The Ukrainian Parliament's third session was called to order
February 2 with 333 points on the agenda. Analyzing its atmosphere one
has to bear in mind that its beginning coincided in time
with the start of registration for the presidential race.
According to Speaker Tkachenko, one of the contenders will have to defend
his parliamentary immunity early this month. As for Pavlo Lazarenko, he
has once again promised to make public some extremely scandalous documents
relating to his opponents. Perhaps he will. Once back from Strasbourg,
he said "quite frankly" that he would not mind discussing a single candidate
with the Left, and that throwing him to the wolves would be indecent on
the part of his comrades-in-arms. It is also true that there are quite
a few among the Right who would regard stripping parliamentary immunity
an extremely unwelcome precedent.
The Right will be subject to a continuous process of redistribution.
Hanna Antonieva is the only Democratic Party member who seems resolved
to set up a faction of her own. Oleksandr Volkov (independent) says she
has applied for admission to his Regional Rebirth faction. Mr. Kuchma's
faithful associate further alleges that among the other new members are
NDP natural gas lords, several Hromada members, and even the Permanent
Presidential Representative Roman Bezsmertny (32 Deputies in all). Due
to such region variation, it is hard to say how exactly the creation of
this faction agrees with the Verkhovna Rada's Standing Orders. The fact
remains that the Constitutional Court has not as yet ruled on whether to
allow deputy groups or whether every faction must be based on a certain
political party. And no presidential party has been registered with the
Ministry of Justice. In a word, NDP may have to fight on three fronts from
now on: against the Left, United Social Democrats, and the Regions.
Rukh is still NDP's more or less stable partner. In some regions local
National Democratic organizations even join the bloc of Rukh with Reforms
and Order bloc, yet the Rukh faction's conflict continues to aggravate.
After Vyacheslav Chornovil refused to preside over the faction's sitting
33 Rukh lawmakers appointed Heorhy Filipchuk Coordinator (instead of Vyacheslav
Koval) and Yuri Kostenko as the faction's second in command, also changing
its bylaws. The party leader declined to approve these resolutions. Almost
simultaneously Chornovil's faithful heads of 13 (out of 26) oblast organizations
wrote a letter, demanding that "proper measures be taken with regard to
certain deputies to party functionaries."
Rumor has it that Rukh members brought rotten eggs before the end of
the previous session in case the Speaker again raises the matter of joining
the CIS Interparliamentary Assembly. Due to technical reasons the planned
scandal was postponed until the current session. In fact, Speaker Tkachenko
went even further than the IA proposal, declaring that Ukraine may shortly
accede to the Russian-Belarusian Union.
Later, he added that what he actually had in mind was economic integration.
It was at this point that the Speaker found himself in the same boat with
the President who, after meeting Yevgeny Primakov, declared that he proceeds
"completely from the necessity of economic integration with Russia," and
that "there certainly should be indications that we are oriented toward
such cooperation." Mr. Kuchma even assumed that he would recommend Parliament
ratify the Black Sea Accords. In this sense the point is not whether Parliament
will heed his recommendations, but what will happen to that much vaunted
"multidirectional" nature of the Ukrainian foreign policy, and what positions
will be left to surrender to Ukraine's number one strategic partner? If
this be the case, those Russian politicians that urged the Senators to
ratify the Grand Treaty or else Ukraine will not ratify the Black Sea instruments
will have no more arguments to back Ukraine's stand (that is if there is
a stand). And the Left is planning the final blow to the multi-vector game
when Verkhovna Rada debates the NATO agreements in camera, as arranged.
Previous parliamentary deliberations of NATO projects like Sea Breeze show
there are not too many European integration opponents there. Vyacheslav
Kyrylenko of Rukh told The Day that the forthcoming procedures will
allow the Right only to voice their views. Even though NATO opponents are
not likely to constitute a majority, formulation is the most important
thing. By torpedoing these bills the Left will reap yet another trump.
Another thing is that, despite the NATO accords being unratified, joint
military exercises are carried out, which is a real thorn in the Left's
side.
It would be interesting to trace the route followed by the bills passed
by Parliament from the legislature to the Presidential Administration.
Thus, the presidential election law got lost and could be found only after
two weeks and the one on the Ukrainian capital was slightly altered before
reaching its destination (according to Messrs. Lavrynovych and Kosakivsky).
The Presidential Press Service has already denied all such accusations.
Former Deputy Speaker Viktor Musiyaka admitted that similar things happened
with the previous Verkhovna Rada, which means that this time one will have
to look for the proverbial black cat in Parliament for too much smoke has
appeared to deny there is a fire somewhere.
The PACE session also did nothing to ease the Solons' headache. Ukraine
received final warning that if nothing happens about meeting commitments
by summer this country will be expelled. Something has to be done about
the capital punishment. The trial of serial murderer Anatoly Onopriyenko
in Zhytomyr is still ongoing and it would be suicide for any political
force to advocate outlawing death sentences. A middle course seems to have
been found, however. It would suffice to request that the Constitutional
Court ascertain whether the clauses of the Criminal Code providing for
death sentences conform to man's constitutional right to live, whereupon
the court would simply nullify them, safely insulated from the need to
run for election.
Given this surfeit of political topics, the economy can rest awhile,
although the executive has made it clear that they are prepared Ukrtelekom
before the elections in any manner possible, even by dumping its blocs
of shares on the stock exchange, without looking for any strategic investor.
In the meantime the parliamentary Telekom lobby is actively negotiating
with numerous factions, so that the privatization process benefits the
industry, not the budget.






