Lawmakers have until the end of the month to convene – the law stipulates that those elected to parliament have 30 days from the official publication of the election results. This year’s results were officially published on October 30, giving the various blocs until the end of November for negotiations. The current confusion created by rival coalition talks, boasts and rumours is inevitably encouraging the electorate to draw parallels with the sad story of the Orange coalition’s failure one year ago, helping to generate that element of uncertainty that is never far from the surface of Ukrainian politics.
Deal struck with Lytvyn?
The key figure to have emerged in the coalition talks since the September 30 vote has been Volodymyr Lytvyn, whose bloc has the potential to give Yulia Tymoshenko the kind of breathing space she so desperately needs in order to form an effective administration. Lytvyn, whose 20 seats in the Rada prompted analysts to label him Ukraine’s latest coalition kingmaker, had previously said that he would never join any Orange coalition.
However, last week he said that his bloc would support Tymoshenko’s premiership aspirations if the new government’s programme could be reworked to include some of his campaign promises, including pension reform, hourly minimum salary rates, and land and election law reform. Tymoshenko seemed to welcome this new conciliatory position from the previously demanding Lytvyn, who is thought to have expected the parliamentary speaker’s seat and the Kyiv mayor’s office as well as a number of other highly placed offices as his price for joining the Orange side. Tymoshenko responded to his more realistic offer by saying, “We are prepared to consider the electoral positions of the Lytvyn bloc as part of our preparations of government policy.”
Bribes and boycotts
However, as talks progressed the nuts and bolts of forming a functioning government remained far from ready. Last week a scheduled session of the working group appointed from all parties to prepare the new legislature failed to open because some key figures whose participation was obligatory chose to ignore their invitations.
This list of protesters included ex-speaker Oleksandr Moroz as well as members of the Party of Regions, Communists and the Volodymyr Lytvyn bloc. In other words, none of the representatives of the parties who expect to find themselves outside of the ruling coalition were prepared to support the work of the new government.
Yulia Tymoshenko meanwhile accused Viktor Yanukovych’s party of attempting to bribe 56 members of her bloc into crossing the floor and changing their political allegiances. The Party of Regions denied these allegations and accused Tymoshenko of “political bankruptcy, irresponsibility, and the inability to conduct a civilised dialogue.”
Political analyst Oleksiy Garan suggests that Yanukovych’s party is deliberately playing for time to make the creation of any new Orange coalition more complicated. “For half a year, the Party of Regions has promoted concepts of stability and responsibility. Now, when it is dramatically clear that we need to start working quickly and form a government, they don’t follow these tenets at all. It looks like they are trying to use their last minutes in power to resolve their own economic interests, including shadowy deals, murky privatisations, land frauds and other issues,” says Garan.
The dangers of deadlock
These stalling tactics could ultimately lead to calls for new elections to break the deadlock.
“An inoperable parliament, idle government, inflation, downward spiral in living standards – we won’t need mass protests to arrive at a scenario where the only way out is early parliament and presidential elections,” comments President Viktor Yushchenko’s adviser Stepan Gavrysh.
Gavrysh suggests that any coalition between BYUT and OU/PSD could only be created with the participation of Yanukovych’s party in some form or other. The presidential adviser said that someone from the Regions could chair the Ukrainian parliament, naming former parliamentary speaker Ivan Plyushch, with Tymoshenko serving as prime minister.
