Party of the Regions' quest for power means diminishing that of the president

by Zenon Zawada
Kyiv Press Bureau

The following is the conclusion of a two-part series about the Party of the Regions' aggressive campaign of usurping power in the Ukrainian government.

Disabling the president

Part of expanding the Party of the Regions' influence in government involves curtailing its main obstacle to absolute authority, currently the Presidential Secretariat.

Less than a month in power, the Cabinet of Ministers on August 30 passed a resolution eliminating President Viktor Yushchenko's authority to give its ministers orders and assignments.

To intercede regarding Cabinet decisions, the resolution allowed for the president to file lawsuits in court.

In their first direct threat to Mr. Yushchenko's authority, Party of the Regions Assistant Faction Chair Yevhen Kushnariov announced on September 13 that he intended to ask the Party of the Regions to introduce constitutional changes enabling the Parliament to elect the president, instead of electing the head of state by popular vote.

"In countries with such a parliamentary-presidential system, the Parliament elects the president," he told the newspaper Isvestiya. "That's an absolutely legitimate process. I am currently working on the details for such conditions."

Further laws are necessary to implement constitutional changes that would transfer more of the president's powers to Parliament, Mr. Kushnariov said, adding that this would resolve a dangerous situation of conflict within a government that has turned into a diarchy.

It's unlikely the Party of the Regions would be able to implement such constitutional changes because 300 votes are necessary.

A week later, the Cabinet of Ministers announced its plans to introduce a bill requiring that any presidential decree bear signatures from the prime minister and the Cabinet minister responsible for the decree's execution. Presidential decrees are otherwise invalid, Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych said.

The bill also contained the provision denying the president authority to give ministers orders and assignments.

To prove it was serious, the Cabinet returned seven presidential decrees to the Presidential Secretariat on September 21, alleging they violated constitutional procedure because they lacked the necessary signatures. The decrees were related to diplomatic personnel changes and judicial appointments.

Ukraine's Parliament passed a bill, "On the Cabinet of Ministers" on December 21 which would require the prime minister's signature on presidential decrees, as well as eliminate the president's authority to give orders to the Cabinet of Ministers.

However, the president will veto the bill, and the Verkhovna Rada is unlikely to muster the 300 votes to override the veto.

Always keeping the president under threat, Anti-Crisis Coalition leaders every so often raise the issue of impeachment.

Most recently, Verkhovna Rada Chair Oleksander Moroz said that should President Yushchenko revoke the January 1 constitutional reforms creating the parliamentary-presidential republic, the Parliament's immediate reaction would be to initiate impeachment proceedings against the president.

Another prong in the coalition government's strategy of curtailing the president's authority involves ignoring presidential orders and decrees.

Numerous instances since August have revealed the coalition government's disrespect for the Presidential Secretariat.

Among them, the Cabinet of Ministers decided on August 30 to keep the Institute of Ground Forces in Odesa, ignoring Mr. Yushchenko's proposal to transfer it to Lviv.

Most recently, the newly appointed Minister of Internal Affairs Vasyl Tsushko announced through his press secretary that he would ignore a December 16 decree ordering his ministry to stop appointing officials without presidential approval.

Purging the ranks

In the tradition of Soviet dictators, the Party of the Regions has led its own version of purges within the Ukrainian government, successfully managing to cleanse the ranks of almost all pro-Orange Cabinet ministers.

Of the seven pro-Orange ministers in government when the Anti-Crisis Coalition took over, only Minister of Defense Anatolii Hrytsenko remains.

Minister of Health Yurii Poliachenko switched teams, turning his back on Our Ukraine People's Union (OUPU) and choosing to remain in the Yanukovych government instead of resign, as three other colleagues had done.

The first purge attempt wasn't directed toward the Orange Cabinet ministers, but against five oblast administration chairs appointed by President Yushchenko who represented pro-Orange political parties.

The Cabinet of Ministers announced on September 28 that it would ask the president to dismiss the oblast administration chairs of the Poltava, Ternopil, Kharkiv, Kherson and Chernihiv Oblasts "for unsatisfactorily resolving problems that restrain the nation's social and economic development." Oblast state administrations chairs, commonly referred to as "governors," are appointed by the Ukrainian president.

Poltava Oblast Administration Chair Valerii Asadchev represents the Ukrainian People's Party; Ternopil Chair Ivan Stoiko, Kharkiv Chair Arsen Avakov and Kherson Chair Borys Silenkov represent OUPU; and Chernihiv State Oblast Administration Chair Mykola Lavryk represents the Party of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs.

The attempt failed because only the president can appoint or dismiss oblast administration chairs. However, the Party of the Regions has a tendency to view such laws as mere nuisances.

Prime Minister Yanukovych announced on September 29 that he would pursue legislation in Ukraine's Parliament that would cancel oblast and district state administrations altogether, replacing them with locally elected oblast executive committees.

A new law on local self-administration would give regional governments the power to adopt regional policies, pass laws locally and establish regional laws, Mr. Yanukovych said.

When it became apparent the coalition government had no interest in honoring the Universal of National Unity, Our Ukraine Political Council Chair Roman Bezsmertnyi announced on October 4 that the Our Ukraine bloc was entering the opposition.

Subsequently, Minister of Justice Roman Zvarych, Minister of Culture Ihor Likhovyi, Minister of Family, Youth and Sports Yurii Pavlenko and Mr. Poliachenko submitted their resignations.

In the following weeks, the Cabinet of Ministers plucked the Orange ministers out of government one-by-one, with the exception of Mr. Poliachenko, who opted to remain.

The next ministers on the coalition government's radar screen were Mr. Tarasyuk and Minister of Internal Affairs Yurii Lutsenko.

The unrefined Viktor

In his usurpation surge, Mr. Yanukovych has managed to reaffirm the gangster image associated with the Party of the Regions.

His gruff, bullying behavior towards Orange ministers in the Cabinet provided among the more amusing scenes in Ukrainian politics this fall.

Former Minister of Justice Roman Zvarych became the target of Mr. Yanukovych's boorish mannerisms on numerous occasions.

At a September 29 Cabinet of Ministers meeting, Mr. Yanukovych even threatened to fire Mr. Zvarych when the justice minister pointed out that the Cabinet has no right to fire oblast administration chairs, which is exclusively the president's prerogative.

"Keep in mind, and I'm warning everyone, particularly you, Roman Mykhailovych," Mr. Yanukovych said in a commanding tone. "Everyone who stands in the way of raising the level of accountability for his responsibilities, I personally will initiate the dismissal of such people, including you."

The prime minister spoke further: "Government representatives from Our Ukraine should understand that we are in delicate relations with you! In delicate relations! We still haven't signed an agreement, so don't play with me!"

At another Cabinet of Ministers meeting a month later, Mr. Yanukovych scolded Mr. Zvarych for talking on his cellular phone while he spoke, telling him to leave it outside the hall. It's doubtful Mr. Yanukovych would have given the same order to a Party of the Regions minister.

Mr. Tarasyuk also felt the wrath of Mr. Yanukovych's bullying.

During an October 25 Cabinet meeting, the foreign affairs minister was wishing his colleague Mr. Hrytsenko a happy birthday with an apparent smile, drawing the prime minister's irritation.

Just days earlier, Mr. Tarasyuk publicly said the coalition government was stalling Ukraine's WTO entry on behalf of the Russian Federation.

"Tarasyuk! You have a humor ... I'll tell you what kind of humor it'll be," Mr. Yanukovych barked. "Listen when I speak! I wouldn't be laughing if I were in your place!"

After his dismissal, Mr. Zvarych told reporters it was "very uncomfortable" working in the Yanukovych government.

Protection from the law

The latest frontier in the Party of the Regions' usurpation campaign is the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

As with Mr. Tarasyuk, the coalition government had long been itching to dismiss Mr. Lutsenko, one of the Orange Revolution's heroes and among those who launched the Ukraine Without Kuchma movement in 2000.

Under Mr. Lutsenko's directive, authorities arrested former Donetsk Oblast Council Chair and top Party of the Regions operative Borys Kolesnikov, charging him with threatening to kill a businessman. He was eventually released.

Mr. Kolesnikov is currently a Party of the Regions member of Parliament shielded by deputy immunity.

Just three days after becoming prime minister, Mr. Yanukovych met with Mr. Lutsenko and informed him that he was creating a new structure to ensure Mr. Lutsenko would "coordinate" his work with the Cabinet of Ministers.

"We will work on a model of relations in which the Cabinet will control the situation in the nation, in every region," Mr. Yanukovych told Mr. Lutsenko on August 7. "I hope a constructive cooperation will begin between the Cabinet and the ministry."

The ministry is a critical power base in the Ukrainian government because it controls all law enforcement activities.

In the case of Mr. Lutsenko, the Party of the Regions was particularly interested in limiting his newly launched criminal investigations, particularly in the Donetsk Oblast and the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, both rats' nests of politicians with criminal backgrounds.

Specifically, the Party of the Regions was concerned about Mr. Lutsenko's investigations in Crimea, during which between 225 and 250 bodies of victims of business and gang violence were unearthed.

Among those suspected in the murders was gang leader Oleksander Melnyk, who managed to get elected as a deputy to Crimea's Verkhovna Rada in the 2006 elections, representing the "For Yanukovych!" bloc.

However, only national deputies' in Kyiv enjoy deputy immunity.

Aware of Mr. Lutsenko's investigations in the summer, Mr. Melnyk fled Ukraine for several months. When he returned in September, authorities arrested him and transferred him to Kyiv to face charges for murdering two Crimean businessmen.

However, the Procurator General's Office, led by eastern Ukraine loyalist Oleksander Medvedko, announced on October 3 that the Ministry of Internal Affairs had failed to provide enough evidence against Mr. Melnyk.

Numerous cases similar to the attempted Kolesnikov and Melnyk prosecutions drew the Party of the Regions' wrath against Mr. Lutsenko.

After the Parliament sacked him on December 1, the coalition government replaced him with Socialist Party National Deputy Vasyl Tsushko.

Soon enough, the Cabinet of Ministers approved a list of appointments of assistant and deputy ministers with close ties to the Party of the Regions.

Among the most disturbing appointments was the new assistant minister for personnel and internal safety Mykola Plekhanov. He was the Sumy police chief who ordered the assaults on Sumy university students during their protests against election falsifications in 2004 - an event now recognized as among the critical sparks of the Orange Revolution.

At the time, Mr. Plekhanov was serving under Volodymyr Scherban, the former Sumy Oblast Administration chair accused of extortion who was found in October under an Interpol arrest warrant hiding in Florida.

Mr. Scherban has since returned to Ukraine without arrest, and is unlikely to be prosecuted with Mr. Plekhanov in a position of influence.

To prevent such odious figures from becoming leaders in Ukraine's Ministry of Internal Affairs, Mr. Yushchenko on December 15 issued a presidential decree stating that the appointments violated presidential constitutional authority and required his approval.

Three days later, Mr. Tsushko indicated he would ignore the president's decree.

Defending the presidency

At a December 14 press conference in Kyiv with foreign journalists, President Yushchenko was visibly upset with Prime Minister Yanukovych's aggressive conduct. He acknowledged that his relationship with Mr. Yanukovych was increasingly conflicting, "but I want to emphasize I am not the author of these conflicts."

"The new team came, and they have the feeling that the whole world is under their feet," Mr. Yushchenko said, later adding that they are "attempting to seek revenge, attempting to see everyone defeated."

If there's a silver lining to the current events, political observers said it's that Mr. Yanukovych and the Party of the Regions are providing a valuable test of presidential authority following the January 1 constitutional reforms creating a parliamentary-presidential republic.

In his remarks on December 14, Mr. Yushchenko called on Mr. Yanukovych to form government relations strictly according to Ukraine's Constitution.

If Mr. Yushchenko is able to successfully defend the presidency, the boundaries of authority between the coalition government and the Presidential Secretariat will be established, setting a precedent for successors.

Mr. Tarasyuk's firing is a particularly critical test in defending presidential authority, because at issue is the president's ability to set and control Ukrainian foreign policy.

"Every lawyer will tell you it's clear that if the president proposes a minister's candidacy for the Parliament's confirmation, it is obvious that the president initiates the dismissal of this candidate," Mr. Yushchenko said.

Speaking to Ministry of Internal Affairs employees on the December 20 holiday for law enforcement workers, Mr. Yushchenko was uncharacteristically blunt, for the first time using the term "usurpation" in describing the actions of Mr. Yanukovych and the Party of the Regions.

He was still visibly upset with this situation, calling on the ministry's workers to serve the law, the people and the Ukrainian state.

"A time of trial has now arrived," the president said. "Today in front of you stands a challenge in the appearance of individual anti-constitutional actions, which led to usurpation of power, including at the Ministry of Internal Affairs ... Serve, and don't be subservient."

When Mr. Yanukovych became prime minister, he had a unique chance to prove he was a politician who could work across party lines and unite Ukrainians, said Serhii Taran, chair of the Socio-Vymir Center for Sociological and Political Research. By doing so, the Party of the Regions would have also been able to spread to appeal beyond eastern and southern Ukraine, and prove itself as a national political force.

Instead, Mr. Yanukovych squandered that chance, proving you can't teach an old dog new tricks, "Yanukovych started to talk about a wide coalition," he said. "But, very quickly, it was revealed that he didn't know how to do that. And then he began dismissing people. He lost the prospect of becoming a politician of a national scale, not just a single interest."

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, December 31, 2006, No. 53, Vol. LXXIV

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