When the end came for Ukraine's pro-Western coalition, it came with little suspense but big ramifications
When the end came for Ukraine’s pro-Western coalition, it came with little suspense but big ramifications for a country that has struggled endlessly to break free of poisonous politics.
The ruling coalition of President Victor Yushchenko and Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko finally and formally collapsed this week at an extremely inopportune time for Ukraine.
The nation’s seesaw battle for power has diplomats the world over wondering if Kyiv can operate effectively and make progress as a democratic nation. The instability is clearly harming Ukraine’s desire for Western integration, including membership in the European Union and NATO military alliance.
The resulting chaos is unlikely to pass easily or quickly.
The 30day legal countdown for a new coalition to form began on Sept. 16, when Verkhovna Rada Speaker Arseniy Yatsenyuk made the formal announcement in parliament.
If no working majority can be cobbled together by then, the president has the option – but not the requirement – to dissolve parliament and call new elections.
“Today is the day when we turn over one page of Ukraine’s political history and open a new one,” Yatsenyuk said, announcing the end of the Orange Revolution alliance. “This is one more challenge to democracy, but I hope we’ll overcome this challenge together.”
Dissolving parliament could prove suicidal for the oncepopular propresidential Our Ukraine bloc. Yushchenko’s camp would only receive 3.8 percent if elections were held this month, according to a recent poll by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology.
Such support would put Yushchenko’s force on par with the marginalized Communists, and barely carry the presidential allies over the three percent barrier required to get into the Rada.
On the other hand, Tymoshenko’s bloc could gain strength from a new election, with 24.1 percent according to the same poll. But that wouldn’t put the prime minister’s forces much ahead of the Party of Regions, with 23.3 percent, according to a poll of 2, 036 respondents from Sept. 17.
However, experts say that Tymoshenko doesn’t want new elections if she can get the same benefits by forming a coalition with the Party of Regions, led by exPrime Minister Victor Yanukovych, her Orange Revolution enemy.
“Tymoshenko will play the scenario of convincing society that preterm elections will make things even messier to receive public approval for a coalition with the Regions,” said Our Ukraine member of parliament Andriy Parubiy.
Speculation about a longterm alliance between Tymoshenko and Yanukovych’s blocs has lingered ever since they combined votes and decided to curb presidential powers and simplify impeachment procedures.
Our Ukraine deputies even went as far as saying the Bloc of Yulia Tymoshenko, known as BYuT, and the Party of Regions have already divided positions in a new government among themselves. According to Parubiy, if they form a coalition, Tymoshenko will remain prime minister, Regions leader Yanukovych will become parliament’s speaker, while Regions members will take over the ministries currently in the hands of Our Ukraine.
“The coalition will depend on whether BYuT and the Party of Regions can reach an agreement on constitutional reform issues,” said Serhiy Taran, director of Sotsiovymir Center for Sociology and Political Research.
Each one of the parties has proposed its own changes to the Constitution that would further curb presidential powers. The only major differences in the drafts are that Tymoshenko doesn’t support the Regions’ calls to make Russian a second state language and to declare Ukraine a neutral state, experts said.
There is also plenty of opposition to a coalition with ByuT, at least among the ranks of Regions members, amid fears that their party could become a minority stakeholder.
“The Party of Regions shouldn’t be mineral fertilizers for Tymoshenko to blossom,” said Anna Herman, a Regions member of parliament. Herman said Tymoshenko has already betrayed the president and could just as easily betray the Party of Regions.
A frustrated Yushchenko also continued to make nasty accusations against Tymoshenko and her situational allies, saying they want to create a twoparty system in parliament. The two blocs joined forces in drafting and registering a new law in parliament on Sept. 17 that would introduce a tworound election system, essentially ensuring that no other political force, apart from BYuT and Regions, lands in parliament in the next election.
“This law will lead to the usurpation of power by one political force and this violates democracy,” Parubiy, the Our Ukraine parliamentarian, said.
Regardless of the mutual accusations, analysts said there is still a slim chance that an Orange coalition can be salvaged, perhaps topped up with deputies from former speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn’s faction.
“I talked to the president, and he said he is ready to relaunch the coalition dialogue, but the initiative has to come from Tymoshenko,” Lytvyn said in an interview to Channel 5 on Sept. 17.
This threeway majority would require mutual concessions from Yushchenko and Tymoshenko, but neither has demonstrated any will to cooperate so far, said Volodymr Fesenko, director for the Penta Center for Applied Policy Studies.
While Yatseniuk resigned from the speaker’s chair, as required by the original coalition agreement between BYuT and Our Ukraine, Tymoshenko has declined to resign.
Amidst this political chaos, the most likely midterm political development is the preservation of a situational alliance in parliament, but without the official creation of a new ruling coalition, leaving the current government in place.
“If lawmakers don’t vote for reducing presidential powers, a parliament without a formal majority will work until presidential elections,” Taran said.
