They did not show the Ukrainian people how its representatives started work

The fourth session of Verkhovna Rada began with a small but highly symptomatic misunderstanding. The door allowing the Speaker access to the podium from his seat was locked, so that Mr. Tkachenko had to circle the audience. «It's all right, we'll correct the situation,» he said and everybody realized he did not mean the locked door but an altogether different one. «The Ukrainian people is wise and strong,» he told the electorate. «It will make the right choice on October 31.» He believes that the current President's main adversary is the domestic socioeconomic situation which will further lower his level of attractiveness in September-October. «Even now one is horrified visiting factories, for every such place looks as though raided by the Horde... No one is actually interested in production, because every manager is pressured to help Leonid Kuchma get reelected; bankers and businessmen are blatantly forced to finance his campaign... And the government has stopped discharging its proper functions, turning into the number one candidate's election headquarters.»

After briefly reminding the Deputies of the session's main tasks (the 2000 budget, oil bills, and program to revive the countryside), the Speaker focused on the exam «we will all have to pass this October.» Mr. Tkachenko reminded those present that Leonid Kuchma's term had expired in July, making him an equal participant in the election process. It is true, however, that the acting President seems unable to get rid of his complex of self-exclusiveness, and he resorts to expressly forbidden tricks; his team is bullying the people with mass pink slips and firms with bankruptcy if they do not go along, and is exerting its last efforts to suppress the independent media. «As a result people are compelled to think that they are not electing a new President, but are struggling against the acting one,» stressed Mr. Tkachenko.

Remarkably, the Communists showed unusual restraint listening to the Speaker's devastating speech, and only his words «I am saying all this just to make us find our bearings in time, for the President of Ukraine will change soon, of course,» evoking applause, although it was anyone's guess what President the CPU faction was greeting.

Mr. Tkachenko believes that whoever replaces Leonid Kuchma will, without doubt, get down to business to overcome the crisis and revive Ukraine. The latter will then strongly remind one of a patient suffering from a very grave disease, being prepared for surgery, but no longer having to worry about the outcome. «Standing side by side with the surgeon President will be the lawgivers to suture the wounds, set the bones, and put in a cast the limbs of this country fractured by Leonid Kuchma.»

The speeches delivered by faction leaders brought no surprises, as evidenced by a bottle of champagne won by

The Day 's Tetiana Korobova as a bet that Petro Symonenko would never mention the President's name in an «unpleasant» context. Indeed, the Communist leader's speech was stylistically strongly reminiscent of «early» opposition leader Pavlo Lazarenko, when the regime was exposed mainly in general terms, with every accusation being carefully redirected from the President to the Cabinet. True, Comrade Symonenko reproached Mr. Kuchma for his edict adding another fourteen generals to the Ukrainian Army in August.

However, the chief accuser's tongue-lashing was aimed not at the President, but at Premier Pustovoitenko, adding several scenes to the saga of how Mr. Kuchma had no time to carry out the Bulgarian scenario before the elections by handing the government over to the Communists, but it is quite possible that he will do just that «after the elections,» and that Petro Symonenko knows this and perhaps will not mind.

The rest of the day passed predictably. Natalia Vitrenko attacked IMF and Parliament. Serhiy Dovhan voiced the Peasants' concern about the countryside and expressed confidence that their candidate would change everything after becoming President. Rebirth of the Regions' Mykhailo Syrota did his best to cast an apple of discord among the legislators. Raising the matter of quota allocation of the ministerial portfolios and pointing out, quite correctly, that it should be revised in view of changes in the alignment of faction forces, the clever Syrota and his smart bosses could not but realize that redistributing these portfolios today could paralyze Parliament's activity. The Socialists, acting with amazing consistency, once again pressed for the Cabinet's retirement. Rukh's Udovenko was his usual peaceful and tolerant self, calling for staging election battles off the Verkhovna Rada perimeter and concentrating on the lawmaking process, without, however, suggesting a direction for the acting President's campaign being served by the government machine throughout this independent state.

Ivan Chyzh, on behalf of his committee, again raised the issue of anarchy in the information space. «Just to have Leonid Kuchma elected for another five years, the executive branch ignores the laws currently in force, rudely casting aside the rules of morals and decency... All such actions have a clear political coloration, meant to crowd out the media interfering with painting the acting President's image in rosy colors... If these propaganda troubadours abided by their conscience they would show the real ‘summits' to which Leonid Kuchma raised the economy.» Mr. Chyzh went on to announce that his committee would hold a meeting jointly with CEC to «show the anatomy of privatization and how the regime is using the media, supposed to belong to the whole society, for its own political ends.»

The wild domestic political situation, however, is easily explained by President Kuchma admitting that he does not read newspapers so he can sleep soundly, and that he watches television only on Sunday. The Day asked Mr. Chyzh to comment on the President's strange confessions. He said, «It leaves me quite perplexed. It is a dangerous trend; if Mr. Kuchma says so, it means that he does not realize the social role of the press which is an intermediary between the people and those in power. Yet I am sure that Mr. Kuchma reads newspaper, ones praising him, saying how very effective his reforms have been in Ukraine. They probably give him just such articles to read to worry him less. Of course, he doesn't read articles offering hard facts and serious analysis. In any civilized country the head of the state always studies the opposition press, analysts, and above all wants to know critical views on his domestic and foreign policy.

Yevhen Marchuk, of the Independent Group, also pointed to the hard realities: «The presidential campaign has cast much light on the executive's cynicism; all that which was carefully hidden previously has surfaced... In fact, we all witness money being stolen from the budget to pay government civil servants working for the benefit of just one candidate. Yet this would not be too bad if the executive, while doing so, could keep the hryvnia from slipping further, oil prices from jumping sharply, and all this in the heat of the harvest campaign, aware that the devaluation and price hikes were provoked by a handful of domestic politicians, not just by the increase in world oil prices... We are all witness to almost half the populace being fleeced. Personal incomes have dropped by at least 40-45%. Bread and other food prices are rising. Simultaneously, neither the President nor Cabinet do that which must be done: preparing an immediate indexing of all monetary incomes.» Mr. Marchuk proposed to hear reports by the head of the National Bank and Finance Minister forthwith, to learn the actual financial situation, «so we won't find ourselves in a situation similar that last year when we suddenly discovered that almost $2 billion had vanished from the gold reserve.» In addition, he believed it necessary to instruct the government immediately to prepare all the required personal monetary income indexation documents and submit them to Parliament. «Today, this is the most important, highest priority problem for all the people, for it is their real living standard which, before one's very eyes, has gone down almost twofold in three months.»

When the Reform Congress' Volodymyr Filenko took the floor everyone in the audience felt sorry for Mr. Udovenko who seemed to have shrunk in his seat, being in the same boat. «Ukraine can follow several ways of development,» Mr. Filenko declared. «The Communists propose going back, which is impossible and history itself proves that it just won't work. The second way is the current regime represented by Leonid Kuchma and his oligarchic entourage. These people propose continuing with a Latin American model with an Asiatic hue where a handful of oligarchs rubbing shoulders with those in power can build staggering fortunes against the backdrop of mind-boggling misery of the people. We propose the third way: European reform in the interests of most of the people. Hence, we cannot accept Kuchma, Vitrenko, Symonenko or Tkachenko as candidates. Thus we are acting in support of the Rukh candidate, Hennady Udovenko.» The audience was amused. Too bad, because the tolerant Udovenko hangs over Leonid Kuchma's constituency, and the incumbent President promises the people another five years of his reformist paradise. Volodymyr Filenko was perfectly right in proclaiming from Udovenko's boat that the bankrupt regime has less than two months left.