Verkhovna Rada’s July 11 vote on the government action program caused no sensation. As expected, the majority (259) of the 427 people’s deputies registered to vote took note of the Cabinet of Ministers’ concept and decided to defer full-scale debate until a more suitable time. The parliamentary resolution demands that the program be modified taking into account the legislators’ observations and be put to a new vote after the 2003 state budget is passed. In fact, this long-forecast decision has impressed observers with its stringency. The deputies placed Prime Minister Anatoly Kinakh in rather dire straits. The Dayhas repeatedly noted that Verkhovna Rada will not grapple with the government program before the fall and that it will not give up the second Cabinet-controlling lever before all the 2003 budget problems have been settled. Now this has come to pass. Moreover, as an informed source close to the budget committee leadership told The Day, the people’s deputies do not much trust the government’s oral promises. For this reason, the deputies will come to their own conclusions about the extent to which their proposals about the program have been taken into account on the basis of written statements in the draft budget. A question traditional for Ukraine is how this will affect the so-called economic constitution. Let us not break the tradition and wait until autumn.
