Category Archives: Ukraine

Ukrainian Parliament approves changes

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The last barrier to the re-run of the Ukrainian Presidential election has been lifted, as the Parliament has now approved the combined package of changes to the Constitution and election regulations.

The main features of the agreement – which President Kuchma immediately signed into law after they were passed – are:

  • Reforms of the Central Electoral Commission, including a new chairman
  • Limiting the use of absentee ballots in election
  • The President will now only appoint the Prime Minister, Defence Minister and Foreign Minister, subject to Parliamentary approval
  • More power devolved to the regions

    • The BBC has a good analysis of the changes and notes that while they settle the current crisis, they also change the way Ukraine will be run in the long term with the system becoming more parliamentary and less presidential.

    Doctors DO NOT confirm poisoning!

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    UPDATE: This is getting stranger by the hour. According to the AP,

    “the director of the Austrian hospital said the cause of the illness that left Yushchenko’s face pockmarked is still not known, rejecting a report that doctors had come to a conclusion that the presidential candidate was poisoned.

    …

    Zimpfer rejected as “entirely untrue” a story in Wednesday editions of the London daily, The Times, which quoted Dr. Nikolai Korpan — the Rudolfinerhaus physician who oversaw Yushchenko’s treatment — as saying that the candidate had been poisoned and the intention was to kill the candidate. Korpan also was quoted as denying making the remarks. “The suspicion of poisoning has until now neither been confirmed or excluded,” Korpan said, according to the Austria Press Agency. He could not be reached for further comment.

    EARLIER REPORT: The Times Online reports (via Instapundit) -

    Medical experts have confirmed that Viktor Yushchenko, Ukraine’s opposition leader, was poisoned in an attempt on his life during election campaigning, the doctor who supervised his treatment at an Austrian clinic said yesterday.

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    The Warrior Audrey.

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    Yulia Tymoshenko    2004 may be well the year of Ukraine’s warrior princesses. First, singer Ruslana managed to put Ukraine on Europe’s musical map by winning the Eurovision song contest with her Wild Dances in May, and now, in early December, it doesn’t seem unlikely that the other warrior princess, Yulia Tymoshenko, one of the most mysterious political figures in Ukraine, will become Prime Minister.

    The Guardian’s Nick Paton Walsh claims that, “while for the time being she is proving a great and popular rebel leader, no one really knows what she stands for,” and, on Neeka’s Backlog, Veronica Khokhlova confirms The Economist’s warning (via The Independent) that, “though she may look like Audrey Hepburn, anyone who has got this far in a country where politics often resembles a Jacobean revenge tragedy must have an edge” by wrinting about Mrs Tymoshenko that

    “she’s an awesome politician – full of dignity, full of class, soft yet has some very deadly poison hidden underneath, very convincing when she speaks, prepared wonderfully to any kinds of questions, be it about the opposition’s plans, her own finances or her alleged radicalism. She’s beautiful, too, but her looks are as much of an asset as they are not.

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    Spheres of Influence.

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    The Ukrainian parliament remained deadlocked today with respect to the issue of linking electoral rules and constitutional changes to limit the future President’s powers (Reuters), despite the alleged agreement in yesterday’s round-table talks.

    Hoping to be able to avoid the constitutional curtailing of the future President’s powers, Yushchenko’s supporters insisted on two separate votes today. The Kyiv Post quotes Yulia Tymoshenko -

    “We won’t vote for any package deals,”

    In addition, President Kuchma declared that the Yushenko camp stalled the negotiations by insisting on the government’s dismissal, before making a half-hearted move in that direction. Reuters notes that he issued a decree on Tuesady appointing Finance Minister Mykola Azarov as acting premier, due to Mr Yanukovich’s “decision” to concentrate on campaigning for the run-off election. The Kyiv Post speculates this might be a move indicating Kuchma’s willingness negotiate the opposition’s demand to fire Mr Yanukovich, quoting Mikhail Pogrebinsky, an analyst with supposed close ties to the outgoing President.

    “Kuchma … has been slowly taking a step back every day.”

    Although the newspaper also notes that, despite increasing lack of political allies, there might be an unexpected legal obstacle to Mr Yanukovich’s removal: apparently Ukrainian law bans the dismissal of presidential candidates from their jobs.

    While legal issues are certainly important, they aren’t the only locus of political power in Ukraine these days., in fact, not even the most important. The prosecutor general?s office might threaten Yushchenko with an investigation for treason with respect to his aggressive interview in the British Sunday Telegraph (Maidan), but how much weight does that carry in light of his supporters’ determination to eventually end the deadlock, on way or another (Kyiv Post)

    “We have been peaceful so far, [but if Yushchenko wants to force Kuchma to concede defeat] we are ready.”

    Meanwhile, the OSCE’s ministerial meeting in Bulgaria saw a clash of Russia and the US over Ukraine, and accordingly failed to even reach the consensus needed for a final declaration (despite reaching agreement on 20 specific, low-profile, proposals). In light of the events in Ukraine, Russia refused OSCE demands to honor pledges to withdraw its troops from Moldova and Georgia. Accordingly, Powell reiterated that the US would not ratify the 1999 treaty about mutually agreed reduction of conventional forces in Europe (CFE), until Russia withdraw its troops from Georgia and Moldova. (AFP)

    The Russian foreign minister repeated the Russian dissatisfaction with the OSCE’s role as election monitor. He could not resist to mention the many irregularities in recent American elections, stating that the OSCE was guilty of a double standard.

    Trying to put the row into perspective, speaking to AFP, Dmitry Trenin, deputy head of the Carnegie Endowment for Peace’s Moscow office, remarked that Putin

    “ha[d] suffered a personal political setback in Ukraine and he is very angry … I do not think this can be a good thing for anybody.”

    Mr Tremin interprets yesterday’s angry statement by Mr Putin as a veiled concession of defeat. He may have hoped to be able to reach an agreement with the West, particularly the United States, profoundly misjudging the West’s ability to trade anything in this matter. Mr Trmin blames the current Kremlin’s decision making structure that he claims is “restricted to a narrow circle” for much of the recent Russian lack of geopolitical realism. The Kyiv Post has more thoughts on this matter.

    The FT notes that, despite growing concern with respect to Russia’s Democracy, Washington still believes Mr Putin had not yet crossed a red line, understanding – used to President Bush’s often blunt statemtents aimed at a domestic audience – that much of President Putin’s harsh words is not just informed by his personal disappointment and KGB-socialisation, but also by the need to keep Russian conservatives happy by restating their believes about American meddling in allegedly Russian affairs.

    Dealing in Kyiv.

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    It looks like the legal stalemate in Ukraine could be a little closer to a solution. Possibly related to reports about the opposition offering immunity to incumbent President Kuchma in exchange for him no longer trying to factually or legally obstruct the preparations for the repeated presidential run-off election on December 26, at least most of the constitutional and procedural problems which led to parliamentary tensions last Saturday seem to have been resolved in a six hour round table talk with European mediators, including the EU’s Javier Solana and Poland’s President Aleksander Kwasniewski.

    While the parties seem to have finally agreed to the dismissal of the current Central Electoral Committee, the abolition of the problematic absentee ballots, extended checks of electoral registers to keep at least most of the dead from voting, and an end to the blockade of government buildings, it is unclear at this point to which extent the issue of pre-electoral constitutional change reducing the powers of the future UkrainianPresident in favor of the parliament has been settled.
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    Rumours

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    The Independent reports a ‘government source’ in Kiev telling their reporter that plans are afoot to try and connect the opposition forces with a terrorist attack:

    Ukraine’s embattled government is ready to stage faked terrorist attacks to destabilise the country and discredit the opposition ahead of a rerun of the presidential vote, a senior government source has told The Independent.

    The official, who works for the government of the Moscow-backed candidate and current Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, said: “One of the plans is to blow up a pipeline and blame it on opposition supporters. Ukraine is the key transit country for Russian gas supplies to the West.”

    Mr Yanukovych’s backers fear the prospect of their candidate losing to Viktor Yushchenko and are ready to plunge the country into economic chaos, the source revealed. “They are planning to use criminals – plain bandits – that they have a hold over.” The source said that a senior member of the government had been tasked with overseeing terrorist acts.

    There’s also talk of potential financial chaos in Ukraine because of the protests:

    Supporters of Mr Yanukovych and the current President Leonid Kuchma will also seek to play on fears that inflation will wipe out people’s savings as it did after the disintegration of the Soviet Union.

    There has already been a run on banks and black market money changers are returning to the streets with far higher dollar and euro exchange rates.

    The government has already suggested that it will not be able to pay pensions and government salaries in December, although the opposition claims there are adequate reserves to pay everything.

    Continuing

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    While everyone takes the chance to catch their breath after the twelve days of the Orange Revolution, it’s worth remembering that the political crisis in Ukraine continues, just that the focus has shifted to Parliament from the streets. There’s already deadlock over the attempts to reform the Central Electoral Commission with Yuschenko’s supporters unable to get a majority for their proposals while pro-Government deputies seek constitutional reforms to transfer powers from the Presidency to the Prime Minister. The Parliament has adjourned for ten days, while President Kuchma has asked for more foreign mediation to try and resolve these new issues.

    Of course, Ukraine’s not the only country voting this month – as The Argus points out, Uzbekistan also goes to the polls on the 26th December which may cause a shortage of election monitors in both countries – Yuschenko is already asking the international community to send more observers to Ukraine.

    Two other countries also vote today in the next week. Romania has the second round of its Presidential election next Sunday – see Alexander at the Head Heeb for more on this – while Crooked Timber’s Eszter Hargittai discusses the Hungarian referendum which takes place today. (edited to correct my inability to remember today’s date – Nick)

    The ruling

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    For those of you interested, the BBC’s website has an English translation of several parts of the Ukrainian Supreme Court’s ruling yesterday. I’m not a legal expert – especially on Ukrainian law – but I was struck by one aspect of the case that we either didn’t notice, or didn’t deem important enough to acknowledge during all the other events of the past twelve days, namely that Yuschenko’s lawyers concentrated their appeal solely on the runoff election, rather than the election as a whole. This meant that the Supreme Court was only given the choice of deciding the question of whether the election on November 21st was invalid, rather than the entire electoral process. The Court could only rule on the issue before it, and while Yanukovich’s team would have preferred the whole election to be rerun (assuming they weren’t going to get the election approved by the Court) they couldn’t argue for that without asking for even more evidence of voter fraud in the first round to be introduced.

    There’s a question of whether this strategy emerged by accident or design, but it enabled them to get the result they wanted – a rerun against Yanukovich – rather than the idea that seemed to be gaining strength amongst Kuchma and the government in recent days – an entirely new election, with the opportunity for them to choose a new candidate to oppose Yuschenko while also being able to delay the election process for two or three months. Of course, my lack of legal knowledge could be completely off-base here, so I’d welcome comments from readers more knowledgeable on these matters.

    And one final note of explanation for our readers who may find references to a ‘Boxing Day election’ in the British press confusing – it doesn’t mean that the runoff will be settled by the Queensberry rules, merely that Boxing Day is the name used in Britain and other countries for the 26th December.

    Certified Democrats.

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    Many early proponents of democracy believed that public education was of utmost importance for the people to be able to exercise democracy. I am not sure whether they thought of graduation ceremonies of the kind Viktor Yushchenko is planning to hold in Kyiv today – yet it seems that everyone wearing orange will receive a certificate of democracy – “We want everybody who is related to the Orange revolution to have one. We will give this certificate to everyone tomorrow!” said Yushchenko according to Maidan.
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    Ukraine’s Court Says New Runoff Should Be Held by Dec. 26

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    KIEV, Ukraine (AP) – The Supreme Court declared the results of Ukraine’s disputed presidential run-off election invalid and ruled Friday that the run-off should be repeated by Dec. 26, bringing cheers from tens of thousands of opposition supported massed in Kiev’s main square.

    The ruling, made after five days of hearings by the court’s 18 justices, was a major victory for opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko, who had rejected the government’s demands that an entirely new election be held.

    The opposition had pinned its hopes on the court’s ruling in its bid to overturn the results of the Nov. 21 run-off vote in which Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych was declared the winner. The opposition said the vote was rigged to cheat Yushchenko of victory.

    Outgoing President Leonid Kuchma had been pressing for an entirely new election, apparently in hopes of replacing Yanukovych with a stronger candidate.

    UPDATE: (Tobias, 18:29 CET) – The Kyiv Post has some more information –

    Tens of thousands of opposition protesters who had massed in central Independence Square (Maidan Nezalezhnosti) in anticipation of the decision cheered, waving blue-and-yellow Ukrainian and orange Yushchenko flags and chanting “Yushchenko! Yushchenko!” The crackle of fireworks could be heard in the distance.

    In related news, Maidan reports that outgoing President Kuchma vetoed the recently passed law invalidating “absentee ballots” for the re-run. These ballots allowed Ukrainians to vote in other than their home districts, and were, according to numerous reports by international observers, one of the main instruments of electoral fraud in the initial run-off.