It was to be expected. The public altercation between the prime minister and the parliamentary speaker over “who is to blame for the dismal results of relations between the government and parliament” was preprogrammed. The involvement of interested parties from both sides — ministers and MPs — coupled with the president’s peacemaking efforts, has only upped the noise factor without changing the essence. The gist is that there is no government of professionals in Ukraine. Meat, gasoline, gas, and oil crises; rising inflation and a declining economic growth rate, a nearly thwarted entry into the WTO, information wars between the Cabinet of Ministers, the National Security and Defense Council, and some ministers — do we need more proof?
The quota principle, on which the president had pinned so much hope, has not become a matrix that could ensure post-election societal cohesion and productive lawmaking. Moreover, the political activity of this country’s leadership shows that instead of trying to improve the staffing situation, the government is sinking more and more into an institutional crisis. Ample proof of this is the intention to form an NSNU- BYuT-NPU megabloc as well as the style and methods used by the party of power. It will be recalled that the quota problem began when Prime Minister Yuliya Tymoshenko read out cabinet’s statement on the results of the parliamentary session. “In the final days of the session, the Ukrainian and international communities have become witnesses to an orchestrated provocation in the Verkhovna Rada. We regret to note that the leadership of the highest legislative body is directly involved in this because it chose to further maintain social and economic tensions in society and thus discredit the work of the government and the president,” the statement reads. The head of government used the epithet “political savagery” to characterize the parliamentarians’ conduct. To find a way out of this situation, the prime minister suggested turning one of Speaker Lytvyn’s post-revolutionary phobias into reality, i.e., to form a parliamentary majority by September that could, together with the cabinet, please the president by helping him carry out his election program. This triggered a too prompt and nervous reaction from the opposing side, i.e., the parliamentary leadership.
That same evening (Wednesday) Mr. Lytvyn appeared on the UT-1 channel to comment on the situation. One detail provides a good illustration of the gravity of the situation: for the first time in many years the speaker appeared on the silver screen without his trademark hairstyle. The same day the reconciliation board issued a statement in response to the “cabinet rebels’ schemes.” Whether one can say that all the forces in parliament share this view is a big question. Besides Our Ukraine and BYuT, even the SDPU(O) faction has announced that it did not support the statement. Furthermore, this entire reconciliation board story looks more like an attempt by the parliamentary leaders to solve their personal political problems than a joint initiative of the leaders of the various parliamentary factions. Mr. Lytvyn himself said that the cabinet’s declaration as read out by Ms. Tymoshenko was an attempt to shift the blame for what is going on in the state to parliament. He accused the cabinet of trying to discredit and exert pressure on the Verkhovna Rada. “It is not the Cabinet of Ministers’ business to teach the Verkhovna Rada what to do, and how.” The speaker also practically accused the cabinet of committing sacrilege by attempting “to draw President Viktor Yushchenko of Ukraine into a political conflict.” And the president certainly was drawn into it. While he was in Austria, Mr. Yushchenko asked the conflicting sides to shake hands and exchange compliments.
In the head of state’s view, the speaker and the prime minister must draw certain lessons from the current situation, and if they fail to reach mutual understanding in the nearest future, “this country will be in for a serious shakeup.”
The impression is that in this conflict between two centers of influence, the president sides conditionally with the Tymoshenko group. Proof of this is Viktor Yushchenko’s endorsement of the idea to form a parliamentary majority. “I think we will complete the negotiating process and formalize this structure in parliament before September 1,” the president said. OK. We’ve been there. What about methods? If this idea is implemented, the speaker will face a dilemma of whether he should enter this majority or become a figurehead. It is quite likely that the “control center” of this majority will be situated outside parliament but not necessarily at the Prosecutor’s Office, Tax Administration, or the Ministry of Internal Affairs. If we add to this the involvement of law-enforcement bodies in the political struggle and the lack of notable progress in the investigation of high-profile cases, we will have a dОja-vu type of situation. This in turn means that the Ukrainian political class is losing the impulse it received on the Maidan. The slogan “East and West Together!” has also not been reflected in governmental, and especially staffing, policy. There are no authoritative and influential figures in eastern and southern Ukraine in the Security Council, Cabinet of Ministers, or Presidential Secretariat. At the same time, we cannot say that there were no such unblemished figures in the previous government (e.g., Hayduk). This entire cabinet-parliamentary struggle may spark disappointment among broad social groups, which will sink once again into apathy, oppose any kind of politics in general, and finally get down to their customary business — solving their private problems without the state or in collusion with its corrupt representatives. This is the price that everyone will have to pay for the fanaticism of those who tout the quota principle and ostentatious and hypocritical consolidation.
As for the political spin significance of the parliamentary-governmental crisis, Ms. Tymoshenko’s group seems to have a better chance. First of all, her team is mobile, reacts well, and it has, to some extent, intellectual effrontery. Secondly, the premier’s orbit is attracting political parties that have genuine voters, leaders, and a reputation for being “truly faithful” followers of President Yushchenko. Incidentally, all this, in addition to the prime minister’s rating, is a serious resource capable of rivaling those of Security Council Secretary Poroshenko, State Secretary Zinchenko, and the president’s first assistant Tretiakov. Although this “troika” may upstage the prime minister’s group in terms of financial and media-owning capacity, the president’s “close circle” will hardly rival the prime minister and her ministers, especially those from the ex-PRP, in the ability to create and be the focal point of news. True, many sources report that the troika has quite competently organized an information blockade of the head of state, but so far it is unclear if this political instrument will remain as effective as it was in the times of the former president’s several administrations.
There are already some signs, e.g., the president’s control over the law- enforcement authorities and his rhetoric, especially in the regions. Yushchenko can already be heard speaking in the style of Kuchma or Lukashenko, as a politician in opposition to his own cabinet and the local government. The “victory” of Tymoshenko over Lytvyn will also finally make the cabinet a self-sufficient center of influence, the prospect of which has already caused unease in the Security Council. The latest example of political logic from this “opera” is the National Union of Our Ukraine (NSNU) statement on the current events. The party of power has put the blame for the current situation on parliament and the cabinet. In other words, the NSNU laid the blame on itself because a vice-premier and some ministers are simultaneously key figures of the party of power.
Going back to the parliamentary leadership, let us note the difficult political legacy of Lytvyn and his lieutenants as the third peculiarity of the situation. The followers of Prime Minister Tymoshenko are making full use of this circumstance. Viacheslav Kyrylenko, Minister of Labor and Social Policies, thus assesses the Verkhovna Rada situation: “In my opinion, we have again seen the formation of a parliamentary coalition, with Lytvyn and former president Kuchma ruling the roost. The latter still controls the parliament via his son-in-law Viktor Pinchuk,” Obozrevatel quotes the minister as saying. “One should look for the root cause of the Verkhovna Rada’s unstable work right inside the domed session room.” In Mr. Kyrylenko’s view, “the Lytvyn-Kuchma duo is applying a customary scheme to manipulate for their own purposes the parliamentary forces that not long ago were fruitfully cooperating with the Kuchma government. Like before, the wheeler-dealers are actively exploiting the communists’ services to obstruct the new government’s initiatives. They think this will discredit the new leadership.” He concluded his revelation by saying that Mr. Lytvyn is now playing a double game. “This is where the main cause of the conflict lies,” Mr. Kyrylenko said. Mykola Tomenko, Vice-Premier for Humanitarian Issues, has presented almost the same arguments against Mr. Lytvyn. He accused the speaker and the representatives of the previous government of destabilizing parliament in order to hinder the productive work of the Cabinet of Ministers and to discredit the new government.
For all the aforesaid reasons, parliament’s leaders hardly present any serious threat to the Cabinet of Ministers. If the president provides political support, and the Security Council and the Secretariat refrain from obstruction, the cabinet will surely manage to promote a pro-governmental majority. The new opposition has too few votes, while the communists have repeatedly shown their principled approach, to put it mildly. They did it in a well-disciplined, i.e., wholesale, way. The parliamentary “quagmire” in the form of all sorts of “united” figures showing “initiative” has long showed a readiness to go whole hog in supporting the president. The socialists, too, may have some opportunities for their traditional cat-and-mouse game, given the not so rigid voting discipline of the pro-governmental factions.
The deliberately provoked conflict between the government and the parliamentary leadership may be a pre-election ploy. The minimum program of this ploy is to establish strict control over the parliamentary political and informational space on the eve of the elections by replacing the speaker and forming a majority. The maximum program is to dissolve parliament and call early elections in the fall. The economic situation is rapidly worsening, and there is no reason why this country should not be shaken by new consumer crises in the fall, when inflation finally eats up the cabinet’s past social “gifts.” Incidentally, even Yuriy Karmazin, a pro-governmental MP, does not rule out this kind of scenario. “I think this statement (of the cabinet — Ed.) is in fact a test of public opinion as to the likely dissolution of parliament,” he told Interfax-Ukraine last Wednesday. He is convinced that the party of power “wants to force the Rada to dissolve itself ahead of schedule and then force an early election,” because if this situation lasts until the spring, the party of power will lose. Mr. Karmazin is sure that the MPs “will themselves collect enough signatures for self-dissolution,” thus paving the way for early elections in the fall. “Don’t you see that this is about replacing the speaker?” asked the deputy, adding that cabinet’s statement is “a warning to Volodymyr Lytvyn,” underlining that the parliamentary majority referred to in this statement should not include Lytvyn. Mr. Karmazin believes that if parliament does not vote to dismiss the speaker, early parliamentary elections will be inevitable, and they will be beneficial for the cabinet but not for the president and his entourage. He noted that 226 crucial signatures may be collected for the dismissal of Lytvyn, and “deputies are already being prepared for this.”
Another conclusion that can be drawn from last week’s sensational political scandal is the strong doubt that the government may form an electoral megabloc. After the recent events very few sincerely believe that the parties of Yushchenko, Tymoshenko, and Lytvyn will contest the elections in a single bloc. The cabinet feels very strongly about Lytvyn and all his political instruments. Maybe, this force of rejection is even greater than the force of obligations of Yushchenko’s milieu vis-И-vis the speaker and this milieu’s political jealousy of the government. The government’s march to parliament in two columns looks more realistic: the NSNU with smaller allies, and Yuliya Tymoshenko with her partners (Rukh, URP, ex-PRP). Undoubtedly, there will be a No. 5 column among the two. And Lytvyn’s place will obviously depend on how and when the new government is going to turn the bitterest pages of the past. These pages include not only the Gongadze affair but also the quota principle or, to be more exact, reflex. This reflex was already evident in the regions during the first wave of staff placements. Now the accumulated mass of contradictions is almost spilling over. It would seem that quotas and coalitions should be formed after the parliamentary elections, not the presidential ones. The “art” of coalition-making displayed by both the previous and the present government raises a fundamental question: does this group of comrades, referred to as Ukrainian politicians, know how to handle such an expensive and sophisticated European instrument as a parliamentary republic? Perhaps, while there is some time left before the political reform comes into force, it would be worthwhile mulling over mechanisms for protecting taxpayers and voters from our parliamentary-governmental coalitions.
COMMENTARIES
Volodymyr FESENKO, Penta Center for Applied Political Studies:
“I have already said before that the fourth-convocation Verkhovna Rada was born under an unlucky star. It has been haunted by a string of acute crises. The main cause of this is that this parliament’s term of office coincided with the period of the presidential election campaign and the ensuing change of the political regime in this country. A bitter, sometimes irreconcilable, political struggle has been concentrated in the Verkhovna Rada and it is not allowing the latter to work fruitfully. The crisis at the end of the parliament’s seventh session was the first ‘rehearsal’ of the coming pre-election struggle in the Verkhovna Rada. The WTO-related bills were just a pretext, although a very serious one. It looks as though there will be attempts to uncork WTO membership as one of the problematic splits in the future elections by exploiting it as a bogeyman for voters. There may be clashes over the budget in the fall — not only over the 2006 budget; I do not rule out the possibility of some budget-2005 expenditures being sequestered.
“If we talk about ‘provoking’ the parliamentary crisis, according to the logic of the authors of the cabinet’s statement, we can consider various versions. For example, we can predict that someone wanted to set up and publicly discredit the president and then set him against the parliamentary speaker, thus exacerbating political tension in their relationship. Incidentally, the cabinet statement seems to be pursuing this goal, too. It is easy to understand the hurt and embittered feelings of cabinet ministers, and easier still to understand the logic of an ‘interdepartmental conflict’ between the cabinet and parliament. Still, many accounts show that the Cabinet of Ministers also failed to do its best to prepare the passage of the WTO bills through parliament. So, one should not put the blame on parliament alone.
“This ‘crisis’ will have no particular consequences. The fall session will be a hot one, full of conflicts because of the growing pre-election struggle. It will be impossible to form a stable, let alone effective, parliamentary majority in the current Verkhovna Rada. Nor will such a majority be possible without the speaker and the factions that support him. All we can hope for is the formation of a ‘compromise’ and ‘constructive’ majority that cannot be ruled from the outside but with whose leaders both the president and the cabinet will be able to make deals.
“As for the formation of a stable majority and the mechanisms of cooperation between parliament and cabinet, one must think about this with due account of the coming parliamentary elections and the political reform. It will be impossible to establish normal interaction between the legislative and executive branches without completing the political reform, which, incidentally, provides for instruments to resolve parliamentary and governmental crises.”
Viktoriya PODHORNA, director, Center for Sociopolitical Projects:
“The reasons behind the parliamentary-governmental crisis that erupted during the WTO documents debate are rooted in the different strategies of key players in the 2006 parliamentary election campaign. The forces that were considered as a single bloc — Our Ukraine, BYuT, and the People’s Party — have now demonstrated that they have rather differing positions and views on the main items on the economic and political agenda. I do not think there is a serious conflict between the prime minister and the speaker. This is connected with a search for one’s place and a strategy for the future. Yuliya Tymoshenko’s views may be creating a high level of conflict in parliament. Speaker Lytvyn, who is well informed about the situation in parliament, cannot but understand that Tymoshenko’s left-wing views are oriented to the east, to the poor strata of the population. The situation in parliament is just the opposite: the interests of the majority of our citizens are represented to a minimal extent. Even the communists can hardly be called defenders of the interests of the poor — they seem to be just demagogues. There are 300-350 millionaires in parliament, who do not profess leftist views and will not support Tymoshenko’s policies. The WOT question is just a pretext for establishing their claims, to show their disagreement with the government’s policy. Lytvyn, as the speaker, cannot but share the views of most MPs. The difference in views provokes conflicts.
In the next while everything will depend on whether the forces of President Yushchenko, Prime Minister Tymoshenko, and Speaker Lytvyn succeed in forming a single coalition. So far I do not see any serious steps in this direction. But in the fall this will be the main item on the agenda. It will be logical if these forces go their own ways because differences in political stands are quite evident not just between Yushchenko and Tymoshenko, on the one hand, and Lytvyn, on the other, but also between Yushchenko and Tymoshenko. But I still do not rule out the possibility that Tymoshenko will fulfill her commitments to Yushchenko and enter the coalition, but only on condition that Yushchenko makes a sufficient effort to make it possible, i.e., firmly promise that Tymoshenko will continue to hold the post of prime minister. As for the parliamentary majority that Yushchenko says he intends to form, I think that even if it is formed, it will be of a purely formal nature.”
Vasyl STOYAKIN, director, Center of Political Market Research:
“In my view, it would be an exaggeration to call what happened a crisis. I think it is just an ordinary exchange of ideas, perhaps an overly harsh one, but not a crisis. After all, we don’t even have a parliament now: it has gone into recess.
“There are several reasons. Firstly, cabinet senses that its measures are failing to produce a positive result. In June economic growth was a mere 1.1% compared to the same period last year. This is a very low figure, and there are grounds to believe that later in the summer we will see a decline in the gross domestic product. In this situation the cabinet should immediately demonstrate unity, on the one hand, and on the other, find somebody on whom to lay the blame for this situation. This time the blame was put on the Verkhovna Rada, which took rather a dim view of the government’s proposals.
“The second reason is a strategic one. The Orange Revolution was left incomplete. The new government managed to carry out a wide-scale purge of the executive branch of power but left intact the representative bodies that were created by the old regime. They are reluctant to be controlled by the presidential administration and the cabinet, which the latter, naturally, does not like. These bodies do not have a clear pro-governmental or even pro-presidential majority. Therefore, the conflict between these branches of power is going to last until the parliamentary elections. There may even be attempts to aggravate the situation in order to dissolve the Rada ahead of schedule, but, by all accounts, they will fizzle out.”
and Volodymyr SONIUK, The Day
