PACE warns Ukraine against "incessant tug-of-war"

Continual confrontation in Ukraine is frustrating hopes for a political consensus in making strategic decisions or stepping up the badly-needed reform process, PACE’s monitoring co-rapporteurs have warned. In an information note Hanne Severinsen and Renate Wohlwend regretted the "incessant tug-of-war" between President Yushchenko and Prime Minister Yanukovich, and said the "promises of the Maidan" had not been met. They called on Ukraine to resolve its constitutional crisis in order to move ahead with serious reform.

“The political reality in today's Ukraine shows that, apart from the conduct of free and transparent elections in March 2006, the promises of the Maidan to introduce clean, honest and competent governance and promote the rule of law and transparency at all levels have not been met. The new Cabinet is top-heavy with officials who personified the corrupt fusion of business interests with the government and the manipulation of elections before the Orange Revolution period. The non-transparent way in which the coalition negotiations were conducted over half a year, the mismatch of the political 'colours' of the so-called coalition partners and the murky deals that the short-lived 'grand coalition' stemmed from means that people do not finally know who they voted for," the note says.

According to PACE's monitoring co-rapporteurs, the incessant tug of war between President Yushchenko and Prime Minister Yanukovych follows the unfortunate example of Our Ukraine and the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc that began to destroy themselves already during the election race a year ago. The continual confrontation frustrates the hopes for a political consensus in making strategic decisions or stepping up the badly needed reform process. President Yushchenko's Universal in August 2006 was in itself a positive attempt to maintain the momentum of the reforms launched by Mr Yekhanurov's government as well as the course towards Euro-Atlantic integration; however, in reality it only enabled the Party of Regions to come to power and exercise it without too much regard for its provisions.

"Ukraine's unpredictable political system without fixed rules, moral umpires or political traditions, where agreements between political forces are signed only to be broken on the following day, coupled with the lack of strategy and transparency, disinterest in reforms and the return of discredited personnel from the Kuchma era to the state apparatus cast doubt on the irreversibility of the spirit of the Universal, augment the gap between the state and society in Ukraine and seriously undermine Ukraine's international reputation as a reliable partner," the document warns.