The scaffold of presidential majority

Love, i.e., passion is an unsteady feeling – especially in politics and particularly in Ukrainian citizens who are inclined to show emotions instead of revitalizing the economy. We believe ears more than all the other organoleptic com­po­nents and do not tend to set off reason against emotions. Fifteen years ago the best of us chanted: “Down with Kuchma!,” meaning not the red-haired “Red manager” of Pivdenmash, who had become this country’s No.1, but the system in which one person at the top is worth more than all the rest at the bottom. Ten years ago we still more en­thu­siastically “yessed” to Viktor Yushchen­­ko until he squan­dered the heritage of the Orange Revo­lution. And where were our eyesight and senses of smell and touch, let alone thoughts, when everybody became a fan in the “Yulia” vs. “Vitia” match and referees were kept off the field? We had to pay for Viktor Yanu­kovych, who had brought the law and property from Donetsk to the Carpathians under his complete control, with the blood of our compatriots, not just with the crash of illusions. It may seem that there can be no more terrible and illus­trative lesson. But life never teaches. The one who came into politics at the turn of the century with “Kuch­ma­gate” in heart con­ti­nues his cause today with “Long live Poroshenko” on the lips. I mean Yurii Lutsenko who is campaigning today for increasing the pro-presidential majority in parliament to as high a number as possible. 

As years go by, recession gives way to aggression, and everything is being transformed in this country except for the main occupation of the executive body in the legislative one. Like a blind carpenter, it is knocking together a podium for its own ascent, without taking into account that it uses the drawing of a scaffold. This dangerous process is being supported by a seemingly prag­matic logic which one of my respect­ed colleagues formulated as follows: “It is necessary to create favorable conditions for the leader who is expected to carry out reforms, such as, among other things, a friendly parliamentary majority and government, so that he could get support instead of resistance.” 

Is it logical? It is, but, quite malapropos, I recall For a United Ukraine, Our Ukraine, the Party of Regions, and all kinds of coalitions which looked like fairytale mittens for MPs. They used to give refuge to the scratching mice, croaking frogs, and hopping rabbits of different persuasions, which had a common wish to back the country’s most influential person. They almost always managed to form a majority in parliament but always failed to keep the majority of their promises to voters. Rallying around the leader did not turn into monolithic support for grandiose ideas. Firstly, nobody formulated these ideas, believing that such abstract maxims as corruption control and movement towards Europe will be enough to win the affection of the electorate. Secondly, politicians always made deals in the course of, not on the eve of, the game. For this reason, the political process always turned into a mixed martial arts bout, where it was possible to mobilize the electorate by means of your or someone else’s smashed face. Thirdly, the agreed-upon unity of the pro-presidential forces did not mean that all the participants pursued the same inte­rests. Voting “for,” coalition members often acted “against,” – to put it mildly. Each pro-presidential force generated in itself an alternative to the No.1 person. According to our “old testament,” Kravchuk created Kuchma, Kuchma begat Yushchenko, Yushchenko brought Yanukovych into the world, and the latter gave birth to Poroshenko. In other words, the president’s entourage did not make a political long-liver out of him – rather, it discredited and mutilated the institution and the personality. This is why society treats the first and the last of them as better than the others. 

We have borrowed such thing as parliamentary support for the executive branch from the deve­loped democracies, planting this norm into the barren ground of the forced centuries-long identity of views. Neither the society nor the political elite regarded pluralism as a natural condition of ideological life. It seemed to everybody that differences in views were not only an obstacle to cooperation, but also a sign of implacability. This soil brought forth the tree of hostility in a country where political opponents were to become irreconcilable enemies ready to resort to the phy­sical destruction of one another. In these conditions, the presidential majority served as an instrument for dividing parliament along the life-philosophy lines and, later, dividing society into friends and foes. Even after the Orange Revolution, which put forward democratically-oriented forces to govern­mental bodies, parliament broke up between two centers of power. Some supported the president and others the prime minister, although, formally, the coalition was a single body. 

Today, the record of the pro-presidential majority of different years still comprises some shameful Watergate-type reminiscences – bribery and bugging scandals, contract murders and strange suicides, conspiracy to revamp the constitution and destruction of the legal system. Everything was conceived in the inner circle depths. The path to this hell was paved with good intentions to give the president more power to tip the balance in his favor. For reforms are always unpo­pular and need a strong hand to carry them out. But reforms were replaced with constitutional calligraphy, and the hand did not falter to aim weapons at the electorate. The end was sad. The activists who helped form the majority are on the run, while the former rank-and-file members of it are erasing any mention of their ideological proximity to the fugitives, as if they were schoolchildren who rub off bad marks in their report cards. 

I do not think our new parliament needs to borrow the notorious tradition to subordinate the parliamentary majority to the will and whims of one person. This idea is outdated. The president is elected by a direct popular vote. The people are his firm ground and true majority. Conversely, the parliamentary majority is unable to mirror the multidimensional nature of the electoral ocean. Resting on the main force that has brought him to power, i.e., taking into account the voters’ will, the president shows his political strength and conducts a true process of transformations. He personifies the executive power and is supposed to act rather than express his wishes in the form of a document. To tell the truth, the presidential institution in Ukraine has not yet gained the skill of direct communication with society. Nor does it have all the instruments and channels to study social processes and appeal to public opinion – just because support from an obedient majority substituted for many years a dialog with the willful vo­ter. In other words, the president should not use spin and his autho­rity to form a numerical superiority of his followers in parliament. Nor is it worthwhile to form a pro-presidential majority in parliament if no program of reforms has been drawn up and no goals and dates have been set. Otherwise we will slide back again to the era of a bitter power struggle and degradation of governmental institutions. Let principles gather their adherents, while the majority will be formed by the consciousness, not the gra­vi­tational field, of the No.1 person. 

Until now, the practice of forming the pro-presidential majority in parliament has been humiliating in form and in essence. It resorted to coercion, bribery, and threats, of which the media and the victims have been reporting. This practice affected the behavior of the legislative branch. Whenever differences between Bankova St. and Hrushev­skoho St. came into view, parliament was paralyzed with a crisis because the majority did not wish to take into account the demands of a non-presidential minority. This means that Ukrainian democracy was still infected with the virus of Bolshevism, which used to promptly show itself under dictatorship.