Former rapporteur of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) on Ukraine Hanne Severinsen agreed to become an adviser to Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko last week in a show of support for her government’s policy of improving Ukraine’s EU integration efforts. However, in a week of heightening tension in Kyiv there was little else to cheer about as the government clashed repeatedly with the presidency amid talk of resignations and an end to the ruling coalition.
Ms. Severinsen, who hails from Copenhagen, confirmed she had agreed to help Ukraine create an efficient government, adding that the current situation in parliament, when fellow lawmakers often block each other’s activity, was not helpful. Ms. Severinsen conceded that the challenges and decisions facing the country could not be viewed in black-and-white terms but stressed that the government should be given the chance to implement much-needed reforms. Earlier in the week Mrs. Tymoshenko visited Strasbourg to report to a PACE session and talk with top PACE officials.
Ms. Severinsen explained that she would be advising Mrs. Tymoshenko on constitutional changes, the creation of new election legislation, and other reform-related areas. She also said she had already helped the Prime Minister prepare for questions from PACE lawmakers following the Ukrainian premier’s recent report.
The Strasbourg Nanny
Over the past twelve years, the Strasbourg Nanny, as Ms. Severinsen has been dubbed by the Ukrainian media, has been involved in the struggle to introduce democratic principles, human rights legislation and freedom of speech into the country. She was once greatly reviled by the Ukrainian authorities and often accused of incompetence and a biased approach. Few, however, would question her commitment to Ukrainian democracy.
“It was very difficult to watch (former president Leonid) Kuchma concentrating power in his hands and other politicians accepting this. The fact that it was possible to change the Kuchma system peacefully during the Orange Revolution is the most fantastic and pleasant thing to me,” Ms. Severinsen told the Dzerkalo Tyzhnya weekly newspaper in an interview earlier this year.
Parliamentary farce
Ms. Severinsen’s show of support was welcomed by Mrs. Tymoshenko, who faces a tough task trying to tackle the current parliamentary chaos and push Ukraine towards truly democratic reforms. The Ukrainian parliament has now failed to operate effectively for over a year since President Viktor Yushchenko’s decision to disband the legislature in April 2007.
Since the September 2007 parliamentary elections, which brought Tymoshenko back into office at the head of a renewed Orange coalition, the opposition Party of Regions, led by ex-premier Viktor Yanukovych, has been using any pretext to block parliament. The country has been subjected to NATO Membership Action Plan protests which saw the Party of Regions, together with the Communists, blockade parliament with the demand of a national referendum.
The NATO issue has now been defused but parliament has remained partially paralysed by protests over the situation in the eastern city of Kharkiv, where oblast law enforcement officials launched a March criminal case against the city’s mayor on corruption charges. The Party of Regions has refused to consider the issue of an early election in the city for a new mayor.
Since the arrival of the new Tymoshenko government nearly every single issue up for debate in the legislature has provoked resistance. Parliamentary Speaker Arseniy Yatsenyuk attacked the situation last week, branding it “artificial political turbulence” and criticising members of the opposition for “large-scale political brinkmanship.”
Orange infighting continues
While parliament lumbers from one manufactured crisis to the next, the public rift between erstwhile Orange allies Mr. Yushchenko and Mrs. Tymoshenko has widened. Last week saw the two sides trade barbs, with BYUT deputies led by Mykola Tomenko calling on the President to cease his constant criticism of the Tymoshenko administration or sack the government. Mrs. Tymoshenko declared that despite the difficulties in her relations with the President, she was not contemplating resignation.
