The following article will hopefully give the reader some idea how the referendum results have been evolving into a political football. (—Ed.)
The penchant for May Day rallies is coming back to this country. Each year since Ukraine’s independence, the first day of the last spring month has been traditionally marked with one column of people marching under red and another under blue and yellow flags. In order to avoid their coming to blows, the two columns have always been separated by Khreshchatyk, entry to which has been barred to adherents of both ideologies. In the course of the May Day celebrations, leftists have always protested social injustice, while rightists have simply enjoyed a holiday of spring, making sure, at the same time, that their opponents do not take over Khreshchatyk. Occasionally, the Greens would also organize their own tree planting campaigns.
This year, however, there was real competition for the right to lead the workers in solidarity.
For the first time in many years, the Communists barged onto Khreshchatyk without any difficulty, bringing along about 3,000 supporters. Rukh, being torn apart by its own internal splits, did not even react. The Social-Democratic Party of Ukraine (united) declared May Day a true Social-Democratic holiday, thereby attempting to break the Communists’ monopoly on international solidarity. Viktor Medvedchuk, leader of the Social Democrats, cited about 125,000 of his conscientious compatriots who had followed the party’s call to restore historical justice by taking part in the May Day rallies under the slogan of Freedom, Justice, Solidarity. However, the Solidarnist parliamentary group took that as an infringement on their own right to a share in the traditional Social-Democratic slogan. The party under the same name, led by Ivan Chyzh, has also found itself in a vague situation-it has not joined either the Left minority or the Right majority, and is still looking for its own Social-Democratic niche. Leftist ideas are becoming rather popular with the Ukrainian political establishment.
This is how the second stage of parliamentary reform, initiated by the parliamentary majority in the Ukrainian House, is being implemented. The reform aims at splitting and demoralizing the enemy’s forces, with subsequent movement of “dissidents” to the Right. Such people are vital to creating a genuine constitutional majority in Verkhovna Rada, without which one might as well forget about any institutional reforms, i.e., reforms of government institutions in the sense of the whole system of state power. Indeed, the time has come to think about just this. The President has submitted a draft bill on amendments to the Constitution, based on the referendum results, and insists on its soonest consideration, threatening, as usual, to retaliate with adequate measures in case of disobedience. As we all know, proposed amendments to the Constitution must be approved by a simple parliamentary majority in the current session and by at least 300 votes during the next session in the fall.
The tricky thing is that the draft bill assumes implementation of just three referendum questions: on increasing presidential authority to disband the legislature, on reducing the number of parliament members, and on abolishing their immunity from prosecution. The question of a bicameral legislature is pending further clarification and development of a common opinion on the issue of a bicameral parliament as such. According to Roman Bezsmertny, presidential representative to Verkhovna Rada, the President’s move was quite logical, since only the first three questions entail direct and unambiguous interference with the Constitution. The fourth one is just information for review by a special working group to be composed of representatives of all branches of state authority.
The opposition, however, was quick to accuse the President of revising the referendum results. Socialist leader Oleksandr Moroz claims that the President and his allies intentionally avoid the issue of the upper chamber as such because it would deprive the head of state of much authority. Moroz said he would initiate creation of a special provisional commission on drafting a constitutional amendments bill and development of a corresponding draft law that would incorporate such issues as the creation of a parliamentary majority, presidential power to disband Verkhovna Rada, number of deputies and their immunity, and the functions of both houses. This approach is perfectly in line with the institutional reform concept developed by Serhiy Holovaty, who proposes to give the majority the right to form the government and even elect a President on its own.
There is a very subtle calculation involved in the whole matter. It is not completely impossible that the opposition’s initiative could actually gain wide support in Parliament. Most Deputies, including influential figures, are confident that the presidential draft bill will encounter great difficulty with lawmakers. Solidarnist group leader Petro Poroshenko believes, “The referendum results have provided much room for discussion, since the questions in the referendum were not formulated very accurately from a juridical point of view.”
Even Volodymyr Semynozhenko of the ultra-pro-presidential National Democratic Party (NDP) is convinced, “Passage of these draft bills in Verkhovna Rada will take a long time.” He also believes, “The referendum has brought up many issues to be analyzed and proposes to first debate them thoroughly at round tables and discussion clubs, such as the Ukrainian Davos.
Even top Social Democrat Viktor Medvedchuk keeps saying that, although Ukrainians support creation of a bicameral legislature, he personally remains opposed.
Serhiy Dovhan of the Peasants Party, who has recently joined Solidarnist, points out the need for a law that would regulate formation and functioning of a parliamentary majority. “If the law stipulates that the majority forms the government, there will be no problem in creating a majority,” he claims, adding, “At the moment, the majority does not have any rights, since it has to vote only the way it is told to.”
Finally, Communist leader Petro Symonenko suspects that if implementation of the referendum results turns out to be sluggish, the President will dissolve Parliament based on the constitutional provision that people are the only power authority in Ukraine. The possibility of early parliamentary elections is also not ruled out by some representatives of the Revival of the Regions faction.
Apparently, People’s Deputies have no intention to correct and clarify certain aspects of the presidential draft bill. Vice Speaker Stepan Havrysh, without making any forecasts about the final terms and provisions of the document, still believes that its debate in Verkhovna Rada will not result in breaking up the majority and open confrontation. According to Havrysh, the Deputies will hopefully decide to forward the draft bill to the Constitutional Court for review, and then, in conformity with the Constitution, will vote on it again in the next session. Roman Bezsmertny, however, who advocates introducing the constitutional amendments as they were phrased at the referendum and submitted by the President, admits the possibility of the parliament’s interpreting them in its own way, which conforms to the Verkhovna Rada’s prerogative to deliberate, reject, amend, and adopt legislation. “At the moment, there is no need to change legislation, although the President acknowledges that Parliament members will try to do just that,” says Bezsmertny.
The Presidential Administration is well aware of the fact that it is not only the ailing opposition that is claiming its right to the institutional reform. Parliament member Mykhailo Syrota, for example, is convinced, “The main battle will break out between representatives of financial and industrial clans, who will want to limit the rights of the executive branch and the Presidential Administration. Until summer, this struggle will be of a latent nature, while the decisive battle will take place in September-November.”
The Council of Europe also continues to monitor closely the process of implementing the referendum results. The CE Council of Ministers is promising to go back to work preparing a response to the PACE recommendations after the institutional reform has been completed. Ukraine’s future membership in the CE will depend on how constitutional the implementation of the referendum results is. Serhiy Holovaty, one of the most active members of the Ukrainian delegation in the CE, says that everything depends on whether Verkhovna Rada will be allowed to make the relevant decisions on its own. Roman Bezsmertny, among other people, has no doubts that this issue will be raised in the CE by Ukrainian lawmakers.
In this context, a clash between former Rada speaker Oleksandr Moroz and current first Vice Speaker Viktor Medvedchuk regarding the latter’s initialing of the presidential draft bill submitted to Parliament looks just like a slight misunderstanding. Moroz points out sarcastically that Medvedchuk has exceeded his authority, since only the Speaker has the right to initial such documents. Medvedchuk retorts by saying that in approving the draft, he was following special guidelines signed by Moroz himself at the time when he held the speaker’s post. Moroz advises Medvedchuk quit sophistry and think about how offended Ivan Pliushch was when he learned about the existence of such an important document from reports in the press.
Pliushch himself, however, has had no comment on the issue, but if there is at least some truth behind Moroz’s intrigues, the speaker really should feel offended, while Moroz must be pleased with provoking a small problem in the relationship between the Verkhovna Rada leaders. Former Speaker Oleksandr Tkachenko has also joined the debate, voicing support for the view of his former ally in the Socialist-Peasant Party bloc. Tkachenko attributes the “misunderstanding” to the triune parliamentary leadership, such that Pliushch, Kravchuk, and Medvedchuk are all trying to run the parliament at the same time. Tkachenko still regards himself as the legitimate speaker and is waiting for the issue to be resolved in court. Incidentally, the Constitutional Court has already started reviewing the case on the constitutionality of the decisions taken by the legislative majority in Ukrayinsky Dim. The majority leaders are not really concerned about that — lawyer of the year Medvedchuk has guaranteed full compliance of all their actions with the Constitution.
