Neither Bread Nor Circuses
First the Yuliya Tymoshenko Bloc, Socialist Party, and Our Ukraine factions blocked the rostrum and presidium, demanding consideration of bills on the agro-industrial complex first. This motion was put to a vote by Speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn and supported by 284 deputies out of the 438 registered as present.
However, such constructive work did not last long: in the process of discussing draft decisions on the Cabinet of Ministers’ information on the situation in the agro- industrial complex and measures to combat the crisis in agriculture, the differences between factions and groups became so strong that speaker had to announce a break. Then another... It began to seem like something out of Ilf and Petrov, two writers who once helped make Odesa humor famous. Being unsatisfied with considering bread issues, the opposition requested circuses in the form of full-fledged presentation of the draft amend ments to the Organic Law. According to BYuT’s Serhiy Holovaty, this had to be preceded by putting on the agenda some procedural questions, and on it went. Almost desperate, Volodymyr Lytvyn put Holovaty’s motion to a vote, but it collected only 202 votes instead of the needed 226.
The evening sitting lasted only a few minutes: the speaker had to close it because of, as he put it, “the stupid and cynical” blocking of Verkhovna Rada’s work by the opposition factions. “The major and obvious conclusion is that, surprising as it seems, representatives of the factions attributing themselves to the opposition don’t want to change the system of power,” Mr. Lytvyn told journalists.
Thus, the next to last voting day before deputies’ summer vacations again was spent in folly but little fun. Only one plenary week (July 8-11) is left before the end of the third session of the fourth convocation Verkhovna Rada, and only one day to actually decide anything.
INCIDENTALLY
“I counted them both left to right and right to left but still I can’t see the 300 votes needed to amend Ukraine’s Constitution,” People’s Deputy Oleksandr Volkov told journalists on July 3, commenting on the situation in Verkhovna Rada. In his opinion, reports Interfax Ukraine, if a bill were put to the vote it would garner only 226 votes.
