President Leonid Kuchma opened on June 15 a two-day workshop called The New Political Realities of Ukraine at the Turn of a Century, during which central and local public administrators, leaders of political parties and non-governmental organizations, and political scientists considered the concept of reforming this country’s political system. According to the president, the workshop’s main goal is to draw up the conceptual principles of political system reformation. Mr. Kuchma emphasized that this was the first workshop of such a scale after independence. As he put it, this forum was being held to analyze and generalize changes in the political system that have occurred in Ukraine, Interfax-Ukraine reported.
The president reminded the audience that the workshop had been preceded by work done by a task force set up by his instruction and headed by Ivan Kuras, Vice President of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, director of the Institute of Political and Ethnonational Studies. It is this task force that drafted the political system reformation concept discussed at the workshop. In the president’s words, round tables on the theme now being considered at the workshop have already been held, for example, in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, and Ivano-Frankivsk. The head of state said the draft concept would be offered for a broad public debate, following which it would be modified and confirmed by his decree.
The president also expressed some of his views on this country’s achievements. He believes the main achievement of independent Ukraine is that the state and society have never faced any “critically dangerous tests” during the years of independence. “Ukraine is practically the only CIS country that has managed to do so, and not at the expense of infringing the rights and freedoms of citizens,” Mr. Kuchma believes. He also classified as independent Ukraine’s indisputable achievement “the establishment of unity and links between the profound democratic transformations and the strengthening of political stability and civic peace.” Simultaneously the president stressed one must “be aware of and cherish these substantial gains” because, as he put it, this country “is not short of problems.”
According to Mr. Kuchma, in the years of independence Ukraine has had a number of incidents which have caused social tension and the threat of “acute conflicts” and tempted the authorities to resort to undemocratic strong-arm actions, but they managed, in the president’s opinion, to avoid the latter.
By all accounts, it is the incidents of the past few months that made the political elites accept the necessity of political reform in this country, after which the political system would comply, at least in theory, with modern requirements (what we have seen until now is only a certain alteration of the Soviet-type political system) and adequately respond to challenges. Logically, precisely this should be the practical essence of the reform theoretically discussed at the workshop.
On the other hand, this can be considered a new attempt to carry out the administrative reform which must perhaps become part of a broader process, especially if we regard in this context the quite controversial and disputable presidential decree on introduction of the institution of state secretaries. By all accounts, the arguments of those favoring this process to be put within the legislative framework have been heeded. Chief of the President of Ukraine’s Administration Volodymyr Lytvyn said on June 15 that state secretaries would begin be appointed after a provision on state secretaries appointment had been adopted. He also emphasized that state secretaries should coordinate their actions with ministers to avoid any differences, Interfax-Ukraine reports. Mr. Lytvyn stressed that state secretaries should have their powers clearly defined, noting that they will be appointed by the president on the recommendation of the prime minister who will discuss the candidates with the respective ministry. He explained that the appointment of state secretaries was being delayed because it will take some time “to let passions cool and to prevent these offices from being taken for political considerations.” This provision, which must, among other things, take into account the specific nature of ministries, especially those of defense and internal affairs, is to be drawn up “before the end of this month or even earlier.”
In his closing speech at the conference the president called the so- called cassette scandal “a page which is already turned but not forgotten” in this country’s history. Leonid Kuchma also stressed that the “real cause” for the cassette provocation was growing confidence of power, “which was convincingly confirmed by the results of the April 16, 2000 referendum.” Mr. Kuchma is still convinced that in the cassette scandal the strongest blow to the Ukrainian state and its international prestige was made by the “self-styled saviors of the nation.”
The president also said that priority direction of the policy reform in Ukraine should be first of all radical changes in the system of governance. In Kuchma’s words, the way to creating a system of a politically responsible executive power lays through forming a permanent parliamentary majority, which must get the control levers on forming the Cabinet of Ministers and together with it to take all the responsibility for the socioeconomic situation in the country. As under the present conditions forming a single party parliamentary majority does not seem possible, he remarked, the question arises on forming a coalition government. If Verkhovna Rada will not secure carrying out its “sacred” duties, such as forming the parliamentary majority or coalition, ratifying appointment of the prime minister or the budget bill, it is to bear “full responsibility — up to dissolution, as it exists in all the countries, except for perhaps the US presidential republic,” believes the Ukrainian president.
