Ukrainian Paradoxes: Voting without Majority

The October 17 parliamentary day amply proved that the whole parliament rather than its part in the form of the majority or the opposition is a full-fledged legislative body. As the session began, representatives of the opposition forces, viz., the KPU, SPU, BYuT, and Our Ukraine factions insisted, predictably, that such issues as the political situation in the country and the observance of the Constitutional norms of voting be immediately put to a vote. The opposition deputies hoped that, while discussing the latter item, Verkhovna Rada would cancel the decisions it had passed last Thursday without their participation. As for the political situation, this time the opposition had an ace up its sleeve. The SPU leader urged the majority deputies to support the idea of discussing the political situation on the grounds that, in his opinion, the “government-sponsored mayhem” has gone so far that even pro-presidential deputies can no longer feel safe. Clearly, Mr. Moroz was referring to the recent incident with Deputy Volodymyr Syvkovych. However, the attempt to form at least an interim opposition majority did not succeed. The opposition- proposed motion to discuss the political situation, which envisaged beginning the impeachment of the President of Ukraine, won 205 votes, while 210 out of the 419 deputies present voted for putting on the agenda observance of the Constitutional norms of voting in Verkhovna Rada.

However, the majority was also unlucky that day. A long series of issues put to a vote gathered from 183 to 224 votes. One of the reasons why the majority remained completely incapable was undoubtedly the fact that Mr. Syvkovych and then another four deputies — Oleh Bezpaly, Volodymyr Demekhin, Mykhailo Siatyna, and Kyrylo Polishchuk — opted out. In this connection, Dmytro Tabachnyk, representing the Party of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs and Labor Ukraine, said it was necessary to “crack down on” the police, adding that if parliament did not hear a Ministry of Internal Affairs report on the use of force to Deputy Syvkovych, “this could cause an irreversible process, suspending members of the majority.”

The majority’s inability to get resolutions passed in the session room predictably suspended redistribution of the committees. (It is not in fact a majority, for it decreased to 225 after five deputies quit. Yet, word has it that the 226th member has already been chosen: it may be Speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn himself). As Stepan Havrysh, leader of the Democratic Initiative parliamentary group, told The Day, reshuffling the committees is not the majority’s top-priority goal at the moment. Instead, the most urgent task for the majority is “to map out a program.” In other words, the majority should first sort out the relationship problems among some of its members and only then get down to everything else. It must be admitted, the majority is beset with problems.

In all probability, the main source of tension is aspiration of some factions to seize the budgetary committee and perhaps the office of premier. We have already written about the complaints raised by Regions of Ukraine’s Rayisa Bohatyriova about the government’s budgetary and generally economic policies. In this connection, an interesting comment by political scientist A. Kordun came up in an interview with the the Part.org.ua online publication, “The Donetsk region has today sufficient resources at least to buy some deputies out of the current parliamentary majority.” Of course, there are no grounds to claim that the five deputies quit the majority precisely in the manner suggested by the expert. Yet, it is difficult to believe under the current circumstances that the step, mentioned above, was taken on the spur of the moment.

Nevertheless, last Thursday, the parliament managed to pass a resolution on the most important issues on the agenda: in the first reading it adopted the draft state budget for 2003. This decision was made with 279 yes votes. This result was achieved because 93 out of the 110 Our Ukraine members voted for the resolution. This action of Our Ukraine can be partially explained by the desire of Viktor Yushchenko’s followers to retain the budgetary committee unsuccessfully for 5 out of the 9 majority factions. As for pretensions of the premier’s chair, OU does not seem to have dropped this idea, but “a bird in the hand” still looks more important at the moment. From this angle, any complications around budget adoption are not to Our Ukraine’s benefit. 8 out of the 9 majority factions voted for the budget. The only one of the Nine, which did not back the 2003 draft budget, was Regions of Ukraine, a faction that no longer hides its claims. This in fact answers the question, which of the majority members created a deadlock over who will run the budgetary committee.

Last Friday Verkhovna Rada deputies were actively discussing the previous day’s political results. It became apparent to everyone that Verkhovna Rada can do a good job even in its present condition. The opinions expressed by a number of majority representatives in fact boiled down to the necessity of widening the coalition limits, first of all, by recruiting Our Ukraine.

It should be noted for fairness’ sake that the Nine invited Our Ukraine into the majority even earlier, at the very beginning of the process. However, earlier, when the Nine entertained certain hopes about setting the parliament into motion on their own, they hardly viewed attracting Our Ukraine as a major objective. Now the situation seems to have taken a different turn. Among those who favor negotiations with the Yushchenko bloc are parliament Speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn, the traditional champion of friendship with Our Ukraine Serhiy Tyhypko, and Democratic Initiative faction leader Stepan Havrysh. Proposals to begin dialog with Our Ukraine also came from SDPU (o), a faction which Mr. Yushchenko and his followers have been ceaselessly accusing of a hostile attitude to them. This faction’s member Oleksandr Volkov said to journalists, “We must sit down at the negotiating table with the opposition — especially with the Yushchenko faction.” In Mr. Volkov’s opinion, Viktor Medvedchuk and Viktor Yushchenko should “take a bottle, a piece of herring, and have a true man-to-man chat. They aren’t women after all,” Ukrainian News quotes the deputy as frankly saying.

SDPU(o) leader, chief of the President’s Administration, Viktor Medvedchuk has officially announced he is ready to negotiate with Our Ukraine about the settlement of political problems. “I again confirm readiness to sit down at the negotiating table with Our Ukraine without any political preconditions,” he said in a statement released on October 18 by Ukrainian News. “I have only one personal request to Mr. Yushchenko: dear Viktor Andriyovych, please call off the signature you put under the document signed on September 16,” Mr. Medvedchuk noted. In his view, some phrases of this document insult the personal dignity of Ukraine’s President Leonid Kuchma. “I think Warsaw managed to persuade you and I that communal kitchen habits are unacceptable in politics.” “I am sure that all of us, the government and the opposition, are interested in maintaining a high reputation of the Ukrainian state and politics,” the statement says.

Therefore, Our Ukraine will now find it more difficult to evade negotiations under the pretext that somebody hinders its participation. In this situation, very much depends on the bloc leader Viktor Yushchenko. If he calls off his signature under the September 16 public rally resolution, he may, first of all, draw the not-so-small potential of his faction into active parliamentary work as well as take part in the formation of a coalition government, an idea publicly approved by the President.

In the meantime, according to Yury Kostenko, Our Ukraine leader, their faction has not still lose a hope in forming a majority of their own based on the no-longer-new idea of an alliance between the factions of Our Ukraine, Regions of Ukraine, the Party of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs/Labor Ukraine. According to Mr. Kostenko’s statement, the alliance of three is open to all the factions, including the United Social Democrats. In his words, Our Ukraine agrees that the majority-formation agreement will not include the question of prime minister whose candidature is supposed to be subject to a rating vote within the majority. “Each faction has the right to move a candidate prime minister; then the candidates will be seeking support in negotiations with the factions,” Mr. Kostenko said.