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Where there is no law, but every man does what is right in his own eyes, there is the least of real liberty
Henry M. Robert

Paradoxically, the President Continues to Win the Political Horse Trade

13 November, 2012 - 00:00

On the eve of the Parliament’s session a number of important events took place. The plenary session of the CPU Central Committee nominated Petro Symonenko as the Communist faction candidate for Speaker. The same day the President met Natalia Vitrenko and was to meet Mr. Symonenko as well.

These events are quite revealing. First, one cannot but notice that President Kuchma completed his cycle of pre-session meetings with party leaders and without actually meeting either the Socialist Party or Hromada. Instead, he met the irreconcilable Ms. Vitrenko and three times with the Communists. Moreover, the President conferred with the leader of the Peasant Party of Ukraine after it announced it would form its own faction.

The unbiased observer finds no consistency in all this: if the President meets all the other parliamentary parties, why shun the SPU and Hromada? If he is a consistent Centrist adherent, why should he meet the CPU and PSPU? On the other hand, one can see only too well the actions of the Administration to split the Left bloc. For instance, the Communists’ decision concerning Symonenko’s nomination had been foreseen and considered as a move in the joint game of the Left, in which the Communist leader was to sustain a blow in the first round, after which the CPU would support Mr. Moroz. However, there are also some grounds to assume that to Oleksander Moroz the CPU decision was an uncomfortable surprise. The former Speaker, demonstrating the bloc solidarity has at least said that his faction would support Symonenko. Thus it is no surprise that one gets impression that Mr. Kuchma’s goal is to prevent Mr. Moroz from being reelected Speaker, and this concerns the personality of Mr. Moroz, rather than an unwillingness to accept his views. Assuming this version to be the underlying cause, a simple question arises: what does the President offer the parties in exchange for possible promises not to support Moroz?

It should be stressed that the President and the parties are in different conditions: the parties have many positions where the President cannot help them (the forces supporting him are small in number, heterogeneous, and pursue their own interests). Leonid Kuchma will hardly be able to organize even parings (if you vote this way, we will vote that) in the multiple ballot Speaker election. There is only one point where the President can be useful to the parties, and, more specifically, to party factions: government appointments.

In this relation, the final shift of Premier Pustovoitenko to the government seems only too logical. This can be considered a demonstration of his dependence on Parliament’s will and an invitation to bargain over seats in the Cabinet (maybe, on condition that the Premier himself retain his post). The government is currently in a stage of creeping dismissal, which greatly facilitates the bargaining. This version is implicitly proved by the rumors about a reorganization of the People’s Democratic Party under Pustovoitenko: if dismissed, the faithful Premier would be concerned about his party and the presidential election. However, this last detail does not rule out another scenario: some observers think that the law permits a dismissed Prime Minister to return to Parliament by asking a party comrade to give up his or her mandate. Thus, Pustovoitenko’s sacrifice is in reality no a sacrifice as such. The main question still remains unanswered: do the Leftists need to participate in a new government? Symonenko said the CPU would agree to form the government if the President reduces his pressure on it, i.e., the CPU conditions its Cabinet participation by means of amendments to the Constitution. Since most parties have expressed their unwillingness to see such changes, most likely they will not be made. Nonetheless, it is also quite possible that if a Leftist Speaker is elected, the President could ask the Left to form a government. Declining such an offer would mean to loosing seriously in the electorate’s eyes, and accepting — to devote oneself to a doomed cause. Obviously, this difficult option is one of the underlying motifs of the latest political intrigues where the Left is involved. And, more likely than not, they have not made up their minds yet.

Regardless of the fact that the horse-trading is ongoing, the winner at this interim phase is the President. It is absolutely obvious that Leonid Kuchma has managed to make contact both his own friends and fellow travelers, on the one hand, and with the enemies of his enemies on the other. This means that a uniform antipresidential coalition (even situational) is already not possible, and the parties entering the contract disoriented.

Drawing by Anatoly Kazansky, The Day

 

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