President Leonid Kuchmas Constitution Day proposal to postpone parliamentary elections died a quiet death last week after it was disowned by its author.
Kuchma predicted Friday Aug. 8 that the vote will take place on schedule in March 1998. He said the plan to postpone the elections for a year originated not with him but with five parliamentary factions which requested the delay.
The President said his Constitution Day address that offered to postpone elections was intended merely to indicate that I was prepared to examine the Verkhovna Radas proposals.
Parliament has not yet passed a new law on elections that will govern next years vote. The legislature is split between the larger parties, such as the Communists and Rukh, who want half of the next Parliaments members elected from nationwide party lists, and Kuchma supporters who are trying to preserve current election districts contested under a first-past-the-post system. The latter would favor local powerbrokers who tend to be more supportive of the president.
It was the pro-presidential Constitutional Center faction that led the drive to extend Parliaments term for a year.
Oleksandr Yurchuk, political analyst for the Pidtekst newsletter, said the proposal to postpone elections originated in the Presidential Administration, was sent from there to Kuchma allies in Parliament who tried to rally support for the plan, and then unveiled by Kuchma in late June.
The idea … was floated, and when it failed to find enough supporters, the blame was placed on deputies, Yurchuk said.
Independent political analysts have said that a Parliament elected next year is likely to be at least as hostile to reforms backed by Kuchma as todays leftist-dominated legislature, particularly if the Communists benefit from a new election law due to be debated by Parliament later this month.
Two weeks ago, presidential Chief of Staff Yevhen Kushnaryev suggested that Kuchma might use his constitutional prerogative to dismiss Parliament since it had taken a recess of more than 30 days in a single session. Such a move by the president would have forced fresh elections under the old first-past-the-post system.
And while Kuchma later downplayed the threat, Parliament is taking no chances. Lawmakers will now meet Aug. 15 to deprive the president of a pretext to send them packing.
(Information of the Interfax news agency was used in this story.)
