Cet article, signé Tadeusz A.
Olsza?ski et publié par le Centre for
Eastern Studies (centre de recherches polonais basé à
Varsovie) analyse la composition du
nouveau gouvernement ukrainien et revient sur les premiers
jours de la présidence Iouchtchenko.
On the first day after his inauguration, president Viktor
Yuschenko appointed Yulia Tymoshenko as acting prime minister, and
one day later he nominated Petro Poroshenko, who had been the chief
pretender to the PM’s position, as secretary of the National
Security and Defence Council. The composition of the future
government is to be made known still this week. Yulia Tymoshenko
will make an energetic, decisive and independent PM. As an opponent
of the already passed constitutional reform she may strive to have
it revised, especially since she is to lose her job as prime
minister as of the reform’s effective date (i.e. by the beginning
of next year). Unlike Tymoshenko, Poroshenko is one of Yushchenko’s
closest associates, and his strong position is meant to
counterbalance Tymoshenko’s position and check her excessive
ambitions.
Inauguration
On 23rd January Viktor Yushchenko took his oath of office and
became the new president of Ukraine. The ceremony in the hall of
the Verkhovna Rada featured former presidents Leonid Kravchuk and
Leonid Kuchma, but the former prime minister and Yushchenko’s
contender Viktor Yanukovych was absent. According to reliable
reports, he was in Moscow on that day and may have been received by
president Putin. No direct transfer of presidential power took
place – Yushchenko accepted the presidential insignia from the
Constitutional Court Chairman. Immediately after he was sworn in,
the president accepted the government’s resignation filed by the
acting PM Mykola Azarov, and delivered a short and rather formal
address. Subsequently Yushchenko received the oath from the armed
forces commanders at the Mariinsky Palace.
One hour later Yushchenko and his family (wife, five children
and two grandchildren) arrived in Independence Square where the
president delivered his inaugural speech. The most important
element in that speech was the resolved assertion that Ukraine’s
objective was membership in the European Union. Yushchenko also
spoke about the great history of Ukraine, albeit he skipped the
20th century, and said that he wanted to be the president of all
regions and all citizens, irrespective of language, confession or
views. He ended his speech by saying: “Glory to you, glory to each
of you, glory to God and glory to Ukraine!” Yushchenko’s address
was watched by more than half a million people in Independence
Square and more than a dozen million on television and the
radio.
The day after, shortly before leaving for Moscow, Yushchenko met
with the leaders of major Christian denominations in Ukraine at the
country’s oldest temple, the Sophia church (it is a museum building
owned by the state). The meeting was joined by the leader of the
Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchy, which had been
the only major denomination to support Yanukovych. Immediately
before his departure, already at the airport, Yushchenko appointed
key state officials. In Moscow he met both president Vladimir Putin
(these talks are discussed in a separate paper), and the Patriarch
Alexy II of Moscow and all Russia.
Yulia Tymoshenko’s appointment
Contrary to expectations, Yulia Tymoshenko was not presented to
the Verkhovna Rada as a candidate for the prime minister’s job, but
immediately nominated as acting government chief (the Parliament is
to gather for the spring session only on 1st February). This means
that Yushchenko does not trust the original cabinet and Azarov in
particular.
The appointment of Y. Tymoshenko as prime minister had been
provided for in the coalition agreement, but the people around
Yushchenko were involved in a serious dispute concerning the PM’s
job. Petro Poroshenko aspired to be prime minister, and other
candidates were also considered. After long hesitation, Yushchenko
chose Tymoshenko, and Poroshenko was entrusted with another key
state position. Yulia Tymoshenko probably will get the endorsement
of a majority of deputies, though the majority will be rather
narrow.
As former deputy prime minister, Yulia Tymoshenko is better
prepared than anyone else in Yushchenko’s milieu to be prime
minister. In that former role in 2000 she was so resolved and
efficient that she was dubbed the “Iron Yulia”. She was also one of
the chief leaders of the “orange revolution”, which made her
immensely popular. On the other hand, she has descended from the
oligarchic community of Dnipropetrovsk, knows the oligarchic
business first hand, and knows how to talk to its representatives.
Yushchenko can expect her to govern energetically and efficiently,
and, perhaps more importantly, to skilfully represent even the
smallest successes to the public opinion as triumphs of the new
authorities, and to conceal major failings. The latter is
particularly important in the context of the campaign for the
parliamentary election of March 2006, which is beginning
already.
A government led by Tymoshenko will be much more independent
from the president that a cabinet headed by, for example, Petro
Poroshenko could be. It remains to be seen whether Yulia Tymoshenko
will work to the benefit of the entire coalition backing
Yushchenko, or just her own party.
Remodelling of the president’s
apparatus
President Yushchenko has dissolved the Presidential
Administration. He has appointed Oleksandr Zinchenko as the
secretary of state and charged him with the task of organising the
President’s Secretariat. Petro Poroshenko was appointed secretary
of the National Security and Defence Council (RNBO). Both
appointments suggest that serious changes to the functioning of
central state bodies in Ukraine are underway.
The Presidential Administration was an unconstitutional body,
which under Viktor Medvedchuk became a kind of super-government and
was generally criticised, if not hated. It included an extensive
structure comprising advisory and analytic bodies, most of which
will probably be preserved. For the time being the shape of the
projected President’s Secretariat (Office) remains unclear, and in
particular, it remains to be seen to what extent its chief will
make the president accessible to various politicians and analytic
institutes (Medvedchuk had completely monopolised access to the
president). However, even if Zinchenko tries to block such access,
the strong position of the RNBO secretary will help create a more
balanced “information environment” for the president.
The National Security and Defence Council comprises the
highest-ranking state officials, led by the president in his
official capacity. The constitution gives the Council
“co-ordination and control” powers in the area of the state’s
security and defence. The extensive apparatus of the Council is
chaired by its secretary. Yushchenko has made it clear that the
Council, until now a body of secondary importance, will play a more
prominent role. When the constitutional amendments become
effective, the Council, or more precisely its apparatus, will be
the main tool for the president to influence the affairs of the
state. The appointment of Poroshenko, a politician but also a major
entrepreneur, as the Council’s secretary, suggests that the Council
will now exercise more control over economic processes.
The problem of parliamentary
representation
Our Ukraine and its allies do not have a majority in the
Verkhovna Rada, which substantially curbs their ability to carry
through reform-oriented bills. Yushchenko will need the support of
opposition clubs, most probably the centrist bloc now forming under
the auspices of the Parliament speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn who is
being joined by more and more deputies from the original
pro-government majority. Such support, however, will be provided
for a price.
On the one hand, one could expect that the new opposition
factions (except for the communists) will shrink, and some of their
members may even join Our Ukraine. On the other hand, however, the
club of Our Ukraine will also be weakened substantially in the
coming weeks. The constitution of Ukraine does not allow a person
to combine a parliamentary mandate with any function whatsoever in
the executive, including that of a minister. Yushchenko has already
relinquished his mandate, and Tymoshenko, Poroshenko, Zinchenko and
all other MPs appointed to governmental positions, nominated as
regional administration chiefs, etc., will have to do it in the
coming days. This group comprises Our Ukraine’s leading
representatives.
Mandates of MPs elected in proportionate vote will be taken over
by the candidates next-in-line in the lists of Our Ukraine or Yulia
Tymoshenko Bloc. These, however, are mostly politicians of inferior
rank, deliberately placed in “no mandate positions” in the lists.
In those cases where mandates are vacated by MPs elected in
majority vote (as in the case of Poroshenko), supplementary
elections will be held, in which candidates of Our Ukraine may well
be the winners, but there is no certainty about it.
As an even more important problem, Our Ukraine will lose
influence on the leadership of numerous parliament commissions,
including the Budget Commission, until now led by Poroshenko.
Leading positions in those commissions were appointed in line with
the principle of having chair from the coalition and deputy chair
from the opposition, or the other way round, and the Verkhovna Rada
has ruled recently that no changes to the commissions’ leadership
may be introduced before the end of term. This means, for example,
that Poroshenko may be replaced now by Valeriy Konovaluk, member of
the “Donetsk” Party of Regions.
Finally, Zinchenko’s departure from the Verkhovna Rada creates
the problem of supplementing the composition of the presidium.
Heated controversy is expected here, because Zinchenko was
appointed as deputy speaker of Parliament as a representative of
the SDPU(u) and his original party will strive to put its own
candidate in his position, while Our Ukraine will try to get a
representative of its own to the presidium.
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