Parliament off to a gloomy start

It seems to have become a sign of time, when police cordons off the Verkhovna Rada as it opens a new season. This time, too, hundreds of law-enforcers “occupied” Mariinsky Park, with buses full of policemen standing alongside the perimeter. The impression is that the top legislative body has never been guarded so closely before. Otherwise, everything was traditional: the Veriovka Chorus sang the National Anthem of Ukraine and Kyiv Bohun Lyceum cadets brought in, to the sounds of Ukraine’s spiritual anthem, the flag that was first carried into the Verkhovna Rada 20 years ago on August 24, 1991. As part of this extravaganza, a screen showed some 20-year-old footage, when the Ukrainian Flag was brought into the parliament room. After this very solemn and touching moment, President Viktor Yanukovych mounted the rostrum.

The room’s right side gave the president a standing ovation, but he could also see the images of Yulia Tymoshenko and Yurii Lutsenko gazing at him from the left. The point is the BYuT-Fatherland and NU-NS factions had co-vered their seats with posters depicting Tymoshenko and Lutsenko well before the session. Besides, the two factions decided after a brief meeting to walk out of the session room. Only the white-suited Oleh Liashko and Oksana Bilozir remained behind.

Either the exciting spirit of the ceremony or the opponents’ huge portraits made such an impression on the president that he “pleased” the audience with a new goof: he mixed up the Ukrainian words that mean “create” and “distort” and said: “Conditions are being distorted for the development of entrepreneurship.” The speechwriters must have forgotten that the president finds it hard to pronounce Ukrainian words that contain a lot of consonants. A classical Freud-style slip of the tongue, you know.

On the whole, Yanukovych noted that the two previous Verkhovna Rada sessions had shown a good working capacity of parliament members – for the first time in the 20 years of independence. “Our sole goal is to create all conditions for the Ukrainian people to live under the roof of a European country,” Yanukovych assured the MPs.

Tellingly, the Rada TV channel did not show even a single long shot of the session room or a medium and close shot of the room’s left part in a 1.5-hour broadcast. Viewers never saw the portraits of Tymoshenko and Lutsenko. This could have created an impression that the opposition were also listening with bated breath to the president.

Meanwhile, in the parliamentary corridors, BYuT members were telling journalists about their plans: only “duty deputies” will stay behind in the session room, while the rest of the faction, divided into two subgroups with Kyrylenko and Zabzaliuk at the head, will be “on duty” at the Pechersk Court.

“We won’t give them such a gift as complete absence from the sessions. About 10 of us will be on duty in the hall whenever an important question is being discussed,” MP Andrii Shevchenko told The Day’s reporter.

When do you think the sentence will be passed?

“I think it is a matter of days if not hours.”

What are you going to do further on?

“It is important for our team to forestall a soccer situation, when all players are vying for one ball. There should be legal efforts, on-the-street work, and work with the international community, the media, and the public. We must be prepared for the worst scenario, and we should consider all the possibilities. Life is not confined to street tents only. There are many other directions to work in.”

Were the BYuT members right to walk out of the session room? The answer looks obvious: yes, of course! Their leader is behind bars and being tried for a political decision. They should draw public attention to this, which they are doing by all the accessible means. But, on the other hand, Ukraine is now conducting difficult gas-supply negotiations, and Yanukovych needs, as never before, support inside the country – also from the government, parliament, and all parties. Is the opposition capable now of backing the president of Ukraine and standing shoulder to shoulder with him at such a difficult moment? It hardly is. And we cannot blame the opposition for this. Yanukovych has led himself onto a blind alley, while Moscow is, as always, taking advantage of the conflict inside Ukraine.

“Both the government and the opposition should mull over a likely compromise,” political scientist Oleksii Haran writes in his blog. “The main problem for the government is to find a way out of the mindless Tymoshenko and Lutsenko cases and save its face. As time goes by, it is increasingly difficult to do so. But, given political willingness, a way out can be always found.” We cannot but agree to these words. But is political willingness really here?

TO THE POINT

After the ceremonial introduction, the MPs got down to routine work: they put off the launching of pension reform until October 1 and modified the law a little. The parliament has thus finally approved the reform. A total of 245 MPs voted for the reform. The law had been passed earlier, on July 8, but the Speaker refused to sign and submit it for the president’s signature. Now that Lytvyn has affixed his signature, it is the president’s turn to do the same. One of the amendments is cancellation of the provision that pensions should be recalculated from January 1, 2012, onwards, with due account of the 2009 average wages. This provision, proposed by the MP Arsenii Yatseniuk, called for a pension rise for 10 million pensioners.

The Verkhovna Rada also resolved that male civil servants, diplomats, and local government officials, who have reached the age of 62, retain the right to continue working in the same office if this right was granted them on The Day this law came into force.