Eurasia Daily Monitor has a very in depth article concerning the parliamentary and government rivalries going on in Ukraine. In particular, PM Tymoshenko wants President Yushchenko to break with parliamentary speaker Lytvyn and put together a parliamentary majority so that they can finally get WTO legislation passed. In this case, the problem is in the pudding, and the current make up of parliament isn’t very favorable to that happening.

The first demand is that Tymoshenko remains prime minister until the 2006 election. The second demand is to exclude Lytvyn’s NPU from the 2006 election coalition (see EDM, August 3).

In order to not repeat the bedlam seen in parliament in June-July and to take control over the legislature ahead of the 2006 election, Yushchenko and Tymoshenko aim to ready a pro-Yushchenko majority for when parliament reconvenes in September. At first, Lytvyn ruled out the idea, claiming it would be as ineffectual as the pro-Kuchma and pro-Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych situational parliamentary majority after the 2002 election. But later, fearing that if he did not support, he would be marginalized, Lytvyn flip-flopped and began to support the idea.

Any parliamentary majority created without Lytvyn’s support would inevitably lead to the Yushchenko-Tymoshenko coalition supporting a vote to replace him with a more agreeable speaker. Lytvyn became parliamentary speaker in May 2002 by only one vote above the required 225, a vote that was “loaned” by a dissident Communist.

But where would the proposed parliamentary majority come from? The four factions that would support such a majority have only 155 deputies. They include Our Ukraine (77), Tymoshenko’s bloc (39), Kostenko’s UNP (24), and First Deputy Prime Minister Anatoliy Kinakh’s Party of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (PPPU) with 15.

Our Ukraine’s parliamentary leader, Mykola Martynenko, described his own faction, Tymoshenko’s, and Kostenko’s as “constructive parliamentary forces.” He added the Socialist Party (SPU), Lytvyn’s NPU, and the PPPU to this “constructive” group, but with reservations (razom.org.ua, July 14).

If the SPU (25) and Lytvyn’s NPU (46) were to join the new parliamentary majority, then it would have a slim majority of only 226 deputies. Other possible members could be the former pro-Kuchma United Ukraine faction (20) and some deputies who are unaffiliated (37). But, if this were to transpire, the same criticism would be repeated; namely, that the pro-Yushchenko parliamentary majority includes, and relies upon, discredited members of the former Kuchma camp.

I don’t see it happening easily. If something is worked out, the government is going to have to make a lot of concessions to other parties, especially to the public at large to ease the suspicion of being in the pocket of oligarchs. However, judging by just the composition alone, and how various parties vote so differently from issue to issue, I think it’s going to be relatively impossible to form a firm pro-Yushchenko majority on all issues.

The clearest indication that the government doesn’t think this will happen is that they are appealing against the constitutional reforms set into play by Kuchma back in December before leaving office. In sum, these reforms will transfer some powers from the presidency to the parliament in September. The appeal is legitimate (constitutional changes must happen over two sessions, but it happened in one), but that issue could have easily been dropped. I think they are trying to keep these powers to the presidency because the parliament is still dominated by remnants of the Kuchma era, and they are waiting to make these changes until a new parliament is in power come 2006 which reflects the new dynamic of the country as a whole — that is, it will reflect a pro-Yushchenko majority if all goes well.

Of course, Yushchenko hasn’t set most of the reforms he promised with his powerful presidency yet, so keeping these powers may be cause for concern. These powers will indeed need to go to the parliament eventually to avoid authoritarianism in the future. Most likely Yushchenko and Tymoshenko and just trying to prevent the old guard parliament from blocking too much of the legislation needed to move the country forward. Meanwhile, they’ll continue to work on formulating a majority to get these bills passed, but that will take even more effort. Ultimately, they may have to wait until elections in 2006 to get more done.