UKRAINE: DEAL FOR SEPTEMBER 30 ELECTIONS

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 KYIV 001305

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/29/2017
TAGS: PGOV UP
SUBJECT: UKRAINE: DEAL FOR SEPTEMBER 30 ELECTIONS
ANNOUNCED, BUT IS IT A DONE DEAL?

REF: A. KYIV 1297

B. KYIV 1244

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Classified By: DCM Sheila Gwaltney, reason 1.4 (b,d)


1. (SBU) Summary: After all night discussions, President
Yushchenko, PM Yanukovych, and Rada Speaker Moroz emerged
after 4 a.m. May 27 to issue a seven-point joint statement
that set early elections for September 30 and aimed to
resolve the ongoing political crisis. Reactions ranged from
relief to doubt, amidst defiance by some. While the
coalition immediately dismantled its two-month old tent camps
and stage on the Maidan, coalition leaders gave a less than
ringing endorsement to supporters in the Mariyinsky Park tent
camp outside the Rada, with Yanukovych several times saying
"if elections happen." Opposition leader Tymoshenko blessed
the deal after the May 27 announcement, but jubilantly
declared it a total opposition victory to journalists in the
Rada May 29. A key part of the May 27 deal was to be a
two-day Rada session May 29-30 to pass legislation needed to
hold early elections, reaffirm bills approved by the Rada
between April 2 and May 26, and pass WTO-related legislation.
However, signs from the Rada early May 29 suggest that the
legislation to be passed is not yet ready and that some
political forces in both the coalition and the opposition may
not be fully on board with the terms of the deal struck by
Yushchenko, Yanukovych, and Moroz. Parliamentary deputies
spent much of May 29 in the hallways, in various
organizational and strategy sessions; the Rada will formal
convene again at 1600 Kyiv time.


2. (C) Comment: Ukrainian political developments rarely seem
final. The May 27 joint statement on early elections, billed
as a conclusion to the two-month political and constitutional
crisis, may take more than just several days to overcome the
chaotic developments of the past week (reftels) and secure
the steps necessary to keep the future course of political
developments on track, It could yet come unglued, as have
other previous oral agreements between Yanukovych and
Yushchenko, although there is a strong push from many to
resolve the issue once and for all prior to summer vacation
season. We believe that party leaders can easily override
objections raised in the Rada corridors in order to implement
the deal. In addition to following the process of
implementing the May 27 compromise, there are three areas of
particular institutional concern, given recent vigorous
struggles for control/influence by the presidential and
coalition teams, that will bear close watching. They are the
status of the Constitutional Court, where three justices
appointed on the Presidential quota by President Kuchma and
dismissed by Yushchenko refuse to leave; the Prosecutor
General's Office, where two people claim to be the Prosecutor
General; and the status of Interior Ministry ground troops,
who were transferred to the President by decree on May 25 and
whose loyalties were called into question amidst confusion
over the chain of command May 25-26. End Summary and Comment.

The Deal: Elections on Sept 30, but Much to be Done First
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3. (SBU) After several days of high drama May 24-26 focused
on a struggle for control of the prosecutor general's office
and scuffles between security forces loyal to the president
on the one hand and the coalition on the other, an all-night
session between Yushchenko, Yanukovych, and Moroz led to a
seven-point joint statement released after 4 a.m. on Sunday
May 27. The leaders agreed: to hold pre-term elections
September 30; to do so based on a Presidential decree citing
Article 82, para 2 of the Constitution (Note: Which requires
the Rada to have a quorum of 300 elected MPs. To deny a
quorum, OU and BYuT factions would resign); to hold a plenary
session of the Rada May 29-30 to enact legislation to conduct
fair, democratic, and transparent elections; to readopt
measures passed by the Rada after April 2 (Note: Yushchenko's
first decree); to pass WTO-related legislation; to ensure the
Cabinet and Central Election Commission (CEC) implement the
law on the voter registry; and to appoint new members of the
CEC.


4. (SBU) Yushchenko, in comments posted on the presidential
website, described the compromise as a "truly wonderful
result" which demonstrated that Ukraine's democracy was
"mature"; he declared the crisis now "finished." While the
coalition immediately dismantled its tent camps, stage, and
banners on the Maidan and around the city, Yanukovych and
Moroz caveated their endorsement of the statement before
supporters, with Yanukovych several times referring to
elections, "if they do take place." Other officials
expressed doubt that the deal could stick as planned. CEC
Chair Davydovych said that it would be unrealistic to expect

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a functioning new voter registry by September 30 while
various past and present MPs wondered whether all BYuT and OU
MPs would resign, as required for the agreed-upon legal
grounds to trigger new elections.

Uncertainty in the Rada, Slow Off the Mark
--------------


5. (SBU) On May 29, Yushchenko began the process of
implementing the compromise by issuing a short decree
suspending his April 26 decree (that dissolved Rada and
called for June 24 elections) for two days, May 29-30, to
allow the Rada to do its work. However, the Rada did not
immediately step up to the plate. It did not open as
expected on May 29 at 10 am, as opposition MPs refused to
participate in the opening session, with BYuT instead holding
a faction meeting. Representatives from both Regions and
BYuT indicated that the deal announced by the three leaders
in Sunday was far from fleshed out. Speaker Moroz postponed
the opening of the plenary session to 4 p.m.; while the Rada
Secretariat distributed a list of 13 laws related to the

SIPDIS
election that were meant to be passed, MPs complained to us
they had not seen the text of any laws. In addition, no one
we talked to was sure that the Rada would vote to reaffirm
the 53 laws passed since April 2, especially given BYuT and
OU's opposition to a package vote since they did not approve
of all of the measures.


6. (C) Regions MPs Kozhara and Makeyenko claimed to us
separately that Sunday's announcement was a political
statement, not a binding agreement, that the coalition still
had to pass judgment, and suggested that they had doubts as
to whether elections would happen in the fall at all. They
objected to Yushchenko's new decree because it infringed upon
their right to legislate. Moreover, they argued that a
two-day time frame for passing all the legislation named in
the agreement was unrealistic. Budget Chairman Makeyenko
said it would take at least a week just to amend the budget
to cover election financing and to increase pensions and
salaries as announced by the Cabinet. Makeyenko also
stressed that Yanukovych's statements since Sunday morning
had added the phrase "if there are new elections," suggesting
that it had not yet been decided. Kozhara told us that a
constitutional amendment had to be part of the package (note:
this has been one of the sticking points; Yanukovych told
visiting DAS Kramer that it was not essential, see ref B).


7. (SBU) Aides for Tymoshenko and other BYuT MPs claimed to
us that Regions and Moroz were already dragging the process
out again. They said that Moroz had announced that before
any voting took place, there would be a full day of committee
work to review proposed amendments and laws. They agreed
with the Regions MPs, assessment that the Rada could not
make all the necessary legislative changes in just two days.
There was also some disagreement about whether the opposition
was ready to resign from the Rada, as required in the deal.
A BYuT aide said many of her faction's MPs did not want to
relinquish their summer bonus of $4000. Svitlana Gumenyuk,
an aide to OU MP Bezsmertniy, disputed such rumors, saying
that OU was in the Rada, ready to hold an afternoon session
and to resign en masse as planned. BYuT leader Tymoshenko
was doing her part to stir the pot of discontent, marching
through the Rada hallways with a pack of journalists talking
about the political compromise as a "complete victory" for
the opposition.


8. (C) Comment. These comments indicate that much of the
rank and file in all of the parties represented in the Rada
(except for the Communists) have not been brought into the
discussions that led to Sunday's compromise deal. In fact,
the overriding concern for most deputies is whether or not
they will be able to hold on to their Rada seats if and when
there are new elections. In our view, the party leaderships
have the ability to get enough deputies in line in order to
implement the agreement. What is interesting is that they
have not yet done so (with the possible exception of Our
Ukraine).

Institutional watch: Courts, Prosecutor, Interior Troops
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9. (C) The end game of the most recent crisis laid bare the
weaknesses of several key institutions which remain
relatively unreformed from Soviet-era precedents and
behaviors: the courts, the general prosecutor's office, and
the interior troops. Yanukovych's initial May 4 agreement to
early elections came in the wake of Yushchenko's moves to
dismiss two Kuchma-appointees on the Constitutional Court
(CC) and engineer a change in the Prosecutor General's
office. However, as the political crisis lurched on through

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May, and Yushchenko dismissed a third Kuchma appointee May
10, the three justices continued to report to work at the
court, buoyed by mid-May local district court rulings in
Donetsk and Luhansk, in Regions' home base but seemingly far
from any jurisdiction to rule on a presidential decree
involving constitutional court justices. One of them,
Pshenychniy, assumed the role of Acting Court Chair May 17
after previous Chair Dombrovskiy stepped down from the
position; one justice (Lylak) tendered his resignation May 21
due to his refusal to serve under Pshenychniy, and the Rada
voted to dismiss another (Stetsyuk, an OU nominee) May 23 for
making a public statement suggesting he would not take part
in proceedings due to pressure on the court. The Court's
press service indicated May 29 that the court continues to
lack a quorum of 12 justices, with seven (of 18) on leave or
listed as sick. While the May 27 deal, if implemented, takes
the pressure off the CC to resolve the political crisis, its
own institutional crisis and the perceived legitimacy of its
justices, as well as any potential rulings, will remain a
matter of debate.


10. (SBU) Over the May 27-29 holiday weekend, both Oleksandr
Piskun -- who returned as Prosecutor General in early May but
whom Yushchenko tried to dismiss May 24, sparking the PGO
scuffle -- and Viktor Shemchuk -- appointed by Yushchenko as
Acting PGO May 24 -- claimed to be Prosecutor General.
Piskun held a meeting with deputy prosecutors (nearly all
with Donetsk roots and affiliated with Regions) and
provincial prosecutors, at least one of whom spoke to the
press afterwards and said he recognized Piskun's authority.
Shemchuk held a session at the Presidential Secretariat;
attendance was not released. The matter will likely be
settled by the courts, which have been issuing contradictory
rulings over the PGO office, or could be the subject of a
future political compromise.


11. (C) Of potentially more concern is the confusion over
chain of command for Interior Troops, a military formation
led by a Presidential appointee (currently General Kikhtenko)
normally reporting to the Interior Minister (MOI). After
Yushchenko issued a May 25 decree subordinating the Interior
Troops to him rather than Minister Tsushko, regional branches
reacted in different ways. Interior troops based in
Dnipropetrovsk and Zhytomyr started moving towards Kyiv,
apparently on Kikhtenko's instruction, before being stopped
by road blockades set up by the road police (DAI),which are
under MOI authority, and Regions MPs. Those in
Regions-leaning Kharkhiv and Crimea, however, announced they
would continue to respect Tsushko's authority. As far as we
can determine, none of these forces ever actually entered
Kyiv. It was Tsushko's intervention with Berkut riot police
at the GPO May 24 which led to the first known scuffle
between armed security forces in Ukraine's 16-year history, a
sobering precedent which helped set the stage for the
all-night negotiations leading to the May 27 deal. A Deputy
Interior Ministry asserted to the press on May 29 that these
forces were under the control of the Interior Minister, but
thus far, the President has not rescinded his May 25 decree.


12. (U) Visit Embassy Kyiv's classified website:
www.state.sgov.gov/p/eur/kiev.
Taylor