And the Rivals Lost Nerve
On December 13 the parliament created a sensation. To be sure, everything is all right with the budget: it was passed in the second reading. The sensation is that parliament members dismissed First Vice Speaker Viktor Medvedchuk who had in fact presided over Verkhovna Rada sessions and kept lawmaking in order for six months. But what is no longer a sensation is the tendency displayed by this parliamentary coup. The tendency can arbitrarily be named unnatural selection: increasingly in need are politicians who are easily manipulated, hide themselves in the bureaucratic haystack or cater to lower public tastes rather than those capable of acting in line with their clearly enunciated views. What happened in parliament on December 13 resulted from the confluence of circumstances that have nothing to do with lawmaking.
“Adoption of the budget is just a minor factor of our discontent with the Verkhovna Rada leadership,” said chairman of the Budget Committee and Fatherland member Oleksandr Turchynov, who, embittered with budget vote results, hurried to the session room to reap a different kind of political dividend. Well before voting on the 2002 budget in the second reading, the members of the various Rukhs, Reforms Congress, Fatherland, and Unity began collecting signatures to dismiss First Vice Speaker Viktor Medvedchuk. The half-hour ritual consultations of fraction heads, held before the budget voting, ended with a decision to without fail discuss the first deputy speaker’s dismissal after the budget was voted on.
“Every deputy has the right to raise whatever question,” Mr. Medvedchuk says. “I have read attentively the draft resolution on my dismissal as first vice speaker of Verkhovna Rada. I think the deputies who are going to vote have also read it, so I do not have to excuse myself before anybody. You know the way I’ve been working and can duly assess my performance.” “Indeed, changes in the voting regulations have brought about a simplified procedure of debating the dismissal of the Verkhovna Rada leadership. As the draft resolution was introduced and supported by 237 deputies, it must be debated. Since it is Thursday today and we still have very many other important legislative acts to consider, I would not like the discussion of my personal destiny to delay the voting. I have never clung to office and insist that this resolution be voted on right now. This being a private matter for me, I refuse to take part in the debates,” Mr. Medvedchuk said. In general, the Social Democrat leader took a sober view of the situation, without any hysterics or proselytizing zeal.
It is quite clear why the first vice speaker did not wish to deny the charges leveled against him: systematic violations of procedure rules, basic drawbacks in the preparation and conduct of plenary sessions, frequent disregard of the people’s deputies’ opinion, failure to properly organize the interaction between Verkhovna Rada and executive bodies, and such.
Whatever one can say, this kind of explanation for dismissal is nothing but a pretext. Also clear is the desire of Mr. Medvedchuk’s political rivals to take a revenge on him on the eve of elections for the Land and Civil Codes and the so-called velvet revolution. Otherwise, it is quite difficult to explain the reason why the Left and Right factions in the Ukrainian parliament, traditionally hostile to each other, joined forces in this situation, with 234 deputies voting for, 50 against, 3 abstaining, and 109, including Mr. Medvedchuk himself, choosing not to vote. The following factions voted for dismissal: KPU (110), SPU (14), Unity (12), Fatherland (21), Solidarity (15), (the golden share? — Author), Reforms Congress (14), the Ukrainian Popular Movement (Rukh 1) (20), and the Popular Movement of Ukraine (Rukh 2) (14).
Mr. Medvedchuk, SDPU(o) leader, announced he was not going to challenge the results of the Verkhovna Rada vote on his dismissal as first vice speaker. He also pointed out he had been approached by some deputies who said that, although they had not taken part in the vote, their voting cards had. In addition, Mr. Medvedchuk claimed that a number of deputies, who allegedly supported his dismissal, were in fact abroad on The Day of voting and thus absent from the session room. “But it would be a crime to revise Verkhovna Rada decisions. The current decision of Verkhovna Rada being final, this issue should never be raised again,” he said.
The SDPU(o) leader himself thinks that his ouster is “a peculiar reaction, if not a revenge.” To corroborate his viewpoint, he recalled having assumed responsibility for the formation of a parliamentary majority in January 2000, as a result of which the Left was stripped of Verkhovna Rada and parliamentary committees leadership. Meanwhile, with the majority formed, parliament managed to pass dozens of laws, which it had failed to do in the previous nine years of independent Ukraine’s existence. Mr. Medvedchuk believes that, by supporting the demand for his dismissal, the Left was reacting to adoption of the Land Code (passed by the parliament presided over by him), while the Right could not forgive him, among other things, his stand on the Yushchenko government’s fall.
Nonetheless, the SDPU(o) leader is sure his dismissal as Verkhovna Rada first vice speaker could have been postponed. In his words, he was told several weeks ago that his dismissal was in the offing. He even said about this at a press conference: “I am morally and mentally prepared for dismissal... If necessary, we could have struck a deal.” Mr. Medvedchuk also reiterated that, although Verkhovna Rada speaker Ivan Pliushch and Vice Speaker Stepan Havrysh had opposed putting the dismissal issue on the agenda, he himself demanded that the issue be voted upon.
Whatever the case, Mr. Medvedchuk thinks that the dismissal “did not and will not do” him “any harm.” He added he would now act more openly and freely. “My hands have never trembled. But this morning I felt they are freer,” Mr. Medvedchuk said. Explaining what he meant, he said his previous position obliged him to take up a restrained attitude to some politicians and political forces. “Now I am going to act more uninhibitedly. This does not mean I will be breaching political ethics, but I have received an opportunity to openly voice my views on certain matters,” Mr. Medvedchuk noted, still admitting he did not view his dismissal as exactly a cause for celebration.
As to the President Kuchma’s attitude, Mr. Medvedchuk was confident that the chief executive had nothing to do with his ouster. He said he had talked to the head of state the night before: Leonid Kuchma was indignant at what had occurred in parliament. According to Mr. Medvedchuk, the president asked him whether he had known about the possible dismissal and why he had not turned to him for help. The Social Democrat leader also announced that the president had “censured” him for failure to warn about the scheme parliament was coming up with.
INCIDENTALLY
President Leonid Kuchma, addressing a December 14 Kharkiv press conference, stated that the dismissal of First Vice Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Viktor Medvedchuk signals an aggravation of the political situation in Ukraine. “The political situation has already begun to aggravate: this happened yesterday, when parliament launched its election campaign by firing the first vice speaker,” Pres. Kuchma said.
