Apropos the technology of forming a Communist-oligarchic majority
The parliamentary majority’s coordinating council decided yesterday to recommend the lawmakers to put on today’s agenda draft resolutions recalling the Verkhovna Rada leadership. Interfax Ukraine reports that the council proposes to actually vote on them Thursday.
Under the parliamentary rules, such drafts, signed by over 150 people’s deputies, can be included in the parliamentary hearings, provided each draft is deliberated separately and no signatures are rescinded. Placing the matter on the agenda requires at least 226 votes. In this case the initiative came from the Communist, Socialist, Left Center, Yabluko, and Batkivshchyna factions plus a number of legislators of the Ukrainian People’s Rukh and Progressive Socialist Party.
As it is, Yabluko no longer intends to vote for the draft resolutions. Mykhailo Brodsky declared that his fraction signed for them at the time of the “cabinet crisis,” in February-March. Today, they consider registering such drafts not worthwhile. Mr. Brodsky believes that Yabluko’s signatures were used unlawfully, yet there is no recalling them under the parliamentary rules.
The Communists commented on their stand, saying they were not radically-minded. Comrade Petro Symonenko noted that the idea of recalling the lawmaking leadership was meant enable them to report on progress over the past year. And about time, says the Communist leader, considering that what he describes as the parliamentary coup took place more than a year ago. Among the main Communist grievances with regard to the Verkhovna Rada leadership he listed breaches of the rules and discrepancies in certain elements of law.
So far things are quiet on the other side of the barricade. First Vice Speaker Viktor Medvedchuk seems to take the prospect of his retirement in his stride.
He notes that the matter must be handled in keeping with the rules, legislation, and the Constitution. He says that there is a power play in parliament and that it is to be expected from political forces determined to replace the whole or part of the legislative leadership, so they can install their men.
Speaker Ivan Pliushch also declared his calm. When asked by journalists about the possibility of the current leadership’s replacement he said, “You put this question to the leaders of parliamentary groups and factions. They have more reason to forecast what will happen tomorrow,” reports Interfax Ukraine.
Democratic Union leader Oleksandr Volkov believes that the campaigners can expect 218 votes at best. “It’s easy to recall [the leadership]. Here the Right and Left can unite. Appointing the new speaker and his deputies is a different story; I think they won’t manage. There will be another speaker saga,” he said, adding that no bill will be passed without the legislative leadership, and that those campaigning for their retirement actually want parliament disbanded.
Whether this forecast is true and whether it will be possible to organize a Communist-oligarchic majority will become clear today. We know from history that by copying a strategy one does not always receive the same result.
