Translated material
The frost has weakened
President Yushchenko was saved by a typo
A scandal is erupting in Ukraine around the law on the cabinet of ministers, which, if it comes into force, will change the form of government in the country, redistributing the remnants of presidential powers in favor of the government. Yesterday, the Speaker of the Rada promised to promulgate the law, despite the president's repeated veto. “I have no other choice,” explained Alexander Moroz. His signature is already on the law, since parliamentary documents are not submitted for approval by the president without the signature of the speaker.On January 19, the president again vetoed the law on the cabinet of ministers, trying to regain power that was slipping from his hands. A repeated veto is not provided for by law, but the president took advantage of a gift of fate - a technical error in the text that the speaker sent him for signature. When reprinting the law, a fragment of one article was lost (clause 4, part 7, article 23). Because of this, the wording of the law was formally changed.
The president used parliament's technical blunder to his advantage by mounting a high-profile political campaign to re-examine the Powers of Government Act. Now the Rada is accused of violating the procedure when adopting the basic constitutional document.
Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych said yesterday that negotiations with the president to find a compromise could take place after the law is promulgated. “Today we are not immune from mistakes,” so if it is necessary to “make clarifications,” this can be done either by the Constitutional Court (CC) on the proposal of the president, or by parliament, the prime minister believes. Speaker Alexander Moroz made it clear that he considers discrepancies in the wording of the law on the Cabinet of Ministers to be the result of “forgery or fraud.”
If the law on the government is signed and promulgated, despite the president’s repeated veto, Yushchenko will challenge its full text in the Constitutional Court, said Arseniy Yatsenyuk, deputy head of the presidential secretariat. Thus, the president will call into question the legitimacy of the Cabinet of Ministers. The second step could be an appeal to the Constitutional Court regarding the dissolution of the Rada and the resignation of the government, which Yushchenko himself has spoken about more than once.
However, Deputy Prime Minister Mykola Azarov warned yesterday that no one will carry out the presidential decree on the dissolution of the Rada: “What do you think, if someone signs an illegal decree, the Verkhovna Rada will immediately take and dissolve, that the government will take and disperse?” Mr. Azarov recalled that “there is a parliamentary majority in the country that formed the government,” and it “will only implement parliamentary decisions.”
But the possibilities for reconciliation between the president and the government have not yet been exhausted. Yesterday, the head of the press service of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Andrei Deshchitsa, said that the government had unblocked the accounts of the foreign policy department. The Foreign Ministry became the first victim of the dispute between the prime minister and the president over the right to shape the country's foreign policy. Since January 18, the Cabinet of Ministers has not given money to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs due to the conflict surrounding the head of the department, Boris Tarasyuk. On December 1, 2006, the Rada and the Prime Minister dismissed Mr. Tarasyuk, who received the ministerial portfolio under the presidential quota. The President did not give in and by decree reinstated Tarasyuk to his post.
“Most likely, the law on the Cabinet of Ministers will be the subject of discussion between Yushchenko, Moroz and Yanukovych at the round table that the president will initiate on February 14,” Vadim Karasev, head of the Ukrainian Institute of Global Strategies, told Vremya Novostey. The result of the compromise may be a repeat vote in the Rada, in which controversial articles will be excluded from the law. In the meantime, the parties “take each other out of fear,” the expert believes. Moroz promises to promulgate the law, but is in no hurry to do so, since the situation is “uncomfortable” for him. However, Yushchenko does not want to capitulate, and therefore Speaker Moroz “will have to take full responsibility for the political consequences,” Mr. Karasev believes.