What Can the Big Four Do?

Last Friday Kyiv’s National Ukrayina Palace hosted the All-Ukrainian Civil Forum in Support of the Constitutional Reform, a function proposed almost a year ago, on June 25, 2003, by the League of Ukrainian Jurists as an alternative to another nationwide debate on a modified version of the constitutional reform. The point is the original version of the political reform has undergone fundamental changes in the past year as a result of debates in this country’s offices and organizations as well as under the influence of expert opinion. For example, the idea of a bicameral parliament was dropped as questionable and hard to implement at the current stage of political development, as was the provision on a reduced number of Verkhovna Rada deputies. There have also been other changes. Now the general public knows the basis for constitutional amendments as Bill No. 4105. It is to support this document that more than 3000 delegates from all Ukrainian regions gathered in Kyiv. It should be noted that forum organizers made a perfect job as far as representation of the Ukrainian population is concerned. The credentials commission reports that each region delegated about 100 people of all walks of life, such as physicians, teachers, social sphere employees, businessmen, pensioners, and media personnel. The president of Ukraine, prime minister, people’s deputies, and ministers all attended the forum. There were also many journalists to cover this occasion. In other words, the forum attracted a packed audience. The downside was, however, the three cordons of police around Ukrayina Palace: when some ordinary Kyivans wished to back the constitutional reform and listen to the passionate speeches of the like-minded delegates, they could not possibly penetrate into the premises.

Incidentally, the floor was given not only to top officials. Among those who voiced their support of the political reform was a regional representative of the Jurists League, the Cherkasy oblast Red Cross chief, a Poltava oblast boarding school principal, the director of the Institute of Electronic Physics, and many others. Most of the speeches highlighted that the presidential-parliamentary form of government, which played a positive role at the early stage of Ukrainian statehood, has exhausted itself. This requires a new pattern of relations between the branches of power and between society and the state if a host of problems that have accumulated in all spheres of public life are to be solved. In the view of forum delegates, at the current stage of development Ukraine would benefit the most from the parliamentary-presidential form of government successfully applied in many countries of Europe. Ukraine’s first president and leader of the Social Democratic (United) Party faction, Leonid Kravchuk, as always, gave a lively and metaphoric speech. He said he would not expect immediate improvement after the constitutional reform. “This will not happen. We will begin living better only when we ourselves want to do so, and when we commit ourselves to reorganizing the life and the government,” Mr. Kravchuk said.

Naturally, the civic forum focused its attention on the speech by Leonid Kuchma, president of Ukraine. He said, among other things, that the political reform in Ukraine would make it impossible for any entity to monopolize pressure on the government and would promote dissociation of the government from business. In Pres. Kuchma’s opinion, a parliamentary-presidential republic will lay the groundwork for an effective opposition activities because the amendments being made to the Constitution “will not allow vesting nobody with excessive power — neither the president, nor Verkhovna Rada, nor the cabinet... The reform is laying the constitutional basis and paving the way to a civilized opposition, a mandatory element of the new political system. The new mechanism of power — a responsible parliament, limited powers of the country’s top leader, and a coalition government — will not just work without a real opposition,” Pres. Kuchma emphasized. The president noted in this connection that the actions of the opposition, “especially the one referred to as Right, are sometimes shockingly irrational and irresponsible, as was the case during the debate on Constitutional changes.”

Incidentally, when asked on the forum’s eve why this function was being held if all decisions had already been made and the main political forces had reached an accord on this matter, Oleksandr Zadorozhny, the President’s permanent representative in the parliament, said, “All decisions made? We usually make a decision at the end of the tenth second (ten seconds is voting time in Ukraine’s parliament — Ed.), and there still is some time left to change your point of view.”