By Tetiana KOROBOVA, The Day
"Sow the wind and reap the storm." The warning Prime Minister Valery Pustovoitenko
made in the first lines of his Verkhovna Rada report aimed to express his
view of the process taking place. The Premier rather incautiously blamed
Parliament for brandishing the threat of a no-confidence at the current
Cabinet for as long as a year, now turning it into a purely political maneuver
in the presidential election campaign. According to Mr. Pustovoitenko,
the People's Deputies, including the 14 active presidential candidates,
do not set themselves the goal of assessing the economic situation in this
country, while the government's report is being used as an element of the
election campaign. "Who stands to gain?" the Premier asked. He also warned
that "in case the government resigns, the government crisis will give way
to a constitutional crisis."
Such an introductory word betrayed Mr. Pustovoitenko's nervousness and
was appropriate from neither a technical nor a psychological point of view,
for it caused a sharply negative reaction in the audience. However, unofficial
backstage information explained away what seemed to be somewhat inadequate
in the Premier's behavior: what Mr. Pustovoitenko is in fact afraid of
are not the Left-wing parliamentary initiators of governmental resignation
but "his own," that is, presidential, forces. It cannot ruled out he knew
that Regional Revival, Toiling Ukraine, and part of SDPU(o) have been discussing
in earnest the possibility of bringing down the government.
Later Oleksandr Moroz legitimized these rumors: "As recommended by his
entourage, the President has surrendered this government. Look, the President's
chair is empty, but Mr. Volkov has shown up. If the most vociferous faction,
the PSPU, votes for no-confidence, this will mean they have struck a complete
deal over there. Mr. Pustovoitenko, you will be dismissed at the hands
of Verkhovna Rada, but the decision was not made here..." The Socialist
leader added to this that the President had been considering such candidacies
for Premier as Biloblotsky, Derkach, and Kinakh.
However, according to The Day's information, at the last minute
the pro-Pustovoitenko forces in Leonid Kuchma's entourage stood up to the
government in the struggle with its opponents, and the man at the top never
issued the command to bring it down. On the other hand, as experience shows,
we can judge finally about what happened on Bankova Street only after we
have a fait accompli. But not always. The Premier's uncertainty proves
that he knows this better than others.
One could say Mr. Pustovoitenko made a publicity report if the latter
were not so lackluster. The Communists facetiously referred to it as brilliant
and added: what prosperous state have you been telling us about? Our voters
and we live in a different country.
The speeches of faction leaders contained nothing unexpected. Natalia
Vitrenko said on behalf of PSPU that her faction favored the government's
resignation. The Peasant Party's Serhiy Dovhan reported that it was not
the right time, and "the resignation will be accepted after October 31
by our candidate Oleksandr Tkachenko." Mykhailo Syrota, whose faction has
gathered the most die-hard "toilers" of the Pinchuk/Derkach type, asserted
that, from the viewpoint of the workingman, the resignation would be of
no use. Viktor Pynzenyk's Reforms came out in favor of no-confidence, while
Yuliya Tymoshenko's Motherland was, naturally, against. Hromada favored
and both warring Rukh factions opposed changing Cabinets. As was expected,
fewer than 200 - 182 to be exact - Deputies voted for the no-confidence
initiative. Incidentally, only 6 out of 14 PSPU faction members voted in
favor.







