After productive work on Jan. 28, when Ukrainian lawmakers voted to repeal nine strict anti-protest laws they passed only 12 days earlier, the Jan. 29 parliamentary session was much less fruitful.
It spent its time debating a much-anticipated amnesty law, changes to the country’s constitution and speculating about which cabinet positions opposition members might soon occupy -- without reaching an decisions by early evening.
Speaking from the parliament tribune in the morning, Ukraine’s first president, Leonid
Kravchuk, called on lawmakers to pass the law on amnesty by consensus, warning
that the country is on the “verge of civil war.”
However, lawmakers can’t agree on how widely amnesty should be applied for offenses committed during the EuroMaidan demonstrations that have claimed four lives and led to hundreds of detentions of demonstrators, many for questionable crimes.
Three EuroMaidan activists — Serhiy Nihoyan, Michael Zhyznevskyy and Roman Senyk — were killled by gunshot during clashes between police and protesters on Jan. 24.
A fourth activist — Yuri Verbitsky –– was kidnapped, beaten and left to die in a forest near Boryspil.
At
the same time, hundreds of people on both sides were wounded, most in assaults by police on demonstrators.
Scores of others were
imprisoned for participating in “Maidans” all over the country.
The rallies
that initially started as a pro-European movement on Nov. 21 have
since turned into a large-scale and passionate campaign against President
Viktor Yanukovych.
While in
the beginning protesters asked that the government get back on a path toward
the European Union, amnesty for activists jailed since the beginning is now a
crucial demand of the anti-government protesters.
But
Yanukovych’s Party of Regions and the nation’s opposition parties disagree on the
terms of this law.
The
pro-government forces want the amnesty to refer not only to protesters but also
to the police, who acted against them.
“It would
be unjust if we apply amnesty only to one side of the conflict,” Volodymyr Oliynyk,
a Party of Regions lawmaker, said. The Party of Regions also demands that the
new law be applied only after the protesters leave all the government and
public offices occupied by them for now.
The opposition
calls these demands unacceptable. “People came to the streets because they
want to change the situation in the country. And it is unacceptable to say that
we will free the people if they go home,” Vitali Klitschko, opposition leader of Ukrainain Democratic Alliance for Reform Party said.
For the
moment, there are three laws on amnesty registered in parliament – including
one from the ruling Party of Regions, one from opposition Batkivshchyna Party
and another from independent lawmakers.
One more
important issue is the role of opposition in new government. Yanukovych offered
on Jan. 25 the post of prime minister to Arseniy Yatseniuk, leader of the opposition
Batkivshchyna Party, and the post of vice prime minister on humanities issues
to Klitschko. Both later refused the proposals. However, after Mykola Azarov
resigned on Jan. 28, the opposition said they would be ready to head the cabinet,
but only on their terms.
“I perfectly
understand why they (the authorities) proposed us this (prime minister) post: the
$35 billion loan they took and this year have to pay back $11 billion, which
they don’t have. The state power system is totally destroyed, business has
almost disappeared, there is no prospect for economic growth in near future,”
Yatseniuk told journalists in parliament on Jan. 29.
“The post
of prime minister makes no sense if the opposition doesn’t get full
responsibility. So we want to hear from the president a proposal saying that
Ukraine’s opposition gets all the responsibility for the cabinet,” he added.
The opposition
claims they would be ready to take control of the government when it will have
real power, which would be possible only after changes to the constitution that
would limit the power of the president, giving more to them.
The ruling
party claims they also realize a need to change the constitution, saying they
hope to return it to the parliament-president republic in was in 2004. “If we
vote for this (changes in constitution), then we may have the first vote in
February and the second one in September,” Oliynyk said. Yatseniuk agreed that
September could be the earliest month to hold a vote on a law that would allow
the constitution to be changed.
But Inna Bohoslovska,
independent lawmaker, who has recently defected from the Party of Regions in
protest against its anti-European policy, said that the constitution could be
changed with a simple vote in parliament that would reverse a decision of
Ukraine’s Constitutional Court made in 2010.
“The only
way to resolve the ongoing conflict is this way,” she said “And parliament has
226 votes for this decision.”
Bohoslovska
added that Ukraine has a limited amount of time to resolve its ongoing
political crisis.
“Our final
term is Feb. 23. If it’s not done, then we will feel aggressive pressure from
Russia through its local agents,” she said.
Kyiv Post staff writer Oksana Grytsenko can be reached at [email protected]
