While Border Guard troops held defensive exercises on Tuzla Island, the Prime Minister arrived to inspect the defenses and President Kuchma truncated his Latin American tour
of Latin America to rush homeward. On another front, parliament deputies were firing endless bursts of rhetorical artillery, all designed to demonstrate their collective efforts to protect Ukraine’s shores from the invading Russian hordes.
The occasion started out as nothing more than one of the fairly frequent visits of members of Russia’s State Duma and Federation Council to Kyiv to discuss the status of Russia-Ukraine relations with their Rada counterparts.
On other similar occasions, one might have expected fairly bland and generally positive comments from both sides. However, with the tempers of Ukrainian voters flaring, no deputy dared be verbally moderate in protection of the Motherland.
Some deputies stuck more to older themes, such as efforts to get Russia to pony up for funds lost in Soviet state banks after the breakup of the USSR, but most chose to play the “protect the homeland” theme hard and long.
As for the Russian visitors, led by Valery Goreglyad, first deputy chairman of the Federation Council, they chose to walk very softly and carry no stick at all. In fact, the Russian delegation seems to have had their cards marked beforehand that they should do nothing to add to the bad vibes already filling Ukraine’s airways and print media.
Hryshchenko goes subtle
Perhaps some of those waxing so eloquent in parliament on Wednesday should have referred to earlier remarks by newly-appointed Foreign Minister Kostyantyn Hryshchenko, diplomatic skills freshly honed from several years of representing Ukrainian interests in Ukraine’s Brussels and Washington embassies. On Oct. 18, Hryshchenko told journalists that the controversy around the Russian dam might prevent parliament from ratifying the accord on the Single Economic Space. “This is the most obvious idea, and it should be obvious for all, including our Russian partners,” Hryshchenko said. The message, though subtle, could hardly have been missed in the Kremlin. Perhaps Ukraine should consider sending Hryshchenko to Tuzla rather than some of the other leaders who seem intent on getting their pictures taken there.
Dissolution, the man said
The time-honored habit of parliament factions and parties barricading the speaker’s rostrum as a vehicle to put pressure on for this or that action, has most recently and effectively been used by those parties that want to force a vote on the issue of all-proportional voting to elect members of the parliament. It’s hard to tell the players without a program, but long-time parliament observers suggest that most of those engaging the rostrum scrums were from the Yulia Tymoshenko faction, aided and abetted at times by members of Our Ukraine, the Communists and the Socialists.
The proportional election issue was unsettled as we went to press, but it brought to surface a related matter that most parliament members would have just as soon swept under the rug. At one point, Speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn suggested that the only way to make progress was for the Rada to dissolve itself, thereby triggering new elections. For many members, the idea of elections any time soon are the absolute last thing they want bruited about.
Lytvyn was soon made aware that the issue played much differently from the way he would have liked it to play. It all has to do with the costs of election, spiraling ever higher, at least for some.
Some of the old-line parties, particularly the Communists and the Socialists, depend much less on campaign spending, but instead upon long-time party stalwarts to get out the vote. For those parties that are better organized at the local and regional level, the possibility of having to go back to the polls is much less daunting. While they certainly have some spending needs, those needs are a fraction of the needs of those parties that depend much more on spending, and on what many would consider vote buying.
Before that comment about vote buying resounds too loudly, let us explain that what other parts of the world would consider vote buying is simply business as usual in Ukraine. In most cases, the compensation to voters, usually the elderly and the poor, comes in the form of staple food commodities. In fact, many elections in the last 12 years have seen the election end with the larders of some voters sufficiently enough filled to last for a good number of months.
As far as the richer parties go, in addition to the distribution of commodities to those who are amenable to this blandishment, there is also heavy spending on television, print media and billboards to be considered. Add to that the cost of high powered election and media consultants, and you have parliament elections that for some may be as expensive as any that are held in the world.
Of course, those who win expect to recoup their losses during their term in office. In quiet moments, many of those currently serving will tell you that they are far from recouping the cost of the last parliamentary election, and would consider having to run any time soon as a severe and expensive nuisance.
So far as the presidential administration goes, dissolution is a non-solution, since the administration is busy worrying about other matters, and has neither the time nor desire to engage in electioneering just now. With less than a year until the next presidential election is scheduled, and many rivers to cross on constitutional reform and other fronts, the idea of dissolution of the parliament is an issue that no one wants to tackle just now. Mr. Lytvyn may have other weapons, but trying to quell rowdy Rada members with verbiage about dissolution is a bad idea.
[The opinions expressed in The Ear are the writer’s and not necessarily those of the Kyiv Post or KP Druk. E-mail to [email protected].]
