SLOW START TO TAKING RESPONSIBILITY

The sixth session of Verkhovna Rada, predicted to make decisions revolutionary for Ukraine, has started off. The beginning looked completely banal and commonplace: Speaker Ivan Pliushch simply told the audience about hopes for cooperation with the government, and First Vice Premier Yuri Yekhanurov, speaking on behalf of the government, enumerated the bills to be submitted to Verkhovna Rada. The September plans include no revolutions whatsoever: none of the tax, land, or budget codes, on which so many commentators have pinned so much hope, are on the agenda. However, Mr. Yekhanurov said all this should be discussed during the sixth session, while Mr. Pliushch thinks the main task is to adopt amendments to the Constitution in line with the April referendum results.

Meanwhile, the parliamentary backstage is full of various rumors and conjectures partly because Bakai’s bomb finally went off. Ihor Bakai sided with Revival of the Regions rather than the Reforms Congress, as had been expected. Former Prosecutor General Oleh Lytvak also planted an explosive device of his own: he decided to quit Fatherland and has not yet announced his joining any other faction.

Of course, there probably is something new in the fact that Borys Oliynyk, chairman of the Ukrainian delegation at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, will not participate in some PACE functions (according to Mr. Oliynyk, foreign travel funds are not available to for everybody, which smacks of political racism). Serhiy Holovaty, PACE Monitoring Committee member, will not attend its session either (the parliamentary leadership has not signed his travel papers). Incidentally, in Mr. Holovaty’s opinion, this committee will make a negative report on Ukraine.

High expectations have been pinned on the session. But what is likely to be its main result is that the end of the session will be the beginning of a new parliamentary election campaign.

COMMENT

Volodymyr SEMYNOZHENKO, Solidarity faction:

“I wish the Speaker’s speech had not been a simple update on the actions by the Reconciliation Council. He read a very important text, the President’s address, and this was the right thing to do. But he should certainly have explained much more clearly his assessment of cooperation with the government instead of simply stating that the government allegedly wants to assign certain tasks to parliament, which disappointed the audience. In reality, everything was different, of course.

“I think this session will leave a very special mark. This is a session that will require the Deputies take maximum responsibility for their role in parliament and for the future. We are now on the eve of a very serious transition period, which will turn into a new nationwide election campaign. Indisputably, the parliamentary majority has preserved its pre-summer shape and faces no threats. Even if somebody says that possible resignation of the government (which is really possible) is a threat to the majority, this is absolutely wrong. In a word, this is a majority complying with the President’s message and five year program. This is a majority oriented toward cooperation with the President as well as, no doubt, with the government — but only in a direction and manner consistent with the President’s message rather than the government’s program, which parliament had to accept as a compromise.”