SECRET SPRINGS SETTING OFF NEW POLITICAL CRISIS

Saturday before last, Leonid Kuchma spoke against any steps that could destabilize the situation in the Crimea. When asked about the sharpening conflict between Crimean Speaker Leonid Hrach and the autonomous republic’s Premier Serhiy Kunitsyn, Mr. Kuchma declared that “both are equally responsible for the stability of the socioeconomic and political situation in the Crimea.”

Interfax Ukraine reports that Leonid Hrach met the President’s statement with approval, stressing that “The President has once again showed his understanding of the Crimea’s importance for all of Ukraine, whose civic peace largely depends on that within the autonomous republic.”

The past month has been marked by the noticeable aggravation of the political confrontation involving the peninsula’s leadership, specifically Serhiy Kunitsyn, Chairman of the Council of Ministers, and Speaker Leonid Hrach. For two weeks the press has been publishing additional nuances of developments and analyzing their roots. As a rule, the main emphasis is on what is going on between Messrs. Hrach and Kunitsyn. But can this conflict be attributed only to the political, administrative, and personal differences between the leaders of two branches of power in the republic? To answer this question, one must digress into latter-day Crimean history and analyze the current alignment of political forces on the peninsula.

HRACH-KUNITSYN TANDEM: SOMETHING THAT NEVER WAS?

The current Crimean leadership formed a year and a half ago, in the spring of 1998, a period marked by an extremely stressful transition. The elections to the Supreme Council were followed by a real battle for Parliament’s leadership. Anatoly Franchhuk, then Crimean Premier, did his utmost to get his protОgО, Anatoly Hrytsenko, the Speaker’s seat, but this was severely opposed by the Communists who now had over two-thirds of the seats. They had their own candidate, Leonid Hrach, first secretary of the Crimean republic party committee. Three rounds of the elections, held April 29-30, showed that the contenders were roughly equal in strength, neither scoring the required 51 votes.

Anatoly Franchuk’s tactic in promoting his protОgО outraged numerous participants and observers monitoring the process of forming the Crimean Parliament’s leadership. The Communists and People’s Power fraction even boycotted plenary sessions and published a statement reading in part, “We address our electorate and all those holding dear our republic: do not let the reactionary forces go rampant any further, frustrate the treacherous plans of the current favorites! We demand an end to the practice of arm- twisting and blackmail, unprecedented inspections by various controlling authorities, summons to the offices of the executive branch, and the outrageous lawlessness by bureaucrats and criminals, aimed against deputies occupying administrative posts... We declare that we shall boycott the session of the Supreme Council until it is attended by representatives of international democratic organizations and the CIS Interparliamentary Assembly for as long as the current leadership of the Crimean Council of Ministers and personally A. R. Franchuk remain in the hall.”

The crisis was diffused after the session resumed work. Leonid Hrach, when the Speaker’s candidacy was put to the vote for the fourth time, managed to collect 52 votes. Franchuk had by then actually divested himself of his authority as head of the Crimean government and departed to Kyiv (he had a seat in Verkhovna Rada). That time Leonid Hrach vied for the Speaker’s post with Serhiy Kunitsyn, Mayor of Krasnoperekopsk, head of the regional NDP office. Strange as it may seem, that period became the point of departure in the formation of a new political tandem. As soon as he assumed office, Mr. Hrach declared that he saw Serhiy Kunitsyn as head of the Crimean government.

We will remember this scenario and return to it as we broach the subject of the “criminal revolution” and “criminal revolutionaries.”

The allocation of portfolios in the Supreme Council presidium and Cabinet of Ministers was the basis on which a Left-Center coalition took shape in the Crimea. The participating regional offices of the CPU, NDP, and Union Party came up with a declaration On the Joint Responsibility of the Parties for the Work of the Coalition Government of the Crimea.

Finally a piece of luck came the Crimea’s way. Or so it seemed. After a long period of political laxity people came to power capable of acting independently, in a responsible and decisive manner. The combination of Leonid Hrach’s top-level bureaucratic experience and Serhiy Kunitsyn’s business acumen looked almost ideal. Both realized that the Crimean Autonomous Republic which had by then lost almost all its powers, whose actual status was inferior to a regular Ukrainian oblast, had to be resuscitated. Both had set their own political courses to reach that goal and to maintain a difficult dialogue with Kyiv. Both had their sectors from which to apply pressure.

The power tandem’s first moves were energetic and coordinated. Efforts started being exerted to straighten out regions and find ways to get out of the economic crisis. The results, even if not overly impressive, proved quite tangible, and I think neither was it coincidental that the Crimea should turn into the “summer capital” of Ukraine over that year and a half, venue of important international forums. Large-scale capital construction projects unfolded on the peninsula and the local industries received an impetus. Regularizing Kyiv-Simferopol relationships was another major accomplishment, considering the preceding seven years of political-legal hostilities between the autonomous republic and the center.

Thus was the Hrach-Kunitsyn tandem something that did not happen?

REEFS ABOVE WATER

Crimean political life teems with coalitions. Thus, all of the republic’s governments, starting in mid-September 1994, formed as coalitions. Yet the one created in 1998 was special in every respect. It was paradoxical, in that its main base consisted of the Crimean offices of the National Democratic and Communist Party, which were battling each other throughout Ukraine. It was obvious that with the presidential election approaching both parties would back their respective candidates, with chances for preserving the Crimean coalition quickly withering. Everything happened precisely that way; August-November marked the peak of tension in Hrach-Kunitsyn relations.

Added to this external threat casting a shadow on the coalition was an internal one, the problem of delimiting authority between the two branches of power, a traditional sore spot in the former Soviet Union. Leonid Hrach made several attempts to assert his priority in the republican chain of command. He did not accomplish this in full measure as the Crimean Constitution was adopted. However, subsequent resolutions of the Crimean Parliament considerably expanded the Supreme Council Presidium’s powers, in terms of cadre policy and control over the executive.

Thus another battlefield between the Supreme Council and Council of Ministers was added to the CPU-NDP theater of operations.

SUBMERGED REEFS OR THIRD FORCE?

Apart from the two political poles embodied by Leonid Hrach and Serhiy Kunitsyn, other political forces exist in the Crimea, each seeking a place in the political sun. They are less conspicuous but now and then prove capable of exerting significant influence crucial at a time of crisis.

One such background political force in the present-day Crimea is a structure made up of the Union Party and Republic parliamentary fraction, the latter being a political relic dating from the previous period in the peninsula’s political history that seemed to have finally ended in 1998.

In 1995-98, two groups formed in the Crimea’s power play, staying behind the legitimate front of the Union and Economic Rebirth Party, both with all-Ukrainian status. The economic basis of each was made up, respectively, of “normal” consortiums known as Bashmaks and Seilem. Both groups would take turns at the Supreme Council’s helm, depending on which had a larger number of votes in Parliament.

In early 1998, Seilem was routed by law enforcement authorities and ERP ceased to exist shortly afterward. Union survived but lived through its far from best days. According to official sources, it managed to get only two seats in the Crimean Parliament. Still, by the Speaker election date that nucleus had drawn the parliamentary group Republic with its eight seats (at present the faction under this name numbers ten). Not much, but given the then parity of forces between the Communists and Franchuk’s faction, it was a substantial addition that could tip the scales.

The nod was given the Communist leader, a choice that worse than inconsistent, because the newspaper Krymskoye vremia (The Crimean Times), owned by Lev Mirimsky, one of the Union leaders, kept an inveterate anti-Communist stand throughout the 1998 election campaign. Well, much as he wanted to, Mr. Mirimsky could not act against himself and support Franchuk’s protОgО Anatoly Hrytsenko, who had previously stayed close to Seilem.

Its bet on Hrach brought the Republic seats in the Crimean Parliament’s Presidium; Union could now take part in the formation of the new government and join the ruling coalition. This was fine, except that within the coalition the Union- Republic alliance could match neither the Communists nor Kunitsyn’s Harmony bloc (nor can it now that both factions number 27 members each). As a result, Union-Republic people were crowded out of power structures, which was only natural. There was only one way to get their positions back, one whose effectiveness had been tested repeatedly in 1995-97: triggering off another political crisis, with the price of every member of Parliament rising sharply.

Union went to work, taking a principled stand as always. First, it simultaneously attacked the Supreme Council and Council of Ministers. In September-October 1998, it concentrated its fire on the Cabinet, which it must have considered the better target. It was then that a dubious story was promulgated by Krymskoye vremia about the indecent conduct of a Crimean parliamentary-government delegation visiting the NATO headquarters in Brussels.

As the election approached the situation changed. Union might have had its own ideologically compatible candidate, but circumstances made it join the Kuchma cohort. Another series of reckless attacks on the Communists in general and Leonid Hrach in particular was launched by Krymskoye vremia, and then another sacrificial lamb materialized, the Crimean Speaker. Now his toppling is the necessary prerequisite of yet another allocation of portfolios. And Leonid Kuchma’s victory offers a very good background.

WHO ARE THE CRIMINAL REVOLUTIONARIES?

The thesis of the “criminal revolution” allegedly threatening the Crimea was first formulated by Leonid Hrach in June 1998 when visiting Sevastopol. At the time everybody understood what and who the Crimean Speaker had in mind. Remember the quotation from the Communist and People’s Power statement quoted above? After reading On the Joint Responsibility of the Parties for the Work of the Coalition Government of the Crimea, whoever had any doubts would have none.

“The criminal revolution will break out in the Crimea unless we retain the coalition principle. Preparations for it are proceeding apace. This criminal revolution is headed by the bulk of the former Crimean government... If it happens the Crimea will be swept under the tidal wave of criminal terror and shoot-outs...” Such was Leonid Hrach’s concept of the “criminal revolution” in 1998. But on November 7, 1999, he mentioned among its leaders people with whom he had joined the coalition to prevent it. Why?

I think that the point is not that he said this on November 7, the date marking the October 1917 coup d’Рtat and taking place in between the two rounds of the presidential campaign. Leonid Hrach is too serious and sober a politician to succumb to the festive euphoria or sacrifice the actual balance of forces in the Crimea just to help his comrade Petro Symonenko get the presidency. The reason must have been different. Leonid Hrach is keenly aware of the political scenario being played out in the Crimea and what it is all about — maybe even better than Serhiy Kunitsyn. And so he chose this original method to warn the very people he denounced. The thing is not only his possible removal as Speaker; this would just mark the beginning, the first act of the scenario. By and large, Crimea is planned to relive the situation that took place there before the spring of 1998, with all its consequences, including the reappearance of Franchuk on the political stage.

As for Franchuk, word about his reappearance has spread of late, allegedly coming from quite informed sources. In fact, the possibility does not look completely unrealistic, because Franchuk has the reputation of being the matchless master of Crimean crises. Both times as Crimean Premier (in the fall of 1994 and summer of 1997), his first move was driving the peninsula to a political stalemate — precisely what is being done now, uprooting what is left of the coalition that came to power in May 1998. Who of the “criminal revolutionaries” listed by Franchuk (e.g., Kunitsyn, Mirimsky, and Permanent Presidential Representative to the Crimea Anatoly Korniychuk) is doing this on purpose and who is groping in the dark is a matter of minor importance. Yet here one finds adequate food for thought.

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Who will wind up getting the upper hand? Whose calculations will prove more accurate?

There are two possible scenarios: return to the Hrach-Kunitsyn tandem or the situation remaining in suspense, with most unpredictable consequences for the current obvious participants in the conflict.

Playing out the first scenario will requite political tact from both leaders of the autonomous republic and the ability to chart and steer a middle course. After all, the election campaign’s logic placing them on the opposite sides of the barricades has been discarded for the next couple of years. The rest depends on them and probably on official Kyiv’s goodwill by assuming the role of constructive mediator in the Crimean dispute.

The second scenario is easier to enact. All Hrach and Kunitsyn would have to do would be to let themselves drift. Others would take care of the rest. And some would benefit. It would be very interesting to know precisely who.