UKRAINE: RADA REOPENS, BUT TENSIONS PERSIST

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 KYIV 000709 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/08/2018 TAGS: PGOV PREL PINR UP SUBJECT: UKRAINE: RADA REOPENS, BUT TENSIONS PERSIST Classified By: Ambassador for reasons 1.4(b,d). ¶1. (C) Summary. The Rada reopened in plenary session April 8 after a two-week break and immediately went into a long recess amid recriminations that various factions were plotting against each other. However, all sides managed to find a temporary solution to the disagreements of the day, allowing the parliament to move forward. The two main causes for political uneasiness were an April 7 Constitutional Court ruling that nullified the Rada's entire rules of procedure and an announcement at a press conference by Volodymyr Lytvyn that BYuT and Party of Regions had reached an agreement to raise the threshold for parties to enter the Rada to 11 percent. Although members of all five factions passed a temporary set of rules, giving the Rada a month to formally adopt a new set of rules, Regions publicly accused President Yushchenko of manipulating the Court and OU-PSD MPs told us privately that Regions and BYuT were making political hay to try to force Yushchenko's hand. ¶2. (C) Comment. The coalition remains too tenuous to move forward alone with its agenda, which allows Regions to stall and raise tensions. BYuT and OU-PSD MPs with whom we spoke were clearly frustrated with each other, but no one predicted an imminent change in government. Lytvyn Bloc appears to remain a moderating influence, but shows no desire to more actively assist the coalition with its agenda. If the Rada can manage to work despite all the accusations of political plotting it has an important list of priorities, ready for votes, including the WTO accession package, the election of deputy speakers, and the confirmation of key executive branch appointments. End summary and comment. Rada Rules Nullified -------------- ¶3. (C) In a surprise April 7 ruling, the Constitutional Court announced that in the course of reviewing an appeal by 50 OU-PSD MPs of one paragraph of the Rada's rules of procedure (also called reglament),it had reviewed the entire reglament and deemed it generally unconstitutional. The ruling immediately nullifies the rules of procedure. Lytvyn Bloc deputy leader Zarubinskiy told us April 8 that the basis of the Court's decision was the fact that the reglament had been adopted as a Rada resolution and not as a law. According to Zarubinskiy there are two articles in the constitution that touch on this issue. The first, Article 83.5, says that "the work of the Rada is laid down in the constitution and the Rules of Procedure" of the Rada. The second, Article 92.21 says that "the organization and operational procedure of the Rada" is "determined exclusively by laws." The Court determined, therefore, that the Rules of Procedure must be adopted as a law and not as a resolution. The concerns voiced publicly by Regions and echoed privately by Zarubinskiy are that if the reglament is a law, Yushchenko can veto it if he does not like something, whereas he has no jurisdiction over Rada resolutions, which are internal to the parliament. ¶4. (C) After a two-hour recess, a vote by 386 MPs -- 114 BYuT, 158 Regions, 67 OU-PSD, 27 Communists, and 20 LB -- approved a temporary set of rules of procedure, which will allow the Rules Committee to put together new formal rules within the next month, which will be adopted as a law. The proposal was put forward by Speaker Yatsenyuk, Regions MP and Rules Committee Chairman Yefremov, Communist Martynyuk, and BYuT MP Sas. Senior OU-PSD MP Yuriy Kostenko told us that the whole issue had been overblown by BYuT and Regions trying to make mountains out of molehills. Regions-BYuT Deal in the Works? -------------- ¶5. (C) Compounding the suspicions over the reglament issue was Lytvyn's April 7 statement that BYuT and Regions had reached a deal to raise the election threshold to enter parliament to 11 percent from its current 3 percent. This story -- which periodically circulates -- was first reincarnated two weeks ago, when leading political talkshow host Savik Shuster asked Regions MP Hanna Herman if it was true that her faction had made such a deal with Tymoshenko's bloc. Herman replied that someone in BYuT, whom she would not name, had approached Regions with the proposal, which her faction was considering. OU-PSD MPs and staffers whom we asked all placed the blame on BYuT, saying Tymoshenko wanted a two-party system in order to eliminate her need to cooperate with Yushchenko. Zarubinskiy said that he believed that the 11-percent deal and the CC ruling were both efforts by BYuT and Regions to politically blackmail Yushchenko -- BYuT wanted Yushchenko to leave Tymoshenko alone to govern without interference and Regions wanted a broad coalition. KYIV 00000709 002 OF 002 ¶6. (C) When we asked BYuT MP Filenko about a possible deal with Regions, he said that he was not a participant in the talks but believed they were taking place. Somewhat angrily, he argued that if "someone" was trying to amend the constitution outside the walls of the Rada (a reference to Yushchenko's constitutional council) and was trying to strip the powers of the Rada (a reference to the CC ruling),why shouldn't his faction take steps to protect itself and possibly even seek a new coalition. Adding to OU-PSD's suspicions about collusion between the Rada's two largest factions was an announcement by BYuT faction leader Ivan Kyrylenko that this week the Rada would consider the creation of a temporary committee to amend the constitution, noting that they needed to remove overlaps and contradictions in executive branch functions to empower either the PM or the President. OU-PSD faction leader Vyacheslav Kyrylenko criticized BYuT's plans as an effort to work with Regions to eliminate the presidency and said such actions violated the coalition agreement. Bottom Line: Coalition Remains Weak -------------- ¶7. (C) Coalition members and non-coalition members all pointed to the coalition's lack of a functioning majority in the Rada as the key factor contributing to the Rada's ongoing inability to successfully adopt decisions. Zarubinskiy said that the coalition de facto no longer existed, it was just a paper majority. Kostenko also said that current political instability was due to the coalition lacking 228 votes, along with Regions' desire to not be in the opposition. OU-PSD MP Dzhemilev confided that Regions was looking to slow things up to underscore that the coalition could not open Rada sessions nor move forward on its agenda without outside assistance. Underscoring this lack of ability to work effectively, the Rada did meet for one hour on April 1 -- before declaring the rest of the week would be committee work -- where it tried to dismiss double-encumbered MPs (to dismiss current Regions MPs from executive branch positions they held prior to the September 2007 elections and to remove the Rada seats from MPs who were recently appointed to the executive branch),but could not muster a majority. ¶8. (U) The Rada has a full agenda for the rest of April 8, as well as for the next two weeks. It is scheduled today to consider a number of other Yushchenko-initiated bills, most notably the President's proposal to make the Interior Ministry troops a national guard under the President's control. Also on the agenda, an OU-PSD law on how political parties can merge into one larger party, Regions' law on the opposition, and an OU-PSD sponsored bill to eliminate many deputy perks. During this plenary week, the Rada is also supposed to vote on nominations for key executive branch positions -- Nalyvaychenko at SBU, Portnov at State Property Fund, Haiduk as DPM -- and on deputy speaker. Press reports indicate that Regions will nominate as first deputy speaker either Andriy Klyuyev, Serhiy Lyovochkin, or Nestor Shufrych but no one in the Rada would speculate who the pick would be. In addition, the WTO accession package and the law on foreign military cooperation are in committee and awaiting votes. ¶9. (U) Visit Embassy Kyiv's classified website: www.state.sgov.gov/p/eur/kiev. Taylor