UKRAINE: Orange Camp Seeks to Regain Power

By Zoltán Dujisin Reprint | | Print |

Zoltán Dujisin

BUDAPEST, Apr 3 2007 (IPS) - Ukraine is in deep political crisis as its President disbands Parliament, while the legislative branch refuses to comply and warns of a coup. The question now is whether the standoff will be solved legally or on the streets.

Pro-Western President Viktor Yushchenko has signed a decree stipulating early parliamentary elections on May 27. He said his move was “prompted by the acute need to defend the state, its sovereignty, and territorial integrity.”

The parliament, which has never been dissolved since the country of 50 million gained independence in 1991, is refusing to budge, calling the decree “unconstitutional”.

This is Ukraine’s most turbulent moment since November 2004 when a popular uprising against forged elections, known as the ‘Orange Revolution’, eventually placed Yushchenko in power.

The Orange camp, comprising all opponents of the ruling coalition, is hoping for a repeat of ‘revolutionary’ events, but the last days are seeing large rallies by both oppositionists and government supporters in Kiev.

The president, with his powers weakened in favour of the prime minister since a 2006 constitutional reform, is battling for political survival as the man he defeated in 2004 gains authority over most of the executive following his victory in last year’s parliamentary elections.

Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich and Yushchenko became involved in a long-standing power struggle that Yanukovich was clearly winning. Both have on different occasions interpreted the Constitution in their own way.

Their struggle’s latest chapter came when the 11 deputies in the Party of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, a part of the pro-presidential Our Ukraine parliamentary faction, switched to the side of the authorities in parliament.

This led Yanukovich’s cabinet to announce the setting up of a new “coalition of national unity” to replace the previous “anti-crisis coalition” which included his Party of the Regions, the Socialists and the Communists.

Yushchenko claims this was in violation of the Constitution, as coalitions may be formed out of existing parliamentary factions only, but several experts disagree, and point out that certain factions’ intention to support authorities does not amount to reformatting the coalition in a juridical sense.

This view was even supported by Zerkalo Nedeli, an influential and traditionally pro- Yushchenko weekly that went as far as reminding the president that he himself had violated the constitution on several occasions.

The president has reasons to fear the growing power of authorities, as the continuation of defections could eventually allow deputies to overturn any presidential veto and introduce a law stipulating the president’s election by parliament.

So does opposition leader Yuliya Timoshenko, who as head of the United Energy Systems of Ukraine Company in the 1990s was being threatened by an ad hoc investigative commission looking into possible violations of existing legislation on the Ukrainian energy market.

Yushchenko had in the past declared that the only way out of the crisis was the setting up of a joint commission to amend the constitution, and presented the coalition with an ultimatum last week.

Officials claimed it was impossible to comply with all of the president’s demands, and accused him of trying to impose his will rather than negotiating.

The prime minister is still calling on Yushchenko to return to the negotiating table. “Make this step towards Ukraine. There is still time,” Yanukovich said in a televised address Tuesday.

He also warned that presidential elections would inevitably follow early parliamentary elections.

The opposition has welcomed the president’s decision. “A parliament which has become steeped in corruption and started to review the people’s choice and behave in an anti- Ukrainian manner has no right to a political life,” Timoshenko told supporters at a rally Monday.

The radical opposition leader has for the last months consistently pursued a policy challenging Yanukovich’s cabinet, insistently calling on the president to disband parliament. Many see the president’s recent decision as the result of her pressure on a man fearing his political death.

Yushchenko’s popularity had been at an all time low since he fell out with his ‘Orange Revolution’ ally and appointed Yanukovich as prime minister in August 2006. He only recently managed to regain some of it by signing an agreement on cooperation with the Yuliya Timoshenko bloc.

The president’s latest decision was also a response to the most radical sectors of the opposition who accused him of weakness whenever he negotiated with the cabinet, increasing suspicions that the disbandment of parliament followed political, rather than legal considerations.

Analysts speculate that Yushchenko could have agreed to help Timoshenko, with whom he shares a similar electorate, in her bid to become prime minister in exchange for the opposition leader’s support for the president’s re-election bid.

But the still functioning parliament has sent the presidential decree to the Constitutional Court, which is politically divided but tends to support a letter-of-the-law approach.

“The president indeed has the right to dissolve parliament, but the question is whether he uses power properly,” Ivan Presniakov, political analyst at the Kiev-based International Centre for Policy Studies told IPS.

“Parliament should accept the decree and then check with the constitutional court, which is the only institution that can give a legitimate answer to the problem,” he said.

Few dare to predict which way the popular mood will swing, as authorities tighten security around the capital. A recent poll indicated that most Ukrainians disapprove of the prime minister’s performance, but it also showed that even more citizens disapprove of the president, and are against early elections.

“Everyone understands this is not about democracy as in 2004,” Presniakov said.

The analyst also doubts violence could erupt. “The police are controlled by the coalition, whereas the army and the security services respond to the president, so nobody is interested in any kind of provocation,” he told IPS.

Russian deputies are calling Yushchenko’s decision a “mistake”. The European Union had called for calm and renewed negotiations just a few days before the president took action.