The proposal of Verkhovna Rada Vice Speaker Viktor Medvedchuk for the Cabinet of Ministers and the parliamentary majority to sign a contract on cooperation and mutual responsibility has passed from the stage of idea to that of concrete implementation. Experts have drawn up the required document, and representatives of the majority and the government met on March 15 to discuss it.
Above all, the people’s deputies asked themselves a question: what do we want to sign? The query is quite logical, for the project is still nameless. There are so far two options in the air: Political Contract and Memorandum. The joint political agreement, as Second Vice Speaker Stepan Havrysh, working group cochairman on behalf of parliament, said at the end of the meeting, will consist of two parts: a document on the political principles of the relationship and a document on the specific obligations of both sides. They also came to the conclusion that the agreement should be signed by the prime minister and speaker in the presence of the president.
It is planned to complete before the weekend work on a document later to be discussed at the majority’s general meeting. It is also planned to invite President Leonid Kuchma and Prime Minister Viktor Yushchenko to attend. The vice speaker also emphasized it is the question of “a fundamentally new policy of relations between the cabinet and parliament” within the framework of the Constitution. Mr. Havrysh announced the document is expected to lay down an important role for the parliament in forming a government, as well as contain a Verkhovna Rada pledge to pass on a priority basis laws aimed at reforming all spheres of society.
Simultaneously, some fractions participating in the meeting aired dissenting opinions on the nature of the agreement. It is also unknown in how many stages it will be signed. Almost all majority factions have opted for a two- tier procedure. First, a protocol of intent (Memorandum), and then the detailed and comprehensive Contract proper. Viktor Suslov (Yabluko faction) has subjected the project to criticism. He thinks the text is devoid of content. Mykhailo Ratushny (UNR) and Roman Bezsmertny (NDP) also said the Memorandum, especially its obligation clauses, should be seriously amended.
Still vague remains the mechanism of its implementation. No less vague is also the status of the future agreement from the standpoint of people’s deputies. Some view it as a legal act, others as a purely political statement. This is the cardinal point, for if the document is political, the responsibility for breaking it will also be political. In this case, there is no need for Verkhovna Rada to preliminarily pass the law on the parliamentary majority and opposition, on which SDPU(o) and Regional Revival factions insist. The Contract will be just a contract, not a legal act. Incidentally, Regional Revival (RR) is laying claim to several ministries, Forum (www.for-ua.com) reports. “We are laying claim to the Ministries for Emergency Management, Ecology, Public Health, as well as to the offices of heads of the State Property Fund and Ukrnafta, and first vice premier. Since we have been out of power the past year, let us spend a little time in the driver’s seat,” RR leader Oleksandr Volkov said last Thursday. As The Day has already reported, SDPU(o) leader Viktor Medvedchuk said on March 12 that his faction was not asking governmental portfolios but would like to see the governors of Transcarpathian and Chernivtsi oblasts replaced.
Addressing a Ukrainian Media Association press club meeting, Mr. Yushchenko said on March 16 that the political agreement between the government and the parliamentary majority would be signed “without any preconditions” about changes in the cabinet.
Judging by everything, the prime minister is trying to tap all his “resources” not so much to save the majority as to keep himself in power. Some rightist parties of the majority are also trying to rescue the premier. This was clearly shown by the campaign in Yushchenko’s support launched by Reform and Order, the Popular Movement of Ukraine, the Ukrainian Popular Movement, and the Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists, which plan to collect hundreds of thousands of signatures among Ukrainian citizens in support of the premier and then file this petition with the president and Verkhovna Rada. The parties also do not rule out other ways and forms of backing the premier in case parliament puts on the agenda the vote of no confidence in the government, including inviting to Kyiv of Mr. Yushchenko’s supporters on the day Verkhovna Rada deliberates this question.
On the other hand, this insistence of such rightist parties can well be explained by the coming parliamentary elections and the aspiration to use Mr. Yushchenko’s image as a powerful campaign brand name should the premier leave office. But if he stays on, it would also be a good idea to have “our boy” heading the cabinet, with due account of such lucrative aspects as privatization and the budgetary process. Tellingly, Mr. Yushchenko himself has not yet expressed publicly his attitude toward the action of the parties supporting him. Their leaders must be acting on their own initiative.
