UKRAINE: RADA SPUTTERS TO A CLOSE AS ATTENTION

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 KYIV 001515 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/21/2017 TAGS: PGOV PREL UP SUBJECT: UKRAINE: RADA SPUTTERS TO A CLOSE AS ATTENTION SHIFTS TO THE CENTRAL ELECTION COMMISSION REF: A. KYIV 1458 ¶B. KYIV 1507 ¶C. KYIV 01458 KYIV 00001515 001.2 OF 003 Classified By: Deputy Chief of Mission Sheila Gwaltney for reasons 1.4( a,b,d). ¶1. (C) Summary. Speaker Moroz closed the Rada's aimless plenary sessions on June 19, clearly under some pressure by Party of Regions leaders and despite earlier vows by Socialists and Communists to continue sessions into July. Moroz read a letter to the Rada written by PM Yanukovych in which the PM thanked the MPs for all their hard work in the Fifth convocation, implying the convocation was closed, although technically MPs continue "constituent work" until June 27. The Speaker later suggested while on a provincial trip to Zhytomyr that MPs could return to the Rada June 27 to vote on constitutional amendments to limit Presidential authority, but few consider Moroz to be capable of derailing the political compromise. The main focus of political developments has shifted to the Central Election Commission (CEC),as technicalities remain unresolved on the path to new elections September 30, including the CEC's standing to annul Our Ukraine (OU)'s 2006 electoral bloc list, removing final challenges to the Rada's lack of a quorum, and the alleged lack of CEC plenary meetings since the sitting of the new, politicized CEC at the beginning of June. President Yushchenko, PM Yanukovych, and CEC Chair Shapoval met June 20 to discuss a way ahead. On the margins, questions continue to percolate both about the viability of an orange megabloc in the new elections and about the status of the Constitutional Court judges Yushchenko fired at the end of April/beginning of May. ¶2. (C) Comment. Shapoval's reluctance to hold a CEC meeting suggests that he is concerned that the majority of CEC members (affiliated with Regions and the coalition) could throw a wrench into the final implementation of the May 27 political compromise by refusing to abolish the OU electoral list and instead voting to seat 32 OU electoral list candidates associated with Minister of Economy Kinakh's Party of Industrials and Entrepreneurs as MPs on the OU quota, thus restoring the Rada's 300 MP quorum. All sides have indicated that a political agreement to dissolve the OU list would take care of this roadblock. Regions leaders such as Yanukovych, Bohatyerva, and Akhmetov have indicated elections will happen, but some Regions MPs, including deputy faction leaders, and Emergencies Minister Nester Shufrych, slated to join the Regions 2007 electoral list, continue actively to question whether elections will be held. It remains unclear whether the June 20 meeting between Yushchenko, Yanukovych, and Shapoval helped to resolve the uncertainty and allow the CEC to move forward. Moroz continues his undignified descent into irrelevancy; his Zhytomyr press conference also included the warning that Yushchenko's team would attempt a "legal formalization of dictatorship" in its own effort to change the Constitution, placing him in the rhetorical camp of Putin, who claimed earlier in June that "tyranny" was approaching in Ukraine. End summary and comment. Rada Sputters Into Vacation -------------- ¶3. (SBU) Despite Moroz's continued attempts to keep the Rada in session as long as possible, with the calendar formally scheduled to end July 13, he announced June 19 that it would be the last day of plenary session. The Rada would move into a week of constituent work--which most MPs treat as vacation or time to tend to personal business interests--before the Rada officially closed June 27, allowing for preparations for the upcoming OSCE Parliamentary Assembly (to be held July 5-9 in Kyiv). He read a letter from Yanukovych that said that the Fifth convocation of the Rada had carried out important government reforms and worked well with the Cabinet. Yanukovych expressed regret that their work had been cut short, thanked them for their efforts, and said the parliament finished its work on a positive note. The same morning, Moroz also read out the resignations of seven more opposition MPs, five from BYuT and two from OU (including 2004 Eurovision winner Ruslana) bringing the total number of resignations to 162. CEC Caught in New Tug of War -------------- ¶4. (C) The center of the Ukrainian political maelstrom has shifted from the Rada to the CEC in the past two weeks. Chairman Shapoval has still not convened a first CEC meeting since it was reconfigured at the beginning of June to give Regions and the coalition an 8-7 majority of commissioners, KYIV 00001515 002.2 OF 003 despite insistent calls from the coalition that he do so immediately. (Note. The new CEC met once with the Border Guards to discuss electoral lists, but this was not considered to be a formal CEC session. End note.) The coalition commissioners have three times convened meetings on their own and then complained that the pro-presidential commissioners did not show up (a quorum of ten commissioners is needed to meet; eight votes are required to pass a decision). Shapoval told us June 12 that legally the CEC could not annul the Our Ukraine party list, because the old parliamentary law--which had allowed the CEC to cancel party lists--had itself been canceled when the amended law was adopted by the Rada on June 1, but the new law was written in a way that it would not come into force until August 1 (ref A). In the Ukrainian system, government bodies are allowed to do only what is written down in law or regulation; the absence of a law saying the CEC can cancel party lists legally prevented it from doing so. ¶5. (SBU) Deputy Head of the Presidential Secretariat Stavnychuk, who until the recent reshuffle was deputy Chair of CEC, reiterated this at a press conference on June 18, although she added that the CEC also did not have the power to move anyone else from the list up into the Rada because of the absences of an in-force CEC law. Although the Kyiv appellate court on June 15 upheld a lower district court ruling ordering the CEC to reconsider OU's request to cancel their list, Shapoval and Stavnychuk have indicted the court ruling is irrelevant without a political agreement to dissolve the list, despite the law and legal gray zone of timing. (Embassy Comment. Bottom line is that in the absence of a clear legal solution, a political decision will have to be made at some point in order to cancel the OU list to move ahead toward September 30 elections. End Comment.) ¶6. (C) The coalition commissioners also have criticized Shapoval for unilaterally allocating responsibility for different oblasts to different commissioners. However, the law on the CEC states that the proper procedure for dividing regional responsibilities among CEC commissioners is for the Chairman to make the decisions; previous chairs have wielded this right without challenge or controversy. Our review of the assignments suggests that, for the most part, Shapoval put the coalition commissioners in charge of eastern and southern Ukraine, and the pro-presidential commissioners in charge of central and western Ukraine. In contrast, for the 2006 cycle, a commissioner disliked by Regions oversaw Donetsk, which helped minimize fraud, according to one seasoned observer. ¶7. (SBU) Yushchenko, Yanukovych, and Shapoval met June 20 to discuss ways to facilitate the CEC working and preparing for elections. According to the press, Yushchenko expressed alarm over the current activity in the CEC and said political pressure on the CEC was unacceptable. He urged the situation to be resolved though talks and hoped that a constructive position on Yanukovych's part would settle the situation and allow the CEC to start working. Yanukovych did not issue any comments. After the meeting, Yushchenko went on national television to urge that the next Rada abolish blanket immunity for parliamentary deputies. Regions Slowly Moving to Prepare for Elections -------------- - ¶8. (SBU) Key Regions leaders--Yanukovych, Bohtyreva, Kolesnikov, and Akhmetov--have begun talking publicly as if new elections are a given. (for Akhmetov's comments, see ref B.) Yanukovych, while in Luxembourg June 18, talked about his hopes for the newly elected Rada. In addition, Regions deputy faction head Chechetov said that the Party's Political Council had met to discuss election preparations; they would meet again June 27 to set a date for a party congress to draw up a party list, probably in early August. However, other Regions leaders have still signaled reluctance to move to elections. On June 20, fellow deputy faction leader Oleksandr Yefremov told the press that his party did not see grounds for elections. Several days earlier, Emergencies Minister Shufrych, a key member of the 2004 Yanukovych election team who is slated to join the Regions list for 2007, expressed similar views in a provincial visit. ¶9. (C) Comment: These conflicting signals could reflect ongoing concerns by Regions MP backbenchers mentioned to us by Tymoshenko June 13 about a lack of assurances of their place on the new party list from Akhmetov, Klyuyev, or Yanukovych (ref C),the trio which Tymoshenko has long maintained represent the primary power centers in Regions. Press speculation also notes that Yanukovych may have no assurances that he will be PM again, either from Yushchenko KYIV 00001515 003.2 OF 003 or Akhmetov, which could contribute to his personal reluctance to fully embrace the path to elections, even as he realizes that there are no good alternatives. Orange Megabloc Faltering -------------- ¶10. (C) Continued disagreements over list quotas, the bloc name, and the platform between presumptive election partners People's Union Our Ukraine, People's Self-Defense, and Pravitsya (Union of Rightist Forces) have held up the formation of a joint election bloc. PSD leader Lutsenko said on June 18 that his movement will only join the bloc if they agree before July 1 on how to allocate Cabinet and Rada leadership positions, and agree not to make issues like Russian language and NATO part of the campaign. In particular, he said that PSD wanted economic and law-enforcement positions in the new government. OU MP Kluchkovskiy said on June 19 that he thought they would reach an agreement on a new name by June 22; other OU leaders insisted "Our Ukraine" needed to be in a "short" bloc name. One Pravitsya leader, Yuriy Kostenko, said the parties had not discussed the top ten names on the list yet. OU leader Kyrylenko said in the end, Yushchenko would pick the list's top ten. Defense Minister Hrytsenko, assumed to be one of the top names on the new list, publicly asked the three parties to stop announcing ultimatums. ¶11. (SBU) OU MP and pop star Ruslana bemoaned the ongoing infighting in OU among the "big egos" to Ambassador on June ¶19. She thought that in the end, Lutsenko would run separately. OU MP Prokopovych suggested the same to Ambassador separately June 19, claiming private polling suggested that OU and Lutsenko running in parallel could gain more votes than as a unified bloc, since they appeal to different electorates. ¶12. (C) A second concern that may be hindering orange cooperation is the rumor that Yushchenko and Akhmetov have already reached an accommodation on an Our Ukraine-Regions coalition after the election. A French diplomat told us on June 21 that MP Katerynchuk, a key Lutsenko ally, had told them that everyone believed that the President had already committed to a coalition with Regions. Deputy Rada Speaker and BYuT MP Tomenko told Unian wire service on June 21 that BYuT had similar suspicions--that Yushchenko and Akhmetov had cut a deal. Tomenko was very clear that BYuT would never be in a coalition with Regions. Katerynchuk, according to the French diplomat, was more circumspect about the future of the coalition of democratic forces, but it is hard to imagine that he and Lutsenko would agree to join with Yanukovych and Regions, although they could conceivably find a way to cooperate. Constitutional Court (CC) Resignations or vacations? -------------- -------------- ¶13. (SBU) In another blip, there has been renewed controversy over whether two of the three judges Yushchenko previously fired in late April/early May, but who have remained in their positions at the CC on the basis of local court rulings, have now resigned. The presidential website posted new presidential decrees on June 14 canceling the President's old decrees firing Judges Pshenychniy and Ivashchenko and accepting their resignations instead. However, the decrees were quickly removed from the website amid explanations of a technical error. The decrees were reissued June 19 along with a firmer statement from the Presidential Secretariat that the two judges had resigned. However, the CC press service on June 20 said that they had no information about any judges resigning. On June 19, CC Judge Bryntsev stated that Stanik and Pshenychniy were on leave. The CC issued two rulings June 19--on amendments to the law on political parties and some provisions in the 2007 budget--with only 13 judges in the session; Pshenychniy was not present. ¶14. (U) Visit Embassy Kyiv's classified website: www.state.sgov.gov/p/eur/kiev. Taylor