The eXile #261 20 Apr 07
Ukraine's "1993" Moment?
Why Yushchenko is screwed.
By Kirill Pankratov ( pkirill88 at hotmail.com )
I recently came across an interesting observation: Whatever changes happen in Russia, in the end it will always look like Byzantium. Whatever happens in the Ukraine, it will always look like a Zaporozhskaya Sech - a chaotic gathering of wild Cossaks, known to readers of Gogol's novel Taras Bulba.
Recent events illustrate the truth of this. In Russia, Putin's government has gradually consolidated control over most levers of power while becoming increasingly opaque and difficult to read. In Ukraine, the last two and a half years have seen massive street demonstrations, government crises, indecisive elections, and constantly shifting alliances.
But there is another side to this story. In many ways Ukraine does look and behave just like Russia, in a lighter and more provincial way. When the "Orange Revolution" happened, the West uniformly proclaimed that Ukraine had finally broke with Russia's tradition of "oriental despotism". But many Russian (and some Ukrainian) observers compared the "Orange Revolution" to the failed coup in August 1991, which brought Yeltsin to power in the wake of huge demonstrations and protests. At the time, Ukraine was largely quiet, aside from a minority of ardent nationalists. Its Communist Party boss, Leonid Kravchuk, suddenly transformed overnight into an uncomprimising nationalist, imitating an accent that passed for "conversational Ukrainian," and became the first president of the newly independent Ukraine.
Since the Orange Revolution began to turn sour a few months after Yushchenko's triumph - with his popularity plunging almost to single digits (just like Yeltsin's in early 90s) against a backdrop of government splits and economic turmoil - many analysts in Russia gloated about the coming "Ukrainian '93 scenario," referencing the violent confrontation between Yeltsin's government and the Russian parliament in September-October of 1993, which ended with tanks blasting the parliament building, and hundreds dead.
Alas, something resembling that stand-off is now developing, 26 months after the victory of the Orange Revolution. (The October '93 stand-off happened 26 months after the collapse of the Soviet putsch in August '91.)
On April 2 President Yushchenko dismissed the Ukrainian parliament, known as the "Rada". (Curiously, this decision was made upon Yulia Timoshenko's return from a trip to Washington.) But the Rada refused to be dismissed, citing the unconstitutionality of the presidential decree, and they threatened impeachment. The government, led by Yanukovich, who was Yuchshenko's rival during the Orange revolution, also refused to be dismissed. There began the eery resemblance to Yeltsin's decree dismissing the parliament on September 21, 1993.
There's nothing shocking about dissovling a parliament: it's done in democracies regularly all over the world. In Italy they dissolve parliaments as often as they call national strikes. But there's a catch. A legislative assembly is dismissed when it stops supporting a government and no party can get enough votes to form a new one. This is logical - when nobody can make a solid parliament majority, there is no way but to drop the whole thing and try a new election, putting the choice in the hands of the people.
But in Ukraine the reason for dissolving parliament was completely different: it was because the governing coalition was getting too strong. The Party of Ukraine's Regions (that is, the "anti-Orange" party), which formed the government coalition, gradually solidified its leading position since winning the Rada elections in March 2006. About a dozen deputies from the Orange camp, sensing that the tide was turning increasingly towards the Blue's favor, switched sides in favor of government. Yushchenko's circle charged that this was due to bribes, up to five million bucks per deputy. This is not impossible, of course: Ukrainian politics is not known for its crystall honesty. But don't assume that the Orangists themselves are any cleaner - they are just weaker at the moment.
Is Yushchenko's decree to dissolve the Rada legal? Does it have a solid footing in the Constitution? None whatsoever. Article 90 of the Ukrainian Constitution states quite clearly that there are exactly three conditions when the Rada can be dismissed: 1) when it can't form a government within a period of one month; 2) when a new government can't be formed two months after the resignation of the previous one; 3) when for whatever reason the Rada can't begin its work for months.
None of this computes with the presidential decree, which cited vague reasons such as that the Rada "doesn't act according to the will of the people." This is unconstitutional, pure and simple. Yeltsin's degree dismissing the Parliament in 1993 was hardly legal, either, yet it had a much more solid foundation than Yushchenko's. In Russia the parliament (then still the Supreme Soviet) had shaky legitimacy since it was elected before the August coup and the breakup of the Soviet Union, and before Yeltsin's election to the presidency in 1991. Although Yeltsin own popularity was in steep decline, the parliament's was even lower. The confrontation with the parliament had been brewing for a long time, and by September 1993 the situation came to a stalemate, while the economic situation in the country continued to deteriorate. Earlier that year, in March, Yeltsin organized a referendum in which voters had to explicitly choose whom they trusted more: the President or the Supreme Soviet. He won that referendum. During the summer of '93 he convened a Constitutional Assembly -- an informal gathering but with a fairly broad representation, charging it with the task of writing a new Constitution. The Supreme Soviet tried to block it, while offering nothing constructive in its place.
None of this was true in Yuchshenko's case. The government is clearly functional, and has a solid majority in the Rada. The Rada itself was elected just a year ago. There isn't a shred of lawful foundation in ordering its dismissal. The Constitution doesn't allow the President to oust the Rada just because he feels like it. In fact one of the compromises during the Orange revolution was a political reform severely curtailing the powers of the presidency, making Ukraine (unlike Russia) essentially a parliamentary republic.
Had this happened in Putin's Russia, much of the Western media would scream "dictatorship" and "absolute disregard of law". But since Yushchenko is regarded as pro-Western, hardly anybody condemned his actions. What a surprise.
The issue is now theoretically in the hands of the Constitutional Court, the supreme judicial organ. The Constitutional Court is made up of 18 judges; six of them are appointed by the President, six by Rada, and the remaining six - by the Council of Judges, a sort of Ukrainian bar association. Unlike the U.S. Supreme Court, it hasn't been particularly busy: it hasn't issued a single decision in nearly a year of work.
Many cling to the illusion that the highest judicial power can be an independent body, wise and impartial, resolving conflicts between other branches of power. It hardly ever happens. Remember the 2000 U.S. election? The final decision, 5-to-4 in favor of George Bush, broke down along party lines: there wasn't any "objectivity" and "impartiality" in that ruling. It all happened because the previous Republican administrations managed to stuff one more of their own into the Supreme Court (including two judges appointed by George's daddy) than the previous Democratic ones, nothing more.
In Russia in 1993, the Constitutional Court played a weak role, largely burying its head in the sand. All indications are that the Ukrainian Constitutional Court will chicken out as well. The brewing comedy has already been started by the head of the Court himself, who tried to resign in the wake of the crisis. They wouldn't let him. The Court was supposed to consider the constitutionality of Yushchenko's degree on April 11. But that day five judges excused themselves, citing unspecified "pressure," and demanded additional security be provided for them. The case was postponed by a week.
As of this writing, nothing has happened. Meanwhile, allegations of large-scale corruption are surfacing against Suzanna Stanik, the leading judge who was supposed to present the Court's decision. She was accused of accepting gifts in the form of property amounting to $12 million over the past few years. Well, Ukraine is not a rich country, but its leading politicians, just like in Russia, know a thing or two about the good life: the typical Washington corruption scandals amount to mere tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. Such paltry sums would be laughed out of a government minister's office in Kiev or Moscow.
Aside from the legality of Yushchenko's move, what does he stand to gain? Calling for new elections looks like an act of desperation. His party's popularity today is even lower than it was a year ago, during the previous elections, when it was already disappointingly low. In case of new elections, Yanukovich's party will likely hold its own, and probably pick some more votes, up to 36-38% of the total. Much of the Orange vote will go to the fiery loose cannon Yulia Timoshenko, Yushchenko's first Prime-Minister, now his rival and sometimes-foe. It was Timoshenko who lobbied hard for Yushchenko to dismiss the Rada, since for her it means another chance to take control of the government.
Poor Victor Yushchenko. Sometimes it works to bluff. But not when everybody knows you have a weak hand.
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