A new draft bill, meant to substantially change the rules of determining the winner in the presidential race, was met with different responses in Ukrainian political circles - from surprise to indignation. The authors of the document belong to different parliamentary forces - the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc, the Social Democrats, Labor Ukraine, the Regions of Ukraine. But most signatures under it belong to the Center group. Some members of Our Ukraine immediately called the attempt to change the rules of the race an attempt againgst their leader [Viktor Yushchenko] by his vengeful former allies.
Political experts tied the emergence of the “centrist” group in Parliament in April to the subsequent breakdown of the pro-presidential majority, and reasonably suspected it of playing into Yushchenko’s hand. However, a number of recent events have spoiled business contacts between the Center group and Our Ukraine. Members of the latter reacted rather painfully to their former teammate Taras Chornovil’s desertion to Viktor Yanukovych’s team. And the most recent conflict broke up between Volodymyr Sivkovych and Petro Poroshenko, the heavyweight activists of the two ideologically close factions. Sivkovych chairs the ad hoc parliamentary commission charged with an independent investigation of what may have caused Yushchenko’s poisoning [on the night of September 5]. His report in the session hall (in which he avoided categorical statements and premature assessments) angered Yushchenko’s closest comrades. They immediately accused Sivkovych of playing into the authorities’ hand and falsifying the text of the report, which the commission had just adopted. Poroshenko’s statement sounded the most emotional of all and hurt Sivkovych very much. Sivkovych demanded public apologies from Poroshenko and threatened him with a lawsuit.
Petro Poroshenko, Yulia Tymoshenko, Alexander Zinchenko, Grigoriy Omelchenko, and some other politicians may have weighty reasons to suspect Sivkovych of collusion with the authorities. And Sivkovych may just as well have grounds to accuse Our Ukraine of stubbornly ducking constructive cooperation with his commission.
Therefore, we abstain from categorical conclusions, but we have a few remarks. Yushchenko has slackened his pace quite notably, and the latest opinion polls look far from encouraging for him. We could explain this fact by Yanukovych’s wasteful move to raise pensions, or by Yushchenko’s health condition that has stalled his campaigning tours. But more importantly, his numerous but far from united and efficient motley team have made too many wrong steps. They have wasted too much time and energy on petty quarrels, and now they are carried too far away by the “poisoning” theme to the detriment of other issues. They seem to forget that polemics with Sivkovych, [Prosecutor General] Gennadiy Vasiliev, or [Russian TV commentator hired by the ICTV Channel] Dmitri Kiselev, etc. are anything but the principal direction in their pre-election work. Moreover, such polemics are far from useful, and not at all safe. The country is sick and tired of those endless talks about Yushchenko’s menu on that night, about toxins that might have poisoned him, about proved and disproved statements and lies… Too much ado about this unpleasant story irritates some and tires others. It also gives less reason to fear for Yushchenko’s physical health and more reason to fear for the moral health of his closest supporters, who keep exploiting Yushchenko’s illness. One doesn’t have to be an expert in politics or sociology to see that such irritation, fatigue, and fears can hardly add votes in Yushchenko’s favor.
Anatoliy Tarasov, who coached the USSR national ice-hockey team in its historic bouts against NHL stars, upon hearing one of his players complain about the Canadians’ foul play, told that player, “Just pay them back with goals!”
Those who are convinced that Yushchenko was poisoned intentionally may be quite sincere in their indignation. But their response is hardly adequate. The most effective response would be to step up their campaigning activity, instead of getting bogged in inane polemics. The very sense of any game is to hit the opponent’s goal, not one’s own.
Representatives of Our Ukraine have reiterated that this leadership will stop at nothing. So what’s the point in playing by others’ rules on their half of the field and with unfair referees?
In the wake of Yushchenko’s alleged poisoning, an unprecedented number of MPs (many of whom never supported Yushchenko openly or secretly) unanimously voted for setting up an investigating commission. Our Ukraine leaders should have pricked up their ears at such a “unanimity”, but they never learned from the previous experience of similar ad hoc commissions. The law does not determine the competence of such commissions, the rights and duties of their members, thus making their investigative efforts, however great, just Sisyphean labors, if not merely promotional actions. So what was Our Ukraine counting on? A miracle? Supposing, it did work, and Sivkovych’s commission (whose conclusions bear no legal validity) did manage to dig up some evidence of Yushchenko’s exposure to some toxic substance. That would hardly create a sensation. Those who are convinced that the authorities are crafty would be convinced even more, and those who are uncertain would be even more skeptical.
And the indifferent would certainly remain unmoved. They are too busy looking after their own pockets to care for someone else’s life. How cynical of them to be so stone-hearted! But they are voters, too, just like the rest. And there are too many of them. It takes a back-breaking effort to win over their votes. Stories about the leadership’s sins don’t sound scary to them. They should be convinced that the new leadership will be better. It is not their sympathy, but their favorable disposition that matters now. Because they are part of this nation. And it is not chosen.
Why doesn’t Our Ukraine work with such voters? Countless analytical reports leave too little room and time for action programs, platforms, ideas, and plans. To exploit the captain’s illness is almost as vicious as to capitalize on an opponent player’s injury.
What is going on today looks like what is called “midfield play” in soccer. It is when the ball practically never reaches either penalty area, and both teams seem to forget that the sense of the game is scoring rather than rolling the ball. Such games are usually played by teams who want to escape a defeat, and are accepted by their opponents who are unsure of their ability to win. Such matches usually end in a draw. But there can be no draw in an election race.
We are not going to take sides on this slippery ground. We can only share one more idea. As Sivkovych admitted, he got a letter from Yushchenko, who prohibited him to collect, store, use, and disseminate any information about Yushchenko’s health condition. Yushchenko certainly had the right to demand it from Sivkovych. But Sivkovych might as well have questioned the validity and expediency of the investigating commission as such. Without any legal authority, without any information and even the right to obtain it, the commission was nothing else but a PR instrument that could be used either against Yushchenko or against his opponents, depending on who held the majority vote in the commission. In either case, any effort was anything but a search for the truth. And under such circumstances, Sivkovych should have resigned to keep his good name unmarred. And Our Ukraine should have done everything possible to disband the dubious commission in order to fence off the leader from idle talks and speculations. But neither was done.
And then the Center group came up with draft bill #6242, which raised another wave of accusations of and criticism against what the Our Ukraine called “dirty intrigues”.
No law is ideal. Take, for instance, the Constitution. It is not bad at all, and it is not to blame for remaining largely declarative if its guarantor himself sets so many examples of violating it.
Are the proposed amendments to the Constitution bad in any way? Not at all. Each of the three draft bills on amendments to the Constitution has its own merits and demerits, but each has an unquestionable right to existence. Each offers a more democratic model of government than the one Ukraine has today. So why are those who call for reforms so dead set against implementing this constitutional reform? They are, because all they see behind this project is intrigues.
When the current Constitution was drafted, its authors reiterated that this document was meant for ages, not definite persons. As it turns out, this Constitution is not going to last out one decade… How good it would be if laws were never changed and were always observed! But there goes nothing, on account of our leaders, who only pursue momentary goals, bypassing all laws.
How happy the new election law made the opposition! How proud it was to see many former errors corrected! The new procedure of staffing local election commissions was listed among the weightiest gains. Authorities were completely barred from staffing election commissions, and the candidates’ wishes were made binding. Now each candidate has a guaranteed representation in each election commission. Another advantage of the new election law, according to its authors, is the abolition of the law of declaring an election invalid. A triumph of democracy? A defeat of the old system of government? Not quite, as it turns out.
The ZN wrote earlier that the excessive number of “phantom” candidates gave Bankova a serious advantage. How does it look in practice? Here is one possible scenario. The new law says that a commission’s session is valid if at least two-thirds of its staff are present. It is already rumored that government-controlled members of precinct election commissions in a great number of (primarily western) regions have been instructed to ignore the most important meetings of their commissions. In the worst result, the election may be wrecked in an unpredictable number of localities. But even if the number is enormous, the new law forbids declaring the election invalid.
So is the new election law good or bad? Will it last? Won’t the new leadership try to bypass yet another law? And will laws ever be observed in this country?
These questions are rhetorical. But they arise again as we take a look at draft bill #6242 [on amendments to the Law on Elections of the President of Ukraine]. There are only two amendments, but they radically change the very principle of determining the winner. According to the current law, the winner is “the candidate who has collected more than half the votes of those who have voted”. Now the words “more than half” are supposed to be replaced with “more than fifty percent”. The meaning is clear: the outcome of the election may be decided by one ballot (that may well be forged). Now suppose that 30 million voters turn up at polling stations on October 31. 1% is 300,000 votes. In this case, there would be fewer opportunities for falsifications and the victory would look more convincing.
The second amendment is more serious, and at the same time more questionable. It establishes a new procedure for naming the winner in the second round. The current law provides for choosing the winner by a relative majority. The authors of the new law insist that the future president be supported by an absolute majority, i.e. by more than 50 percent of those who have voted in the second round.
There are some objections. Number one: supposing, candidate A has collected 49.5% of votes in the second round, candidate B has collected 48.5%, and 2% have voted against all. So does it mean that these two percent of voters make the will of the rest 98 percent null and void? However nonsensical it looks, there’s no other way.
Number two: supposing, 10% have voted for candidate A, 11% have voted for candidate B, and 79% have voted against both. Would the new president really need such a victory? And would the country need such a president?
This is, probably, not the right time for amending the election law. The Central Election Commission, the Justice Ministry, the parliamentary monitoring commission, and the leaders of most factions have objected to any amendments, arguing that the process may become chaotic or (even worse) too manageable. But if we abstract from our hard realities and our acquired fear syndrome, these amendments look logical and democratic enough. If the nation votes for a president with such powers, it is quite natural that he ought to collect such a number of votes.
Brief note: In 1991 Leonid Kravchuk collected more than 61 percent of votes. In 1994 Leonid Kuchma emerged winner in the second round with more than 52 percent. In 1999, also in the second round, he collected more than 56 percent. We have no intention of comparing those three absolutely different elections, or looking for any analogies. We just want to remind some journalists of some historical facts, who say that no one has ever been able to reap such a rich electoral harvest.
Also wrong are those who say that the election rules were never changed during the race. They were. Nor are there any special novelties in draft bill #6242. For almost a decade the election law has stated that the president is declared chosen in the second round if he has “collected more votes than the other candidate has, on condition that the number of votes for him exceeds the number of votes against him”.
The latter reservation was crossed off in 1999, because Leonid Kuchma was afraid that the number of votes against him would be indecently great.
What prompted this draft bill? Perhaps the fact that too many are afraid to have an illegitimate president. But there is no apparent reason to be afraid of this document, because it is unlikely to be passed before the election. The same concerns draft bill #4180 [on amendments to the Constitution], which has been finally approved by the Constitutional Court but has lost too many supporters.
So today the President has more important things than the reform to deal with, and he stated it quite unambiguously on Friday. What he is most interested in is disruption of the parliament’s work as a way to bar the opposition from publicity. So it looks like the lawmakers are going to take up the reform issue after the presidential election. If it still makes any sense by then…
SERHII RAKHMANIN