UKRAINE: YUSHCHENKO PUSHING, REGIONS NOT BACKING

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 KYIV 001036 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/03/2017 TAGS: PGOV PREL UP SUBJECT: UKRAINE: YUSHCHENKO PUSHING, REGIONS NOT BACKING DOWN KYIV 00001036 001.2 OF 003 Classified By: Ambassador for reasons 1.4(a,b,d). ¶1. (C) Summary. During what normally would have been a quiet, five-day holiday weekend, the presidential and Rada/government teams were hard at work upping the ante in the current political crisis, with neither side appearing ready yet to relinquish hardball tactics and return to negotiations. President Yushchenko went on the offensive, giving a strong speech to a crowd of 20,000 on April 28 and then firing Constitutional Court Judges Pshenychniy and Stanik--both appointed by former President Kuchma--on April 30 and May 1, respectively, for allegedly violating their oath of office. Presidential Secretariat Deputy Head Vasyunyk told Ambassador on May 3 that they had needed to take action--sitting around had repeatedly lost Yushchenko ground in the past. In response, the coalition amped up its rhetoric; Prime Minister Yanukovych, Speaker Moroz, and Communist Leader Symonenko issued a May 2 statement charging that Yushchenko's latest actions could lead to tanks in the streets and civil war in Ukraine; a BYuT back-bencher fired back that if the Government continued to provoke the President, then he might have to use force against the Rada. PM adviser Gryshchenko told Ambassador that they were even considering cutting funding to the Presidential Secretariat. The Rada also passed a resolution on April 30 calling for concurrent presidential and parliamentary elections by the end of the year. ¶2. (C) Comment. Unfortunately, Yushchenko and Yanukovych have still not resumed talks since Yushchenko issued the second decree on April 26, although Ambassador continues to talk to all sides and encourage them to restart the process to find a political compromise. Vasyunyk underscored to Ambassador that the President's side strongly mistrusted the PM's team; Gryshchenko's comments suggest the feeling is mutual. There are, however, small signs that negotiations are continuing--Yanukovych has said publicly that elections are possible based on political compromise, whereas earlier he had demanded a CC decision. In addition, the Central Election Commission (CEC) went back to work after an extended sick-out by coalition-affiliated commissioners, issuing a series of resolutions to prepare for June 24 Rada elections. One positive note in the crisis is that both sides have turned to Brussels and Strasbourg for validation rather than to Moscow. Although they may not be playing in a fully democratic manner, both sides at least seem to understand that the external perception of democracy and European values remains important as they seek to prevail in the power struggle. End summary and comment. Yushchenko Rallies the Crowd... -------------- ¶3. (SBU) On April 28, Yushchenko addressed an opposition crowd of about 20,000 on European Square, reiterating his promise of preterm elections, although he did name a date. (Embassy Note: This was Yushchenko's first appearance at a demonstration in downtown Kyiv since the November 2005 gathering of Orange leaders on the Maidan to mark the one-year anniversary of the beginning of the Orange Revolution. End Note.) The President was on message and relatively brief, arguing that elections were critical to overcome "political corruption" in the country and blaming the Rada for precipitating the current crisis. The crowd braved a rain shower and listened closely, breaking in several times with chants of "Yu-shen-ko." Interestingly, Yushchenko acknowledged that the results of new elections were likely to return the same political forces to the Rada, with the possible exception of the Socialists. He ended his speech with an appeal--literally begging the opposition leaders to forgive each other's past sins and remain united. ...Then Cleans the Court of two Kuchma appointees -------------- -------------- ¶4. (SBU) On April 30 and May 1--government holidays--Yushchenko issued decrees firing two of the three Constitutional Court judges appointed by former President Kuchma for violating their oath of office. He first dismissed Deputy Court Chairman Pshenychniy for violating court procedures and therefore his oath of office; the President's team alleges Pshenychniy assigned the case regarding the April 2 presidential decree to ally Judge Stanik on April 3, when Chairman Dombrovskiy was in the Court and should have been the one to make such a decision. (Note: We were shown the paperwork with Pshenychniy's signature and the date. End note.) The next day, Yushchenko dismissed Stanik, whom the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) has implicated in corruption--close family members having recently received $12 million in real estate and cars. KYIV 00001036 002.2 OF 003 Regions MP Kiselov publicly urged the two judges to keep working and ignore the decrees; the coalition has already appealed the decree firing Pshenychniy to the CC for a ruling. Stanik has been vocal in her criticism of Yushchenko's move, but Pshenychniy has been quiet. ¶5. (C) Comment. Yushchenko based the dismissals on constitutional articles 106 (amended in 2004) and 126, which state that the President can fire the six judges appointed on the presidential quota for a variety of causes, including violating oath of office. The Law on the CC, passed prior to constitutional changes coming into effect, is somewhat contradictory; it gives the Rada the right to dismiss CC judges for violating the oath of office without mention of the President's role. Should the Court take up the President's right to fire CC judges, his team would appear to have a solid legal argument, backed by extensive precedent, that says the constitution carries more weight than a law. On May 3, the members of the Constitutional Court remained behind closed doors and were not talking to the press. It is unclear at this point whether Pshenychniy and/or Stanik have followed the decree and stayed away from the CC or whether they heeded the Rada's call to remain at their posts and are taking part in the deliberations (our presumption is that they are not). End comment. ¶6. (C) Deputy Head of the Presidential Secretariat Vasyunyk justified the dismissals to Ambassador May 3, arguing that the presidential team had needed to take action. Yushchenko had sat around for nine months after agreeing to Yanukovych's return as PM, only to be steamrolled repeatedly as the PM's team broke every deal that the two sides had reached. In Vasyunyk's view, the President believed that he needed to take the offensive--there was no trust left for the PM's team. Coalition Bumps up Rhetoric... -------------- ¶7. (SBU) On May 2, the leaders of the coalition, PM Yanukovych, Speaker Moroz, and Communist Party leader Symonenko released a joint appeal to PACE, the EU, and all Ambassadors in Kyiv to help mediate the situation. They accused Yushchenko of trying to paralyze the CC and legal organs and having usurped power from the other branches of government. They declared: "his next step could be a decree ordering tanks onto the streets... Current actions by the President of Ukraine are dangerous for the State and people. Ukraine is in danger of legal chaos and civil war." Privately, PM adviser Gryshchenko told the Ambassador that the coalition was considering no longer recognizing Yushchenko as President and cutting funding to the Presidential Secretariat. (Note: the Cabinet cut funding to the Foreign Ministry in January for several weeks as part of the effort to force out former FM Tarasyuk. End note.) ¶8. (C) Young Regions MP firebrand Miroshnychenko also raised the rhetorical stakes by proclaiming that the coalition would guard the Rada from any attempt to seize it, alleging Yushchenko might resort to force. Miroshnychenko confirmed to us privately that there were MPs in the Rada around the clock now, although he declined to say how many; their task was to monitor the situation and be on the scene should anything change. BYuT backbencher MP Syvulskiy did not help calm the waters by commenting on Fifth Channel May 2, in an interview primarily making the case for new elections, that: the "use of force is not ruled out if the Rada keeps provoking (Yushchenko). That means that measures will have to be taken to make the Rada ... halt its activity." ...But Doesn't Rule Out Elections -------------- ¶9. (SBU) At the same time, Yanukovych said at an April 28 press conference that he was "ready for elections, if they were the result of a political agreement rather than by any requirement of the constitution." Although he encouraged Yushchenko to wait for a CC decision, this was the first time he did not make a Court ruling a precondition for new elections. He also accused the SBU of "working like the KGB in Soviet times," and asked the President to meet with him soon. (Note. Vasyunyk told us they were considering a meeting, but nothing had been scheduled. End note.) Yanukovych echoed this more conciliatory position on elections at a May 3 CabMin meeting, where he said that if there was a consensus opinion that early elections were the only solution to the crisis, they would begin preparations for early elections. He cautioned that work was needed on a number of related laws, a position Yushchenko has also stressed. KYIV 00001036 003.2 OF 003 ¶10. (C) Comment. The Rada also passed a non-binding resolution on April 30 calling for concurrent parliamentary and presidential elections before the end of the year--a threat Regions has been throwing around with increasing regularity for the past month. Interestingly, only 234 of 254 MPs registered in the hall supported the resolution (reporters estimate less than 100 MPs were physically present). Regions MP Chornovil criticized it publicly, matching the private criticism from Regions MP and financier Akhmetov, bringing into question how unified Regions is on this position, or whether it is intended as negotiating pressure against Yushchenko. CEC Goes Back to Work -------------- ¶11. (C) The CEC regained a quorum on May 2, when Communist commissioner Raykovskiy (protect - not generally known in public) returned to work after a long "sick-out", allowing the CEC to immediately issue a number of resolutions pertaining to early Rada elections. The CEC asked the Cabinet to allocate funds for a voter registry; they also approved forms for party lists and for nominations to sit on regional and local polling commissions, the bodies which run the voting and count the votes. A USAID NGO partner told us that the CEC had been working on the decrees for the past few weeks, but the open use of the June 24 election date suggested a level of comfort at the CEC that early elections might actually go forward. The contact also suggested Raykovskiy's return may indicate that the Communists are hedging their bets, since they might get more seats in a new election. ¶12. (C) CEC Chairman Davydovych also announced May 2 that he was extending the deadline to midnight May 3 for the three parties in the coalition to submit their nominees to sit on the territorial election commissions (TECs). Parties represented in the current Rada have the right to submit nominees first, but if they choose not to do so, seats could be filled by other political parties or CEC designates. As of COB May 3, the coalition had not submitted nominations, but the NGO partner told us that Regions could ignore Davydovych's timeline for now without serious repercussions. Given the importance of Regions' participation to give the elections validity, the CEC could either appoint Regions people to TECs without formal nominations, or they could appoint temporary members at the CEC's discretion with the understanding that Regions would be allowed to replace them later. ¶13. (SBU) The CEC also canceled BYuT's 2006 voter list as the bloc had requested. The CEC did not, however, cancel Our Ukraine's party list because Kinakh's Party of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, one of six in the bloc in 2006, objected. This had stymied, at least for now, the opposition's gambit to deny the Rada a quorum. The plan had been for both BYuT and OU to resign, so that there were fewer than 300 Rada members, and to cancel their party lists, so that the CEC could not refill vacated seats. ¶14. (U) Visit Embassy Kyiv's classified website: www.state.sgov.gov/p/eur/kiev. Taylor