Compiled by Jan Maksymiuk, RFE/RL, Belarus and Ukraine Report
Prague, Czech Republic, Tuesday, April 13, 2004

However, a few hours later, following a conference with presidential administration chief Viktor Medvedchuk, who is widely believed to be the main architect of the constitutional reforms, Havrysh changed tack. Havrysh said on Inter Television that the Verkhovna Rada will hold a repeat vote on the constitutional reforms since, he argued, lawmakers voted not for bill No. 4105, which provided for these reforms, but for unregistered bill No. 1674-4, which was announced by speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn before the vote. To support his argument, Havrysh quoted a relevant passage from the official minutes of the session that actually mentioned Lytvyn proposing bill No. 1674-4 for the vote.

Verkhovna Rada staff subsequently explained that the numbers 4105 and 1674-4 refer to the same piece of legislation -- under the first the constitutional-reform bill is registered with the Verkhovna Rada, under the second it is registered with the Justice Ministry. However, the bill submitted to the vote on 8 April included an addendum by Socialist Party leader Oleksandr Moroz stipulating that the legislation will come into force only after the 2004 presidential election. In other words, the bill was somewhat different from the one endorsed by the Constitutional Court last month, following its preliminary approval in December and February.

Moreover, the Verkhovna Rada on 7 April adopted a procedure for voting on the constitutional-reform bill that banned the introduction of any amendments to it during its second and final reading. Thus, there are formal reasons for the pro-government coalition to demand a repeat vote. True, it is not clear yet whether the constitutional restriction forbidding the amendment of the country's constitution twice within the same year may be applied to the 8 April vote.

They purportedly disliked not only the pressure but also the all-proportional parliamentary-election law that was adopted last month as the pro-government coalition's concession to buy support for the constitutional reforms from the Socialist and Communist parties. Thus, there is absolutely no reason for those deputies to be more enthusiastic about the constitutional reforms after 8 April.

Whatever the final outcome of the constitutional-reform controversy in Ukraine, it is already perfectly clear that the essentially democratic proposals in the reform bill -- the presidency with fewer powers as well as a stronger government and parliament -- have been pursued by the forces grouped around President Leonid Kuchma as a way for preserving the positions of the antidemocratic ruling elites in the country. Faced with the threat of losing the presidential election on 31 October to Our Ukraine leader Viktor Yushchenko, the pro-Kuchma camp devised the reforms that would strip the presidency of several important prerogatives and shift the center of power toward the government controlled by the current political establishment.

The position of Yushchenko in the constitutional-reform dispute is also far from crystal clear and honest. Yushchenko advertised a constitutional reform as one of his main programmatic goals before the 2002 parliamentary elections, but has abandoned the idea after opinion polls began to suggest that he may win the 2004 presidential ballot. His main slogan now is not to change the defective power system but to replace defective people in power. Which, of course, does not provide an unambiguous answer to the question whether he will return to reforming this system once he and his people take control of it.

If the constitutional reform collapses completely, then the 2004 presidential-election campaign may be one of the harshest and toughest political campaigns in the country. The political stakes will be very high indeed. It is not out of the question that Kuchma may choose to run for the post of president a third time. Such an option has been made possible for him by a ruling of the Constitutional Court in December. Kuchma's popularity is very low at present, and Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, who is currently supported by some 15 percent of the electorate, seems better equipped to challenge Yushchenko as the single candidate of the pro-Kuchma camp.

However, many Ukrainian analysts assert that pro-Kuchma oligarchs are very unlikely to unite behind Yanukovych against the Yushchenko threat. According to them, they are likely to support Kuchma as a guarantor of the stability and continuity of the current political establishment in the country. Yanukovych in the post of president is for Ukrainian oligarchs allegedly no less a risk than Yushchenko himself.