“What made you resign as parliamentary majority coordinator? Your colleagues have so far just been making conjectures on this point...”
“Let me remind you I once warned journalists that I would be giving no comments while the majority was coordinating its interests and solving its organizational and procedural problems. But today the time of ‘great silence’ is over. So, let’s begin. United Ukraine, as a structure, brought Volodymyr Lytvyn into the office of Verkhovna Rada speaker. To my deep regret, this man betrayed the political force that catapulted him into the speaker’s chair. Firstly, parliamentary committees were in fact sold out to the opposition in the hope of somewhat appeasing their aggressive intentions. History teaches — just recall the Munich conspiracy — that the appeasement of an aggressor ends in a fiasco. The aggressor, instead of reducing his aggressiveness, only increases his appetite. This is precisely what our parliamentary practice has proved. Secondly, the very process of majority formation provoked stubborn resistance on the Verkhovna Rada speaker’s part. Both in public and in private, Mr. Lytvyn constantly tried to stunt the growth and structuralization of the majority and the drafting of some documents. For example, it was not clear until recently whether or not Mr. Lytvyn was going to sign the political agreement. Although he finally put his signature, the document’s title was distorted. At first, the document was projected as a political agreement between the parliamentary majority and the coalition government, then it was renamed as political agreement between Verkhovna Rada in the person of its majority and the coalition government. Finally, the terms ‘parliamentary majority’ and ‘coalition government’ vanished at all on his initiative. When we were ready to make a decision on the National Bank and the committees, already coordinated and signed by all the faction leaders and the prime minister, Mr. Lytvyn again said, visiting a Baltic state, that it was unnecessary to redistribute the committees. When there is a recorded deal and one of its elements has suddenly been torn away, the whole system crumbles. It was necessary to discuss the issue of a new NBU leadership and the committees because the PPPU and Labor Ukraine faction decided it would not vote on the committees unless the National Bank governor problem is solved. In reply, other factions took the following stand: if the NBU management and the committees question is not put to a package vote, they will not guarantee hundred-percent participation in voting on a new National Bank governor. All this prompted the only way to solve the problem: a package motion and voting. Which was done on Thursday — it’s common knowledge. This item was not then put on, but was implied in, the agenda. Well, you know what happened.
“Then the coordination board elected me person in charge. They said it was time to choose a coordinator. They promised me that the Verkhovna Rada speaker can issue an instruction to keep me, a people’s deputy, clear of all Verkhovna Rada premises except the session room. After this ‘heart-to-heart’ talk, I took my papers and wished Mr. Lytvyn, who assumed leadership of the majority without even being its member, great successes in a new field. Yet, it seems to me that his viewpoint does not exactly correspond to the general logic of the formation, strengthening, development, and activity of both the parliamentary majority and the coalition government.”
“What do you think caused Volodymyr Lytvyn to take on this attitude?”
“He probably thinks it is better to have a non-structuralized parliament and solve problems by way of separate deals.”
“What do you think is the way out of this situation for the majority?”
“What was recorded in the relevant documents and minutes must be fulfilled to the end. Otherwise, this will be not even a time bomb but a high-explosive mine for the majority and the coalition government. Besides (I said it at all sessions), we must work out a technological and organizational mechanism which will ensure joint actions and joint responsibility of both the parliamentary majority and the coalition government. The point is that legislative proposals should be obligatorily discussed and coordinated before being put to debate in the plenary session room. Working in Verkhovna Rada is not just sitting and pushing buttons. It also means preliminary drafting of documents. So procedures and technologies is the decisive problem. This also applies to the legislative process as such in VR. What has been drawn up here is just a comprehensive long-term plan of work for both the parliamentary majority and the coalition government.”
“Is the majority prepared now for developments similar to those that occurred on Thursday?”
“I think so. But, from Friday onwards, I am personally no longer responsible for coordinating the actions of the majority.”
