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Where there is no law, but every man does what is right in his own eyes, there is the least of real liberty
Henry M. Robert

Still No Rotation...

24 November, 1998 - 00:00


Last week, the tendency toward changes in the government came once
again to the fore, but the promised rotation had not been accomplished.
Parliament is surprised. The Cabinet is disturbed. The situation looks
almost anecdotal: the Premier has not dismissed anybody this whole month,
perhaps awaiting proposals from parliamentary factions. The factions, in
their turn, do not want to put up their candidates for currently occupied
ministerial posts and await vacancies. In principle, this process could
be endless. Thus, the rumors of an agreement between Verkhovna Rada and
the government bosses to make no changes in the Cabinet until the end of
this year are not without foundation.

The Greens turned out to be the first to loose patience: you promised
us rotation with hearing of the 1997 Budget, so where is it? Last Wednesday,
Vasyl Khmelnytsky, Green faction cochairman, indicated the possible sacrifices
quite definitely: Deputy Premiers Anatoly Holubchenko and Serhiy Tyhypko,
Ukrtelekom General Director and Head of the State Joint Stock Company Khlib
Ukrainy Board of Directors. The Deputy Premiers' names seem to have been
mentioned just to sound good. The Greens' irritation was most likely caused
by their having waited too long for two ministerial positions and four
deputy minister portfolios. Unlike some better informed factions, the Greens
announced their claims as early as a month ago in a letter to the Prime
Minister.

In general, the atmosphere dominating the budget hearing is close to
chaos. Other factions are also ruminating over what the Greens say. Even
the names of the candidates for dismissal have not changed this month.
All factions are unanimous in demanding the dismissal of Anatoly Holubchenko,
Serhiy Tyhypko and Ihor Mitiukov. Tyhypko's dismissal is spoken of with
particular certainty. A pretext for that was provided by his own interview
of November 10 with Fakty, as well as Tyhypko's being criticized at a Cabinet
session by Valery Pustovoitenko for his failure to get parliamentary approval
of an agricultural pre-export guaranties bill. In the factions' ambitions,
the names of the Minister for Agriculture, Foreign Economic Relations and
Industrial Policy are also mentioned occasionally. The session week will
perhaps render substantial dynamics and definiteness to the discussion
of the government's rotation. The Solons are alluding even now to a hard
fight over passing the 1999 budget. While in the CPU's depths, an idea
is ripening to put off budget consideration and adopt about 50 budget-related
laws first.

Thus there is a threat that the process of budget adoption will be delayed
for a rather good reason.

The possibility of the Cabinet's action program not being adopted should
depress the government even more. Valery Pustovoitenko's pleading with
Parliament to approve the program and let the government go in peace for
one year was to no avail, because of the inopportune nature of this idea.
Especially, if recalling Oleksandr Tkachenko's proposal to extend Verkhovna
Rada's powers regarding designations and dismissals, inter alia,
deputy premiers and those in charge of forces capable of coercion. No matter
how good the Cabinet's program may be, it can be predicted that it will
not get a Verkhovna Rada majority. The permanent threat of dismissal is
at present the only lever the Solons can use to pressure Premier Pustovoitenko.
The most likely way out of the situation is a "creeping" Cabinet rotation
lasting a year. Such a rotation would make it possible to maintain a pro-government
critical mass in Parliament adequate for decision-making and would also
preserve a certain chance for those not nominated. Such a government could
be hardly called a coalition one, as declared by Pustovoitenko. However,
and this is most essential, such a government will be able to perform one
very important function, to serve as a demonstrative example of the President's
good will concerning compromise with various leverage groups. The government
now seems ready to collaborate even with the trade unions, which has not
been the case for the last eight years. "Why don't trade unions supervise
the fulfillment of collective bargaining agreements?" asks Pustovoitenko
as if he does not already know the answer. For trade union influence is
a fiction conveniently utilized by the government. But even the trade unions
can now be used against budget deadbeats. In general, they will now divide
executive power with almost everyone, and govern by themselves.

Meanwhile, President Leonid Kuchma shows more and more energetically
his concern with the people entrusted to him. He personally "found" Hr
10 million in the Cabinet's reserve fund for flooded Transcarpathia. Transcarpathia
would not have seen this money but for the President. This is a very promising
field of action. Someone has proposed not to allocate budgetary funds to
any oblast before the President intervenes, and then advertise these actions
as measures to put this country in order. Or to distribute fuel for power
plants, gas and petroleum products only according to the President's personal
sanction. If we have enough resources to survive this winter, every light
bulb and radiator will be the personal merit of the current Guarantor of
the Constitution. And if we don't, then it will be only because of the
Cabinet's lack of professionalism.

Finally, in the last four years Leonid Kuchma has himself gotten bored
without  the strong hand approach. And, probably in a fit of despair,
ordered the government to elaborate within four days a concrete plan for
solving social and economic problems. For there is no time to think, it
is time for action. Quite a decisive step, no doubt. However, it is in
strategic vision, the ability to see ahead, that the President seems to
lack somewhat. Parliament Speaker Oleksandr Tkachenko is entirely different.
If Kuchma's plans for each of the last four years concentrated on how to
hold out until summer and how to survive the winter, the Speaker's thinking
is on a global scale: he is creating a program to revive Ukraine by 2010.
Incidentally, it is highly probable that Tkachenko will be able to adopt
such a program this year and then get Cabinet's programs adjusted to it,
rather than to the annual presidential report on key domestic and foreign
policies. Then we will see who has the stronger hand. Now the Presidential
Administration must urgently come up with some alternative development
strategy for this country, otherwise how the President can be regarded
the center of state policy making? This is how without sound or fury the
President was outrun at an ideological curve.

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