“WHO GETS WHOM?”
I was on Khreshchatyk recently when I heard something that really shook me: out of the usual deafening mixture of rock-hard-metal-punk sounds produced by portable hi-fi columns decorating every private commercial “kiosk” my overtired ear discerned the unmistakable chords of Massenet’s Elegie.
The woman singing it had a deep resonant voice, reminiscent of the cello, suddenly lapsing into the violin’s crystal clear pitch, her rendition reaching nostalgically for one’s tortured soul’s innermost recesses. My God! Was my mind playing tricks or was it real? I walked over to where the sound came from. A young man told me confidently that what I was listening to was the “Erotic” album. He gave me the CD colored case. The cover showed two girls intertwined in a lesbian embrace and the list read that the Elegie was followed by Rachmaninoff’s Vocalise, that very piece which was a must when geriatric Soviet Communist Party General Secretaries started dying off one after the other, and their entourage controlling the media held back the news until the last possible moment, ordering the Vocalise or other classical pieces in the minor key played in between reports on the latest attainments in building communist paradise. And from this the people knew that one of the great was awaiting burial.
The issue is not in whether Rachmaninoff was specifically erotic or politically suffering: don’t ask what motivated the composer. And not because it would be too late and thus senseless. It is simply that everything depends not on the subject but on our attitude toward it. After all, the crucial point in eroticism and politics is best summed up by “who gets whom.”
Whether our Parliament will be good or bad, pardon me, is like the Vocalise being meant for what political purpose. Its creator, Ukrainian people, who in keeping with the Constitution created this Verkhovna Rada, was hardly likely to expect another Vocalise played in between sessions. The President is rumored to have slammed his fist on the desk, yelling that he would have this Parliament disbanded if they elected the wrong Speaker. A tragic tune. But then some influential friend may wag his finger, saying, “Better watch your step handling democracy; if you don’t make the right kind of decisions there will be no money for your reforms” — in which case the situation would rapidly get very dicey.
THEY SUMMED IT UP THROUGH TEARS
The people in the Presidential Administration on Bankivska St. were able to muddy the waters of this “cadre” issue in Parliament. However, they might have overdone it. The people they assumed to be under control suddenly revolted; only those who had much to lose and could be bullied with Brodsky’s fate remained more or less obedient, but they could also put two and two together. Their calculations showed that the Administration’s wheeling and dealing was not only multiplying lost profits, but also denying the chance to work off the previous investments made in getting elected. That was precisely when every People’s deputy could read an issue of the Delovaya nedelia (Business Week) supplied to the Verkhovna Rada, with photos and captions like “Messrs. Surkis and Rabynovych” found a new holding company. And everyone, with or without means, realized that the new entity would mean fortunes for some and empty pockets for the rest (Mr. Lazarenko was also mentioned, fleetingly). Parliament could also be disbanded. The situation was utterly confusing. Who was supporting or opposing whom? What abut NDP? Who was trying to replace Volodymyr Horbulin? Who was Mr. Lazarenko befriending now? In a word, most Ukrainian solons had the impression that someone, somewhere, was taking them for the proverbial ride, considering them ordinary simpletons. Also, some could no longer figure out who was ruling this country, Parliament turning into an ordinary Ukrainian bazaar with its inherent chaos, echoing with expletives, whistling policemen chasing thieves, and sporadic drunken fist-fights.
BUYING PARLIAMENT WHOLESALE
In short, the Ukrainian Parliament, faced with the problem of electing a Speaker, presents a confusing picture. The media offers a variety of controversial guesses and forecasts, mainly because people directly involved in the election process are not sure of their own tactics. For example, the Kievskie vedomosti newspaper (i.e., Messrs. Brodsky, Chaika, and Lazarenko) insists that Mr. Medvedchuk would make the best Deputy Speaker. This, of course, implies that the Speaker must come from the Left, for having a Centrist Speaker and a Centrist Deputy Speaker would be ridiculous, would it not? There is another possibility offered more discreetly: Speaker Semynozhenko. Now this could be fine and dandy: the President likes the man, and Mrs. Kuchma, who was a partner in a very interesting innovation fund under the then Minister of Science, currently a Deputy, in keeping with her Children of Ukraine program, would be happy. Just one thing remains unfathomable: what would this NDP protege do when he has no political profile of his own?
Word has been spread in the corridors of power that the problem of having a “non-leftist” Speaker can be solved very simply: by having an impressive hard currency account, enough to buy the requisite votes.
Gentlemen and Comrades, Members of Parliament: do not bother your heads reinventing the wheel. The Crimean Parliament has gone through all this. Every analyst will tell you that the Crimean trial ground has provided the needed evidence. Whoever is ready to splurge should remember that (a) as soon as it becomes known that those resolved to vote against will be paid to vote for, the number of those who will vote against registers a sharp increase; (b) everything starts with paying for voting on cardinal issues and ends with having to pay to have every petty procedural issue pass muster. Finally, all those whose pockets are lined will want more, meaning that larger bribes will be expected, all this eventually becoming an almost legitimate source of income, reaching the point when family budgets are planned allowing for such “contingencies.” In the Crimean Autonomous Republic, the mother of one very obscure and law-abiding Deputy came to tell the “purser” exactly how much her beloved son would expect for casting his vote.
In other words, those planning to buy the Ukrainian Parliament wholesale should check their accounts to make sure they will have enough for the next four years. Practically no one has that much to one’s name, legitimately, meaning that this can be accomplished only by using underworld funds, in which case he that pays will surely call the tune. In the Crimea, some of those suffering uncharacteristic pangs of honesty and “getting off the hook” wound up in the hospital for failing to deliver what they had been paid for.
This might be described as the practical side. However, the prices in this parliamentary buying and selling looks more frightening than a terminal cancer case history. Basically, the Left should remember that raising a fuss would be simply inappropriate; Hromada, their former ally, has long taken the lead in paying for the right number of votes for the right kind of candidates.
In the Crimea, a People’s Deputy, who was one in the first to have his hand in the immorality for which the peninsula’s legislature is so famous, later called his colleagues depututes. But then, everything depends on the circumstances.






