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THE "ALL-UKRAINIAN CIVIL FORUM" IN SUPPORT OF REFORM
Kuchma to address well-staged performance in Kyiv, Friday, April 2
  

Inside Ukraine Newsletter, Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, April 1, 2004

KYIV - While the Verkhovna Rada has been slowly grinding through the process of considering the constitutional reforms that were requested and pressed upon the parliament by President Leonid Kuchma, a number of national associations and civic organizations that were subject to strong presidential influence were putting together meetings at the local, district and regional level.

These groups had willing partners in the regional governors of Ukraine - who serve at the pleasure of the president - as they sought to drum up what is claimed to be "popular support" for the reform amendments.

This six-month long effort, reminiscent of similar efforts during the Soviet era, will culminate in what is expected to be an impressive and well-staged performance in Kyiv on April 2.

About 3,000 delegates from cities, towns and villages will attend the All-Ukrainian Civil Forum, "in support of political reform."

National mass media report that the delegates were elected in the course of 48,000 meetings that were attended by about 3 million people. The assembly in Kyiv is due to finalize the discussion of the constitutional reforms but will refrain from proposing a consolidated candidate to run for the presidency in the fall.

The official Kuchma Administration spin on the gathering as a demonstration of the popular will in support of the constitutional reform amendments is very strongly questioned by parliamentary insiders and analysts, particularly those who are old enough to remember almost identical "popular support" accorded to the Brezhnev-era constitutional changes of over 20 year ago.

Analysts are also very interested in the fact that President Kuchma will address the forum in person, particularly since he chose to send his annual message to the parliament only in written form.

Some of the more cynical deputies and analysts suggest that the assembly may go so far as to not only endorse the president's constitutional reform desires, but to also "spontaneously" recommend that Kuchma run for a third presidential term in the event the amendments are not endorsed.

No one doubts that the president's address to the assembly will be met with "thunderous and sustained applause," a standard fixture of all such meetings during Ukraine's Soviet past.

 
 

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