Parliamentary clinch

Viktor Yanukovych has agreed to meet with leaders of all factions. “The president agreed to carry out a meeting in which leaders of all parliamentary factions would participate. Yanukovych noted that he was ready to make changes to his working schedule for the current week,” says the Verkhovna Rada press service. However, the meeting may as well not happen, due to the character of the opposition’s demands.

After learning about the president’s consent, the oppositionists decided to raise their claims. UDAR Party leader Vitalii Klitschko insists that Yanukovych absolutely must report to the parliament on the state of domestic and foreign policies. Then, in Klitschko’s opinion, the president will be able to hear opinions from factions, and draw conclusions.

Arsenii Yatseniuk said that three issues must be raised during the meeting: “Implementation of the criteria necessary for signing the Association Agreement with the EU, namely: release of Yulia Tymoshenko; simultaneous elections in five problematic districts and Kyiv, along with other early elections, which should be held on October 27; and the question of the Central Election Commission and immediate proposal of the new law on prosecutor’s office to the parliament.” It was also said that the opposition will not cancel the rally “Arise, Ukraine!” in Mykolaiv, so the meeting should take place on any day but June 13.

Only Svoboda (Freedom) Party stays aside – it has not put forward any demands yet.

It should be noted that the imprisoned Yulia Tymoshenko might have given her advice on the possible format of the meeting. In her opinion, the discussion would be the most effective if it were made public and transformed into a roundtable discussion for Yanukovych and the opposition leaders. However, this initiative was not supported by any of the leaders.

It is known that the parliament’s work failed again. In response to the fact that Yanukovych addressed the MPs in a written form (the annual address of the president to the Verkhovna Rada) instead of speaking to them from the rostrum in the session hall, the opposition blocked the work of the legislative body again. How effective is this tactic? “At the moment, it is the only effective mechanism,” explained Yatseniuk, head of the Batkivshchyna (Fatherland) faction.

Indeed, as practice shows, blocking often brings results for the opposition, but mostly these results are temporary and look like PR actions. Not to mention that blocking is illegal. Strategically, the opposition loses. For example, during the previous blocking, oppositionist factions brought forward three demands: elections in Kyiv, cancellation of the pension reform, and Azarov’s resignation. The majority agreed to them, the proposals were put to the vote. As a result, all of them happily failed, mainly due to the absence of a number of opposition MPs.

Now, the situation is similar. Even though this is not a plenary week, the legislators’ work in plenary mode is virtually blocked. The opposition has raised more claims. “The demand that the president should speak to the parliament is just a pretext,” says Volodymyr Makeienko (Party of Regions), head of the Regulatory Committee of the Verkhovna Rada. “The heads of factions will be able to explain their position to the president during a meeting. But that is not the problem. They do not have a single candidate for mayor, and neither they have a single presidential candidate, they are just stalling for time. Our session is over on July 17. This schedule was approved by all factions together. Why did they vote for this schedule, if they are interested in the immediate ending of the political season?”

The first reaction of the government to the opposition’s action was to gather a special session of the parliament to pass the necessary laws. “According to the regulations, it is possible,” Makeienko says. “The Party of Regions won the elections, we have the majority, and we want to vote for certain matters. Moreover, we receive salary for our work. And the opposition impedes these actions. In developed countries, if a proposition that has been brought up for voting receives an advantage of even one vote, it is passed, even though people opposing it can speak out and express their proposals and remarks. But in our parliament, we are physically restrained from being able to work. If we act according to the law, both special and field sessions have legal basis and are organized according to the Constitution and the Law on the Regulations.”

So, will the Party of Regions members gather for the sessions? “If a special session does take place, Volodymyr Rybak will issue an order about it. But I doubt it happens. This week MPs are working in their constituencies and are away from Kyiv. They simply need time to come back,” emphasizes the head of the Regulatory Committee.

The second very important matter that punctuated these days was the appearance of new turncoats. These are the former representatives of Batkivshchyna Volodymyr Kupchak and Viacheslav Kutovy, elected in 84th and 95th districts (and both for the Front of Changes quota). This was the Party of Regions’ answer to the opposition’s blocking the rostrum. Most probably, the turncoats will be now “administered” in small portions. The present-day fugitives are not the first ones, and the most likely, are not the last ones either (UDAR and Svoboda have not had any turncoats revealed yet). The season was opened by Oleksandr and Andrii Tabalov, the former was elected through a list, and the latter in the simple-majority constituency No. 99. They never applied for Batkivshchyna faction membership. The next group of four MPs left the opposition faction in April: Oleh Kanivets (constituency No. 126), Ihor Skosar (57th on the party list), Vitalii Nemilostivy (62nd on the party list), and Roman Stadniichuk, who appeared in the parliament after Yurii Vlasenko’s mandate was canceled. Thus, during six months, Batkivshchyna lost eight MPs.

“They sold themselves like political prostitutes,” Yatseniuk resented. “These are not MPs, but two monsters who swore on the Bible, signed an oath and said that turncoats should give their mandates away.” When asked by The Day if the party is working on any methods to prevent the appearance of new turncoats, Yatseniuk said: “Of course, there is some work being done, Viktor Yanukovych has been working on my faction very hard. They have already issued a budget of 100 million dollars to buy MPs.” According to the opposition leader, this is aimed at discrediting his party and him personally.

When asked how many more turncoats can there be, Yatseniuk answered that he could not look inside each MP’s soul and find out how many bastards there were still. However, non-faction MP Serhii Mishchenko has other information. “The opposition blocks the Verkhovna Rada for obvious reasons,” he said to The Day. “There were six new Batkivshchyna traitors, but information about only two on them was published to gradually give more reasons for blocking.” In Mishchenko’s opinion, Yatseniuk failed the staff purity test, since he promised that he would bear personal responsibility for each person on the party list. “Businessmen who paid for their seats ended up on the list, but all of them are potential turncoats, because they are constantly pressurized by the government, law enforcers, and the judicial system,” Mishchenko summed up.

“The faction may split up into three parts: devoted Batkivshchyna members, businessmen, and those who worship Yatseniuk,” Mishchenko suggested. According to the party functionary Oleksandr Turchynov, the consolidation will take place, despite the incidents with turncoats. “The enemies work against us, but we are moving towards our victory, which will be guaranteed by unity,” he said. According to the experts’ opinions, this consolidation is the most advantageous for Yatseniuk, since it will help him get Tymoshenko’s support during the presidential elections.

“When commenting upon the situation with turncoats, one should look at the root of this problem,” Makeienko says. “How come opposition businessmen ended up in the upper part of the list, who put them there? It is not a secret that there are people there who can defect. But the party leadership knows who and on what terms they accepted. Now they fake surprise and say they know that government has been buying their MPs. All this is red herring. If they had not formed their party lists on a commercial basis, this would have never happened.”

According to Mishchenko, Tymoshenko’s letter with an appeal to unite was sent long time ago, but it was not published. “In general, Batkivshchyna has no party discipline. Decisions on holding the action ‘Arise, Ukraine!’ are made without any coordination. The MPs who did not vote for decriminalization of Tymoshenko’s sentence, resignation of Azarov’s government, cancellation of pension reform, or abolition of privileges, did not bear any responsibility,” Mishchenko says. “Yatseniuk must resign and repent. He must admit that he has kicked the veteran politicians out and brought turncoats in instead and that he cannot lead the opposition. Then we will see he has strength, will, and responsibility,” Mishchenko concluded.

So, now everyone is attacking Yatseniuk. And indeed, he bears the most responsibility, but is it only the head of the faction to blame? The leaders of the opposition parties themselves, who agreed to form a joint list of the United Opposition, stated last summer that each political force had a right to veto the candidates. And to be more precise, party leaders have this right. That is why responsibility must be shared by all parties forming the United Opposition, as well as their leaders.

A year ago, at the start of the parliamentary election campaign, The Day repeatedly wrote about the importance of keeping the lists transparent. Tymoshenko and Turchynov’s recognition of their mistakes (there were turncoats in the previous convocation as well) should have put an end to this story. But as we see from the present situation, the lesson was not learned.