The lawmaker strode through parliament, smiling politely and clutching a chair — his contribution to a barricade designed to paralyze proceedings.
Fresh from summer vacation, lawmakers last week were back to the shenanigans that have made Ukraine’s parliament a source of entertainment and fodder for Youtube.
But
as the former Soviet republic struggles with a devastated economy and
fears for the stability of Russian gas supplies this winter, many Ukrainians say it’s time the 450-member legislature got serious.
But all signs point to more chaos as the Jan. 17 presidential election approaches.
The power structure that emerged from the 2004 Orange Revolution, the high point of Ukraine’s struggle to banish Soviet-era politics, is in disarray.
The heroes of the mass protests, President Viktor Yushchenko and Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko,
have become bitter enemies who don’t talk to each other. The feud
between these two Western-oriented leaders has hurt their popularity,
and the man they vanquished, Russian-favored Viktor Yanukovych, now tops the opinion polls. Yushchenko’s chances of re-election are all but nil.
Arseniy Yatsenyuk, the reformist former parliament speaker, has emerged as another strong candidate.
Experts
say it’s too early to pick a winner, but few expect the vote to yield a
decisive result and calm the country of 46 million.
Key
post-election players are likely to try to redistribute power among the
president, prime minister and parliament by again redrafting Ukraine’s constitution, which was hastily rewritten during the Orange Revolution and sometimes contradicts itself.
Allegations
of voter fraud seem inevitable, and there’s no guarantee any
presidential outcome will end the paralysis in parliament and usher in
long-awaited reforms.
Meanwhile, the economy is expected to
shrink by 14 percent this year, according to the International Monetary
Fund, and the government is being told to make painful spending cuts to
qualify for a $16.4 billion IMF bailout loan.
Still, Ukraine’s
vibrant, unpredictable democracy stands in contrast to Russia and some
of the other former Soviet republics, where elections are choreographed
and government opponents sidelined.
Some say it’s a sign of progress in shedding the legacy of single-party Soviet-era rule.
“This is political competition really, not a crisis,” said political analyst Ivan Lozowy. “The more, the merrier.”
Few Ukrainians
find much to be merry about, however. They are looking for leadership
at a time when prices have skyrocketed, their savings have nearly
halved with the collapse of the national currency, and major banks had
to be rescued from bankruptcy.
Many Orange Revolution supporters
are now bitter about the leaders they helped usher to power, saying the
politicians have squandered their trust and got bogged down in
corruption and infighting.
In the past year, parliament has
repeatedly been stymied by chairs and beefy lawmakers blocking access
to the rostrum to prevent the speaker from starting a session.
Proceedings are halted when fist fights break out or lawmakers
vandalize the chamber’s electronic voting machinery.
Yushchenko called early parliamentary elections last October but the vote was never held, because Tymoshenko opposed it. Her party’s lawmakers paralyzed parliament, preventing passage of the necessary election legislation.
Frustrated
parliament speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn sought to bring lawmakers in line
Monday, ordering their pay withheld until they stopped disrupting
proceedings.
Everyone would suffer the penalty, he said angrily.
“I am not going to be compiling lists and checking who is standing near
the rostrum … and who is lying down near the rostrum.”
Now, all the candidates are the people’s friend.
Tymoshenko, glamorous and sharp-tongued, has plastered the capital with posters proclaiming: “They destroy. She works.” Yatsenyuk has set up dark-green military-style tents in Kiev, vowing war on corruption and mismanagement.
And Yanukovych has opened a hot line, promising that his staff will listen to every caller’s complaint and calls are pouring in.
