By Tetiana KOROBOVA, The Day
The Left Center faction in Verkhovna Rada announced Thursday that it
is collecting signatures to put a vote of no confidence on the agenda.
Sometime earlier Parliament's leadership insisted it was vital to discuss
the IMF Memorandum and decide on the government. Considering that the memorandum
is not an international instrument and that debating it in Parliament would
be pointless, the whole thing was apparently meant to give the Cabinet
a dressing down for being servile to international lenders, culminating
in showing the government the door. There are many indications that the
Left, wishing to topple the Cabinet, may be supported by some from the
Right and even Center, acting for reasons of their own (ranging from a
desire to get closer to the President to feeling chagrined by Premier Pustovoitenko's
going back on his promised "coalition government").
The Day has suggested that, hard as the Left might try, the Cabinet
will step down only if and when the President wants it to. Judging from
the quickening pulse in the legislature's lobby, word from the top has
already come.
One source in the presidential entourage explains the current situation:
"While our presidents are elected in Moscow, our premiers are appointed
at the IMF headquarters. The next IMF board meeting will decide the Cabinet's
destiny. If they say no more credit, it will mean that the Cabinet is fired.
And the Communists are making the most of the situation."
One NDP member (best left nameless) is even more straightforward: "The
presidential entourage consists of criminal elements sitting in Parliament.
They are now cooking up a pseudo-leftist government to be headed by a Leftist
Premier, not necessarily a Communist, while the Cabinet will be made up
of representatives of the semi-criminal world. If this happens the Left
will be discredited on demand, while the Revival of the Regions and United
Social Democrat factions will mind their own business. Then clearly they
will all sell Kuchma out, and come to terms with the CPU on Tkachenko's
candidacy."
"Certainly, today not everyone understands how many trumps the Interparliamentary
Assembly vote handed Oleksandr Tkachenko because he was able to push it
through," says ex-Minister Viktor Suslov (Peasant Party), then adding (please
attend!), "I don't know who will be the next President, but I have a feeling
that the new Cabinet may be shaped now to adjust to the next Chief Executive,
without waiting for the presidential campaign..." Mr. Suslov believes that
the current Communist faction has "matured, learned to negotiate, and today
has a real chance to garner enough votes to topple the government." Ending
on an impressive note: "I have already more than once occasion said that
the Cabinet has been caught red-handed double-dealing: the IMF program
laid down in the Memorandum and the one for the Deputies are two different
documents. So the government is on the hook."
There is a strong likelihood that the Cabinet was caught precisely when
the Premier admitted recently that there was no money to subsidize the
countryside. In other words, the champion of collective and state farms
heading Parliament will no longer be able to dish out fuel, seed, and fertilizer
with all the attendant political dividends. In a word, something has to
be done quickly.
Indeed, urgent measures must be taken also by all those regarding the
Premier's current cadre reshuffling as "an attempt by Pustovoitenko to
form some kind of government of his own." Holubchenko's and Osyka's removal,
other internal "institutional reforms" such that Shpek can no longer control
loans, and several other names to go down are trumps that have possibly
been already been played. "There isn't a single person working for Kuchma
in the Cabinet now." Another man with a keen sense of humor and with a
first-hand knowledge of the President's suspicious disposition, pointed
out: "Very soon they will be able to use the formula, 'dismissed for loyalty
to Kuchma'."
If the process of Cabinet dismissal has already begun, a natural question
arises: How will the portfolios be allotted? Presidential Administration
source suggests three candidates for Premier: Biloblotsky, Azarov, and
whomever the Communist propose. And there is no evidence to rule out the
possibility of Biloblotsky receiving the Left's blessing.
The Day has already warned that Ukraine's latter-day history
will evolve depending on whether Volkov & Co. get the better of Pustovoitenko
& Co. The Communists are taking advantage of problems with the IMF
and are in turn being used by an interest group fighting the Premier. Who
uses whom with what results still remains to be seen.






