rada chair had not yet taken place.

"I don't want to lead a Parliament where sectors are battling each other," Mr. Moroz said. "But I know that, other than me, no one will unite it."

Ever since the coalition negotiations began in April, Mr. Moroz had been vying for the Rada chair, which he held for four years between May 1994 and April 1998.

The Our Ukraine bloc had refused to give the Socialists the Parliament chairmanship, which it wanted Mr. Poroshenko to occupy in order to counterbalance Ms. Tymoshenko's influence as prime minister.

Eventually, Mr. Moroz publicly relinquished his claim to the post.

His July 6 turnaround caused a schism within the ranks of his own party as National Deputy Yosyp Vinskyi announced he was resigning as the first secretary of the party's political council.

Mr. Moroz's betrayal ruins the democratic coalition and reveals his intention to unite with the Party of the Regions, Mr. Vinskyi alleged.

"My personal tragedy is that I can't trust Mr. Moroz as the Socialist Party leader, a person I walked alongside for 15 years, who, I supported in everything, for whom I took on the dirtiest and most thankless work," Mr. Vinskyi told reporters.

He accused the Party of the Regions of buying off the Socialists. "Price is a big issue, and I don't have the facts or documents to support my claim," Mr. Vinskyi told reporters. "But you will soon see who is riding in which cars and living in which apartments."

Last week, Tymoshenko Bloc National Deputy Mykola Tomenko accused the Party of the Regions of creating a $250 million slush fund to bribe national deputies to leave the newly formed coalition government.

Most of the Socialist Party's high-profile deputies rallied in defense of Mr. Moroz, including acting State Property Fund Chair Valentyna Semeniuk and acting Minister of Agriculture Oleksander Baranivskyi.

They blamed President Viktor Yushchenko for forcing Mr. Poroshenko's candidacy down their throats.

Given that Mr. Poroshenko is a multi-millionaire businessman, his nomination violates the Orange Revolution's rallying cry of separating politics from big business, the Socialists argued.

Mr. Moroz's announcement directly violates the coalition agreement signed on June 22, which forbids one political group from opposing another group's nomination for a post it is entitled to.

The coalition no longer has a legal status as a result of Mr. Moroz's violation, said Mykola Onischuk, an Our Ukraine national deputy. However, the Socialist Party hasn't submitted any announcement that it was formally leaving the coalition.

The Rada's acting chair, Ivan Bokyi, commenced the debate on the two nominees for the chairmanship during the afternoon session of the Rada, which was able to convene after the Party of the Regions had announced earlier in the day that it was ending its blockade.

After Mr. Moroz and Mr. Azarov declared their candidacies for the parliamentary chair, the tone of the debate turned especially nasty, revealing that Ukraine's newly elected Parliament would be marked by as much friction and sharp divisions as ever.

Our Ukraine and Tymoshenko Bloc national deputies took to the Rada's rostrum and attacked Mr. Moroz as a traitor of the democratic coalition and the Orange Revolution.

Our Ukraine National Deputy Liliya Hryhorovych recalled the words of the late Vyacheslav Chornovil, who told her that Mr. Moroz could never be trusted.

She also took a shot at the other nominee, who was born in the city of Kaluga in the Russian Federation. "Mr. Azarov, you don't know the spirit of this nation, its wishes, its dreams," Ms. Hryhorovych said.

Tymoshenko Bloc National Deputy Viktor Taran attacked Mr. Azarov as stupid for failing to learn to speak the Ukrainian language after spending so many years working in the Parliament and the government in Ukraine.

Voting for the Rada chair was to take place via secret ballot and had yet to take place as of The Weekly's deadline.

Political insiders speculated that the Party of the Regions, the Communists and the Socialists would select Mr. Moroz as Rada chair and either Mr. Azarov or Viktor Yanukovych as prime minister.

Party of the Regions National Deputy Taras Chornovil said the party was open to a wide coalition including all the mainstream parties, as well as a coalition of leftist political forces.

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