System slippage: causes and consequences

To say that Ukrainian politicians are stunned by the latest events in parliament is to say nothing. Some of them feel lost and depressed, while others are searching for a place in the new system of coordinates. What happened can be best characterized by the phrase “systemic slippage” (or is “derangement” a better word?).

Still, in principle, this was to be expected. Did Oleksandr Moroz ever hide his overwhelming desire to become parliamentary speaker? Did he ever show a nontraditional pattern of behavior in this situation? Or did everybody really believe that the Party of Regions — with all its resources — would meekly retreat to the opposition? And did Our Ukraine not behave in a traditional manner, always missing out on good opportunities?

It’s like soccer: if you don’t score, the other side does. So there is no reason to be surprised. The only question is: what’s next? The Day asked some experts from Kyiv and the regions to comment on the causes and consequences of the “system slippage.”

It is obvious that in fighting for the most important positions in the event that it would have to work in the opposition, the leaders of the Party of Regions never stopped trying to assume executive power on the central level, and it worked energetically toward this goal. In doing so, they focused not only on the search for prospective partners among the members of Our Ukraine, the BYuT, and the SPU, but also on spotting weak links in this tentative coalition.

You didn’t have to be a clairvoyant to see that the socialist faction appeared to be the most precarious element in this troika: as a rule, a small faction is the most vulnerable to both pressure and cajolery. It is still not clear at what moment the hypothetical alliance between the SPU and the Party of Regions began to assume a real shape. On the one hand, the most plausible version is that this happened after Our Ukraine refused to back Moroz’s claims to the post of parliamentary speaker. But this is too simplistic.

On the other hand, it is unlikely that Moroz decided “to cross the Rubicon” on the very day that the Verkhovna Rada chairman was to be elected. Undoubtedly, the Regionals would not have voted for him, thereby securing the coveted office for him, unless there were serious agreements about the distribution of ministerial portfolios and parliamentary seats. (The socialists, by dint of a relatively small number of public votes, cannot raise any major claims at the local level.) This in turn could not be a matter of a single day, although Moroz now says that he has not made any deals with the Party of Regions about portfolios.

Moroz’s references to the coalition agreement of the SPU with Our Ukraine and the BYuT as a sign of an existing parliamentary majority necessary for electing the head of parliament is a sophisticated piece of Jesuitical, if not amoral, casuistry. His words can be construed as indirect evidence of the fact that the socialist leader was only feigning interest in the formation of this coalition in order to use the signed agreement at the proper moment as formal proof of the legitimacy of his election.

Of course, Petro Poroshenko could have dropped his claims to the speaker’s post earlier, if not immediately. But in the scenario that the Party of Regions and the SPU were pushing, this factor played the role of an excuse rather than a real cause, because the ex-head of the National Security and Defense Council withdrew his candidature at the last minute, and nothing was preventing Moroz from doing the same in the interests of preserving the coalition and demonstrating the supremacy of coalition agreement values over personal ambitions.

What were his motives? The SPU leader’s public explanations about this, as well as his exclusive references to his ambitiousness, cannot possibly withstand serious criticism. It is quite clear that the Party of Regions will not regard the socialists as equal partners in the coalition. The large size and the style of relationships in this faction practically rule out this scenario. Even if the socialists assume some cabinet posts, they will simply be fulfilling the instructions of the prime minister and his deputies even in the event that the SPU is awarded the office of deputy prime minister. In other words, they will be playing the role of a gofer.

If this option suits the “pinkoes,” one can only feel pity for their dignity and admit that the incentives, not so much ministerial as material, which the Regionals offered them, were so juicy that they outweighed the socialists’ desire to save their political face, and their political future. The proverbial bird in the hand, i.e., incentives obtained today, proved to be more attractive than two in the bush, i.e., uncertain election prospects in 2011. The fate of those SPU members who disagree with their party leader’s drift is an open question: for example, Yuriy Lutsenko will probably not want to work in the Party of Regions’ government, all the more so as it is highly unlikely that this party’s leaders will agree to keep him on as interior minister.

The logic of the latest events raises one more question: in the past few days the behavior of the Regionals seemed to demonstrate their readiness to go into the opposition only on acceptable conditions. If at that moment they had already reached an agreement with most of the SPU faction members and their leader, then they put on a virtuoso performance. Still, last Thursday’s action in parliament cannot be called spontaneous. Not to put too fine a point on it, this was a show carefully orchestrated by a strong hand from outside parliament and even outside Ukraine. Unfortunately, our country still lacks orchestrators of this caliber. It is not so difficult to guess where they are.

Now the Our Ukraine and BYuT bloc faces a very difficult problem. This will undoubtedly significantly strengthen the positions of those Our Ukraine members (first of all, acting PM Yuriy Yekhanurov) who, from the very outset, were in favor of forming a broad political coalition to include the Party of Regions. But whereas then they could speak with the Regionals on the basis of some parity, now if they opt for a coalition with them, they will have to work in the conditions of a cruel and humiliating imposed settlement.

The statements of the Regional bosses, particularly Yevhen Kushnariov, leave very little doubt about this. But the paradox of the situation is that if the government is exclusively formed out of PR, SPU, and KPU representatives, it will naturally pursue a more pro-Russian policy, and there will be a substantial diminution of hopes for the upsurge of national dignity and development of democracy that emerged after the Orange Revolution.

At the moment it is difficult to predict the shape of the new coalition. Our Ukraine is clearly unprepared to be in the opposition. Early elections are also a risky option for Our Ukraine and the BYuT. One can, of course, ask the traditional question, “Who is to blame?” But this is a different subject altogether. One thing is clear: Our Ukraine began to lose political ground fast when, at the end of last summer, they failed to find a common language with the BYuT, and personally with Yulia Tymoshenko, expecting to maintain Viktor Yushchenko’s high popularity.

They still had to come to terms with her, but in much more complicated conditions, and at the same time endangering the democratic gains of late 2004. Banal as it may sound, situations in which disagreements among top politicians prevent Ukraine from consolidating its independence and identity are unfortunately repeated from generation to generation — much to the satisfaction of those of its neighbors, who still take a dim view of Ukrainians’ aspirations for freedom.