Domestically the
scuffles brought violence against individuals of different views from the
streets, where the unintentionally ironically named Svoboda, or Freedom Party,
had its supporters attack gay rights demonstrators earlier last week, to the
parliament.
Fighting in the Verkhovna
Rada initially broke out when the three opposition parties blocked access to
the speaker’s rostrum, halting the activation of the electronic voting
system. In the scuffles that followed, WBC
heavyweight champion and Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reforms party leader
Vitali Klitschko, (reigning journalistic convention requires me to tell you his
party’s name means “punch” to heighten the fast approaching irony) made
headlines for the first time in his life for refusing to even take a swing in a
fight.
As Klitschko’s party continued to block access
to the rostrum, Klitschko stayed towards the back of the chamber and out of the
scuffles. In a later interview he
compared his fists to nuclear weapons, which were not to be used lightly. It is as of yet unknown when they will make
their Verkhovna Rada debut, though surely the party’s name alone ensures they
must.
After the dust had settled from the last week’s
two parliamentary sessions, the results were both more and less dramatic than
you would expect. Squarely in the dramatic column where Svoboda’s supporters
cutting through a section of fence blocking entry to the Verkhovna Rada, and
trying to storm through.
Also
scoring highly was the ejection of the father and son team, Oleksandr and
Andrii Tabalov, who ran as opposition candidates and have now left the Fatherland
Party, and most likely the opposition altogether. That sly move has won them the catchy
nickname “corpses,” the term Ukrainians less than lovingly apply to politicians
wooed to greener political pastures post-election.
The two look likely to be the least popular
people in the new parliament, and can look forward to four years of being
driven out of the chamber whenever tensions flare, as indeed they were when the
two tried to take the parliamentary oath.
On the less dramatic side of events was the successful
reelection of Mykola Azarov as prime minister despite the raucous, and the
successful voting in of the Party of the Region’s chosen speaker. Both were expected, but the scuffles have
made the Party of the Regions more weary, and made Azarov at least want to be
seen as reaching out to the opposition.
The Western coverage of events has shown a
foreign media that for the most part still doesn’t know very much about Ukraine
and is happy to burry its issues in trite pieces on the history of violence in
parliaments. As one BBC anchor commented
chuckling at a video of the fights “words it seems were not quite enough to
deal with it all.” And to a
certain extent that is true.
Ukrainian society is incredibly divided and
that division with all its emotion and lack of decorum is on prominent display
in the Verkhovna Rada. Though that
emotion hinders the smooth proceedings present in more established and dull
democracies, it still preserves parliament as a societal meeting point.
Though calmer parliaments are indicators of
smoother political times, they are not necessarily a sign of more democratic
ones. Russia’s parliamentary fistfights
ended in the nineties, and Russian democracy is arguably poorer rather than
richer for it. Ukrainian democracy on
the other hand is alive and fighting for its life. That is something worth remembering if
Ukraine’s raucous parliament makes global headlines again today, and even more
so if not.
Ian Bateson is a freelance American journalist.
Follow Ian Bateson on Twitter @ianbateson
