Supporters of Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych hold their flags during a rally in Independence Square in Kiev, Ukraine, Monday, April 9, 2007. Ukraine's defiant parliament on Monday said it would only support early parliamentary elections if an early presidential vote was held simultaneously.
Photo: AP
| Other Photos |
 |
|
 |
Deputy Maidans Carve-Up
// Confrontation in Ukraine enters its final stage
The Supreme Rada of Ukraine on Monday declared Viktor Yushchenko a criminal and began investigating the special services’ persecution of deputies, ministers, members of the Central Electoral Commission and of the Constitutional Court. This way, Rada deputies intend to checkmate the president’s plans and to prevent early election. Meanwhile, ‘parliamentary election on Maidan’ was held in Kiev on Monday. Bloc of Yulia Tymoshenko (BYuT) won. Kommersant’s special correspondent Mikhail Zygar watched the confrontation between the spirit and the letter of Ukrainian democracy.
Letters of Spirit
“The Constitution is not to be sniffed! The Constitution is to be read and respected,” urged Speaker Alexander Moroz from the Supreme Rada’s tribune.
“What if my tastes are different from Yushchenko’s? Perhaps, what is fragrance to him, is miasma to me,” carried on one of the deputies. The Supreme Rada was heatedly discussing Viktor Yushchenko’s announcement that his decree on dissolving the parliament corresponds to the spirit of the Constitution.
Actually, the Rada did not have to meet yesterday. It does not have any scheduled plenary sessions this week. Yet, the deputies gathered urgently, to discuss again the president’s decree and the ways to counteract it.
Rada Deputy from the Party of Regions Yury Miroshnichenko took the floor to say that, according to rumors, Yushchenko ordered to the national security service of Ukraine to spy on all Rada deputies, members of the government, of the Central Electoral Commission and of the Constitutional Court. Miroshnichenko read out a draft enactment on creating an investigating commission which should find out whether deputies are being spied on. The deputies were indignant that the president had had the nerve for it. They declared him a criminal, all his decisions illegitimate, and ratified the enactment unanimously.
Right under the Rada’s windows, in the Mariinsky park, the situation was heated as well. Sullen cold supporters of the Party of Regions wandered among the tents pitched in the park. Posters with slogans written in nice letters were hanging on almost every tent. One slogan read: “We stand for unity, we stand for peace, we stand for Yanukovych”. Another read: “Where there is no truth, there is BYuT”.
The government’s and the coalition’s supporters were either lined up in files, or they scattered about again, wondering if they would ever go to Maidan or not.
“Hey, brother, you’re going to the rally with us, right?” a young man in a shiny leather jacket and with a bunch of papers in his hands ran up to me.
“Where are you going?”
“Twenty hryvnias,” he said suddenly. “You tell me your name, I enter it into the list, you line up, then you come to me after the rally, say your name, and get the money. We are leaving at three o’clock. So, shall I write your name down?”
“No, thanks.”
Next to the ‘white-and-blue’ tent camp, children were running in the park. Boys were playing with a ball, and girls were jumping with a skipping rope. Several girls guised as clowns were telling something to a group of young children.
“Are you taking the kids to the rally too?” I asked in horror.
“No, we organized a game for kids here, egg-hunting. We’ll hide colored eggs all over the park, and children will have to find them.
“So, you aren’t from the Party of Regions?”
“No, we are from the Church of Evangelic Christians.”
“What about the tent camp, what if crowds disturb the children?”
“Are you kidding? Children won’t be disturbed by anything. If kids get really involved in the game, they’ll tear to pieces the camp. Just imagine, what if we tell them the eggs are hidden in the tents? Not a tent will be still here in half an hour, the kids will tear them down.”
While the children were about to take over the Mariinsky park (by the way, both the Supreme Rada and the Presidential Palace are in that park), elderly people invaded Maidan. Old women with red flags were proudly walking on the square. A choir of elderly Communists was singing plaintively.
Despite the crowd of elderly women, Maidan’s entertainment industry was working like usually. Photographers with monkeys were standing next to the women. For some strange reason, taking picture with this animal on one’s shoulder is especially popular on Maidan now. For instance, there were five monkeys at a time on Kiev’s main square yesterday.
Leaflets were being handed out all over the square. At Maidan’s edge, two elderly women entered a tough competition. The communist lady was handing out the Communist Party’s newspaper, while her neighbor was giving out ads touting to visit “wax figures museum, curiosities cabinet, and torture dungeon”. The two women were arguing with each other.
“That Yushchenko of yours is a political prostitute! He is worse than Gorbachev!” shouted the Communist.
Torture dungeon’s barker shouted back that “Yanukovych is the prostitute, and he is much worse”.
Along the tent camp of the Party of Regions, the usual Maidan’s souvenir trade was going on. For instance, a pin of a regional parliament’s deputy costs 50 hryvnias, and of a city parliament’s deputy – 80 hryvnias.
“Do you have a pin of a Supreme Rada deputy?”
“We don’t have them now. You need it? But it costs 500 dollars,” confessed the salesman.
Spirit of Letters
Hundred meters away from the square, near the exit of Kreshchatik subway station, the fight for seats in the Supreme Rada was going on too. Youth Central Electoral Commission rehearsed the ‘parliamentary election on Maidan’. They printed special ballots with seven parties: the Party of Regions, the Bloc of Yulia Tymoshenko (BYuT), Our Ukraine, the Socialist Party, the Communist Party, the Bloc of Natalya Vitrenko, and the People’s Bloc of Litvin. The ballots were given to every person exiting the subway, and were then dropped into a symbolic urn. Some 500 people voted in 2 hours.
Despite that the ‘white-and-blue’ Maidan was so close, the election’s outcome was unfavorable for the Party of Regions. It gathered only 20 percent of votes (75 passers-by). BYuT received the first position with the huge toll of 51 percent (189 passers-by). Our Ukraine became second (23 percent, or 87 votes). Communists also overcame the 3-percent barrier (13 votes, or 3.4 percent).
The mock-election’s organizers wrote the approximate voting list in the ballots, with which each of the parties can actually go to elections. Our Ukraine’s list is of most interest. According to the Youth Central Electoral Commission, the party will be headed by former Interior Minister, head of the People’s Self-Protection movement Yury Lutsenko, who isn’t yet a member of Our Ukraine. The second in the list is the party’s current leader Vyacheslav Kirilenko, and the third is head of the president’s staff Viktor Baloga.
The young man who was counting the votes was surrounded by a curious crowd. I squeezed into the middle, took a clean ballot, and began studying it, receiving a reproach right away from a nearby-standing woman:
“Where are you taking it? To Maidan, right? To yours, Regionals? They’ve been brainwashed there, they don’t understand anything now.”
“No, I’m a journalist from Moscow. Would you please lend me a pen, to write down the results?”
“Ah, from Moscow – it’s good. Hey, how come Russia has oil, gas, but doesn’t have a pen? Here, take it, you owe me a cubic meter of gas.”
The next square to Maidan, the Square of Europe, is already adorned with a stage and a banner “Truth Will Win”. Ten days ago, before the president signed the decree on dissolving the Rada, the white-and-blue party protested here, while the orange forces were on Maidan. Today, they will switch places: the coalition’s supporters will remain on Maidan, and the president’s followers will gather at the Square of Europe. Both will call upon the Constitutional Court and argue where the truth is: in the spirit or in the letter.
Current Chairman of the Constitutional Court Ivan Dombrovsky has once manifested his understanding of the spirit. It was he who spoke in 2004 when the Supreme Court was considering the issue of ruling the second round of the presidential election illegal. Back then, the Supreme Court held an open session, which helped Yushchenko, for not so much as legal, but rather moral and ethical arguments, were on his side then. This time, the Constitutional Court decided to hold an open session as well.
So, the spirit should win.
Mikhail Zygar
All the Article in Russian as of Apr. 10, 2007
|
|
|
