The people’s deputies reacted to President Leonid Kuchma’s appearance at the rostrum on June 18 in various ways. The representatives of the For a United Ukraine, Social Democrats, and Viktor Yushchenko with a good half of his faction met him with applause; the Communists and radical Rukh [People’s Movement of Ukraine] members with reserved silence. And the opposition demonstrated utter impoliteness. As soon as the president began to deliver his message to the parliament, the Yuliya Tymoshenko and the Socialist factions left the session hall. Their demarche looked strange, because they had wanted to hear the president present his strategic tasks since the new parliament first convened. Nor had they refused the chairs of four standing committees. Their behavior cannot be explained only by ideological or strategic differences. After all, the opposition has never been able to offer any alternative way of Ukraine’s development. The bast sandals the Socialists gave the president could hardly be called a strategy.
“You have to have something in your head!” the president angrily retorted, throwing the bast sandals away from his rostrum, “I don’t care about such things.” After this he called on those who remained in the session hall to start joint work “with a blank slate,” saying “We still have two years and a half to work together.” Meanwhile, the foreign diplomats who witnessed the unpleasant incident made notes on their own blank sheets. The rest of the procedure went on without incident. Having explained the strategic and geopolitical significance of his speech, President Kuchma went on to more substantive issues.
According to the president, the obstacle to the country’s democratic development is the incomplete administrative reform and the insufficient “transparency of management mechanisms at all levels... I have ordered to draft a presidential decree that will envision entirely new methods of management,” he stressed.
In the context of the administrative reform, the president emphasized interaction among the branches of government, particularly the formation of a coalition government. A prerequisite for this, he said, is a stable majority in Verkhovna Rada. He expressed hope that it would be “not a formal majority” designed to distribute high positions, but a “viable” one, “united by a clear political program... capable of enacting this program into law.” If such a majority were created, Pres. Kuchma would be ready to discuss “all urgent problems” with it, including the composition of the cabinet (“coalition or otherwise”) and “the candidature of the prime minister.”
For the first time in his presidency, Kuchma agreed with the necessity of a mechanism of impeachment as an instrument of the parliament’s control over the president’s activities. “It’s up to the parliament to adopt a law on it,” he said and added, “But you must agree that there also have to be mechanisms for dissolving the parliament if it is unable to form an acting majority.”
Simultaneously, Pres. Kuchma insists that the issue of elections of governors can be raised “only when constructive counterbalances are introduced into this system.”
The principal directions in the administrative reform should be “vertical delegation of executive authority, extended powers of administrative regions, and comprehensive development of local self-government... The government and Verkhovna Rada must come to terms on this point.”
Speaking about economic reforms, Kuchma said that the 2003 national budget must be drafted based on the new tax system and asked the lawmakers not to write “unrealistic figures” into the budget. “We have to live on our income,” he said. He called the delay in adopting the new Tax Code “absolutely unacceptable.” According to him, if it’s impossible to pass the document as a package, it must be introduced stage by stage in sections.
The basic ill of the country’s economy, according to the president, is the banking sector along with too high and complicated tax rates and numerous privileges enjoyed by “certain sectors and enterprises.” Interest rates on bank credit exceed the National Bank’s rates almost three times. “I don’t see any effective efforts on the part of the National Bank to radically change the situation,” he said.
The president reaffirmed the western vector of Ukraine’s foreign policy. “The best choice is full membership in the European Union,” he said, stressing that Ukraine’s policy in the international arena should be pragmatic. “It takes laborious negotiating efforts to attain this goal, but in the long run, everything depends on us,” he said. It is also necessary for Ukraine to pursue an effective and clearly targeted foreign policy in other directions, particularly to “increase its effort as a transit state.”
As observers noted, the president accentuated Ukraine’s strategic partnership with Russia, Poland, and Germany before mentioning the USA. He also stressed the “necessity to substantially deepen relations with NATO.” Kuchma urged the parliament to maximally speed up its legislative work in the sphere of combating money laundering.
Concluding his 45-minute speech, the president told the people’s representatives: “After some time, you and I will become part of history. But we all want to be remembered as people who have done something good for this country... As president, I am ready for fruitful cooperation, for any institutional changes in interactions within the political system if they can lead to improvements in our work for the benefit of Ukraine. I hope that you are ready for such cooperation. May our love for Ukraine inspire us all.”
