The three allies of the 2004 Orange Revolution in Ukraine -- the Yuliya Tymoshenko Bloc, Our Ukraine, and the Socialist Party -- decided on June 22 to recreate their ruling coalition, which existed for eight months in 2005. The renewed Orange coalition, however, comes into being under new rules of the political game determined by a constitutional reform that took effect at the beginning of 2006. Under this reform, Ukraine's parliament and prime minister acquired more political clout at the expense of the president.
How has the ruling class in Ukraine prepared to deal with this new situation?
Yuliya Tymoshenko, leader of the eponymous political bloc, was fond of
asserting during the parliamentary election campaign earlier this year that
voting for the Verkhovna Rada on March 26 would decide who would actually govern
Ukraine over the next five years. In this way she was highlighting the new,
enhanced powers of the parliament and the cabinet of ministers vis-a-vis the
presidency, which are a result of the constitutional changes made during the
peak of the Orange Revolution in December 2004.
Would Tymoshenko repeat
that assertion now, after her party has rejoined the ruling coalition and she
personally is poised to become prime minister once again?
Perhaps yes,
but arguably with less confidence -- this because her coalition partners from
Our Ukraine have put forth a great deal of effort during the nearly three months
of coalition talks in order to install an elaborate system of checks and
balances to prevent her from gaining too much power.
Checks And
Balances
A coalition deal signed on June 22 provides for the distribution of election
spoils between the Orange allies on a broadly proportional basis. This means
that the Yuliya Tymoshenko Bloc (129 seats) should get 53 percent of government
posts, Our Ukraine (81 seats) 33 percent, and the Socialist Party (33 seats) 14
percent.
But this arithmetic does not apply to some major state posts
that the constitution defines as a presidential quota. In particular, the
president has the right to appoint the foreign minister, the defense minister,
the prosecutor-general, the head of the Security Service, the head of the
National Bank, and all regional governors. It should be expected that these
appointments will be made by President Viktor Yushchenko mostly from the ranks
of the pro-presidential Our Ukraine.
Moreover, presidential
prerogatives include appointing half the members of the National Radio and
Television Council, the National Bank Council, and the Constitutional Court. The
president also has veto powers on legislation, which can be overturned by no
fewer than 300 votes in the 450-seat Verkhovna Rada. Thus, even after the 2004
shift from the presidential to parliamentary form of governance in Ukraine,
President Yushchenko appears to have more political clout than most of his
counterparts in Central Europe.
According to unconfirmed media reports,
the June 22 coalition deal allocates the post of prime minister and nine
ministerial portfolios to the Yuliya Tymoshenko Bloc. Our Ukraine is to take the
posts of parliamentary speaker and deputy prime minister as well as five
ministerial portfolios. The Socialist Party will have to satisfy itself with the
post of first deputy premier and three ministerial portfolios.
The
posts of heads of parliamentary committees are distributed among the coalition
partners under a similar proportional scheme, but an adopted system of checks
and balances assures that Our Ukraine and the Socialist Party control those
committees that deal with the spheres of cabinet activities being under the
control of ministers from the Yuliya Tymoshenko Bloc.
Orange
Coordination
The Orange coalition deal also includes a chapter called "The Regulations of
the Coalition's Activities," which sets internal rules and procedures for
arriving at coordinated decisions.
According to these rules, every
coalition partner has the power of veto over proposed legislation, and consensus
is needed for submitting a draft bill or resolution to the Verkhovna Rada.
The main programmatic issues -- mapping out principal foreign and domestic
policies and drafting the cabinet's program of action -- are to be tackled by
the General Assembly of the Coalition, which consists of all 243 lawmakers from
the three Orange parties. The General Assembly of the Coalition adopts
resolutions by voting -- a decision is deemed passed if it is supported by more
than 50 percent of lawmakers in each coalition party.
On a daily basis,
the work of the coalition is coordinated by the nine-member Coalition Council,
which is made up of three lawmakers from each coalition party.
There
are also rules obliging the coalition to consult on issues of special importance
with the three top state officials: the president, the prime minister, and the
parliamentary speaker.
Presidential Consultation
In particular, the coalition, through its Council, has to hold mandatory
consultations with the president regarding the determination of foreign and
domestic policies and a program of socioeconomic development. The same applies
to submitting the candidacy of a prime minister for parliamentary approval.
The prime minister is restricted in his/her actions by a requirement to hold
mandatory consultations with the Coalition Council regarding the nomination of
cabinet and other officials whom the constitution assigns to his/her sphere of
authority. A similar requirement applies to cabinet dismissals.
In
other words, for the first time in Ukraine's 15 years of independence the
Ukrainian political elite have agreed on a set of rules that can make running
the government in the country a fairly transparent and civilized business. This
circumstance, coupled with the constitutional reform that distributes political
clout among the power branches more evenly, may be seen as an indisputable gain
of the Orange Revolution.
However, the upsetting part of all this is
that people intending to run a new government in Ukraine are essentially the
same people who split in September 2005 among mutual accusations of corruption
practices and/or encroaching upon each other's prerogatives.
Our
Ukraine's proposal that Petro Poroshenko, Tymoshenko's fiercest enemy in the
2005 feud within the then-Orange coalition, take the post of parliamentary
speaker seems to be an ill-advised "parliamentary check" on Tymoshenko as the
head of the cabinet. There is a great likelihood that the former rivalry between
these two might start anew, plunging the new coalition once again into
recriminations and quarreling.
Incidentally, representatives of the
opposition Party of Regions predict that precisely because of the
incompatibility of such individuals as Tymoshenko and Poroshenko, the new Orange
coalition is doomed to the same collapse as its Orange predecessor. Bracing
itself for such an eventuality, the Party of Regions is keeping its options open
and has avoided saying "no" to a future coalition with Our Ukraine.
Our
Ukraine unambiguously suggested that its own coalition with the Party of Regions
is a possibility when it invited its main enemy in the Orange Revolution to
participate in coalition talks last week. Therefore, what looked like an attempt
to blackmail Tymoshenko into becoming more pliant in the coalition talks a week
ago may well prove to be a practical move.
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