Political Agreement in Search Of Proper Words

March 28 saw one more meeting of the task force assigned to draw up a political agreement between the Cabinet of Ministers and parliament.

This function was held in Verkhovna Rada’s former movie hall, which made an impression on the few journalists present (three were present at beginning and three more came later) primarily with the quality of the renovation and furniture.

The meeting was cochaired by parliamentary Vice Speaker Stepan Havrysh and First Vice Premier Yuri Yekhanurov.

The SDPU(o) fraction was represented by Borys Andresiuk, while there was nobody from Labor Ukraine or the NDP. The meeting was in fact editing the text of the political agreement supported, according to Mr. Havrysh, by all parliamentary factions and groups except for Yabluko (Apple). The vice speaker said the SDPU(o) and NDP factions were the best disciplined because they had submitted in writing on time their proposals about the political agreement’s wording. He meant the submission of proposals before the task force’s meeting in question.

It obviously makes no sense to describe here all the amendments. For example, the agreement’s subheading alone took over twenty minutes to debate. The original version was: “The Political Agreement on Interaction and Cooperation between the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine and the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine.” Mr. Andresiuk persisted in suggesting that the words Verkhovna Rada be replaced by “parliamentary majority.” This was rejected, but the “on interaction and cooperation” was struck off after all. In the preamble, at People’s Deputy Borys Bezpaly’s suggestion, the paragraph “supporting the President of Ukraine’s course to promote economic and political reforms...” had the words “President of Ukraine” deleted. And so on. Passions ran high when i t came to reregistering the parliamentary majority. The heart of the matter is that, according to Mr. Havrysh, the NDP faction, having revoked its proposal about reregistration on the eve of this meeting, failed to show up. Representatives of both Rukhs categorically opposed the idea of reregistration. Incidentally, Rukh members were very active and supported each other. Conversely, Mr. Andresiuk had in fact no allies at the meeting, for among those absent were representatives of not only the NDP but also Labor Ukraine.