Translated material
Doubling the crisis
Yushchenko's new decree escalated the confrontation
A new round of crisis began in Ukraine yesterday, caused by President Viktor Yushchenko's decision to dissolve parliament and hold early elections . On Wednesday, the president corrected his decision made on April 2 and postponed parliamentary elections from May 27 to June 24. This maneuver caused a storm of indignation among deputies of the ruling coalition and the government . The president's maneuver took them by surprise: Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych had to interrupt his visit to Uzbekistan, and Speaker Alexander Moroz had to cut short his official visit to Lithuania.The Rada yesterday recognized the presidential decree of April 25 as unconstitutional, prohibiting the government and the National Bank from allocating money for the elections - deputies reacted in the same way to the first decree. The coalition said it was interrupting negotiations with the president to find a “single national compromise” until he “stops the practice of ultimatums” and cancels the decree. The Communist Party, which is part of the coalition, said yesterday that it would agree to hold early parliamentary elections only simultaneously with the presidential ones.
"Regional" Taras Chornovil even reported that the Prime Minister's Party of Regions would initiate the impeachment of the president. The corresponding bill was registered yesterday. The coalition will bring charges against the president for “refusing to comply with court decisions and concealing the criminal actions of relatives.” Chornovil counts on the support of this decision by 385 deputies. However, the coalition now has only 238 votes, since the BYuT and Our Ukraine deputies left their factions.
In a decree dated April 25, Viktor Yushchenko confirmed that early elections are inevitable, but their date is being postponed for the reason that district election commissions have not been formed due to the lack of a quorum in the Central Election Commission. In addition, he explained that he was dissolving parliament based on Article 90 of the constitution - they say, a month has passed since the formation of the coalition not on a party basis, as required by the constitution, but on the basis of individual membership.
At the same time, Yushchenko annulled his decree of April 2. For this reason, the constitutional court , which is already approaching the final hearings on this document, will be forced to close the proceedings without issuing a verdict. As Vladimir Shapoval, the presidential representative to the Constitutional Court, said yesterday, the court has no reason to consider the first presidential decree on the dissolution of the Rada. People around the president feared that the Constitutional Court, where the judge and rapporteur on the case is ex-Minister of Justice Suzanne Stanic, would rule in favor of the coalition, prohibiting the dissolution of parliament. The coalition yesterday decided to challenge the new presidential decree in the Constitutional Court “with the aim of repealing it.” Now the court will have to open a new case, and Ms. Stanik hardly has a chance to play a key role in it.
“The presidential decree will worsen the situation,” Ukrainian political scientist Dmitry Vydrin noted to Vremya Novostey. The expert fears that this step could lead to “the loss of Ukraine’s reputation in the eyes of Europe, since the PACE recommendation of April 17 prescribes to wait for the decision of the Constitutional Court and then act in accordance with it.” The parties to the conflict simply “returned to their original positions”: the confrontation has not disappeared, and a new hearing of the same case in the Constitutional Court is “inappropriate and futile.”
Ukrainian political scientist Andrei Ermolaev warns that Yushchenko’s new decree will lead to “the disruption of political dialogue and the plan to overcome the crisis, as well as destabilization of the work of the Constitutional Court.” In a conversation with VN, the expert predicts “a sharp escalation of social tension due to the more active behavior of regional elites.”
Yesterday the Rada also expressed concern about the change of the Prosecutor General. Instead of Alexander Medvedko, the president reinstated Svyatoslav Piskun to this post. The president fired Piskun in October 2005; until February 2007, he was reinstated to his position through the courts three times, but was then declared dismissed again. Yushchenko does not hide the fact that he appointed Piskun to restore order in the department, split by political conflict.
“The appointment of Piskun indicates the president’s intention to minimize risks in the event of accusations against him from the coalition,” says Andrei Ermolaev. -- Yushchenko also counts on the loyalty of the Prosecutor General when implementing his decree on early elections. Earlier, the president said that the government's refusal to fund elections borders on a criminal offense." But the Prosecutor General will most likely try to maintain neutrality in the conflict. “The absurdity continues,” Dmitry Vydrin sneers in a conversation with VN. — The President fired Medvedko while he was on sick leave. Accordingly, he has every chance of being reinstated in his position through the court. The president will have to fire Piskun for the fourth time.”