With the kind permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, InfoUkes Inc. has been given rights to electronically re-print these articles on our web site. Visit the RFE/RL Ukrainian Service page for more information. Also visit the RFE/RL home page for news stories on other Eastern European and FSU countries.
CHECHEN RESISTANCE COMMANDER SAYS SLAIN PRO-MOSCOW LEADER WAS FSB STOOGE. In a lengthy interview with "Banderivets," the organ of followers of Ukrainian nationalist leader Stepan Bandera, Chechen Republic Ichkeria President and resistance commander Doku Umarov alleged that Akhmad-hadji Kadyrov, the pro-Moscow Chechen administration head killed in a terrorist bombing in May 2004, was an FSB stooge since before the collapse of the USSR, and that claims that Kadyrov and his son Ramzan fought in the ranks of the resistance during the 1994-96 Chechen war are untrue. Elsewhere in the interview, which was posted in Russian translation on March 7 on the Chechen resistance website kavkazcenter.com, Umarov said that despite the deaths last year of two prominent resistance figures, military operations have not ceased "for a single day," and the operations that are publicly reported constitute no more than 5-10 percent of the total number. Umarov denied that the Chechen resistance was responsible either for the deaths of hostages during the Moscow theater siege in October 2002, or for the killing of schoolchildren in Beslan in September 2004. He said President Putin could have prevented those deaths, but chose not to do so. At the same time, Umarov implied that the resistance may retreat from the prohibition imposed by his predecessor Aslan Maskhadov on acts of war against civilians, saying the resistance is prepared to adhere to international laws of warfare to the degree that Russia also does so. Umarov said the resistance is watching closely the negotiations surrounding the final status plan for Kosova, accusing the international community of double standards. He reasoned that the examples of both Kosova and East Timor show that it is force, rather than international law, that is decisive in obtaining independent statehood, but added that "the Kosova precedent can influence the situation in the Caucasus only in the context of a tradeoff between the West and Russia." Umarov said he would welcome the creation of a forum in which all repressed former Soviet peoples would be represented. LF
END NOTE: CALLS FOR EARLY UKRAINIAN ELECTIONS UNLIKELY TO SUCCEED xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT PROCLAIMS 'KEY THESES' FOR NATION. Speaking at Ivan Franko National University in Lviv on March 6, Viktor Yushchenko voiced what he described as two "key theses" for the Ukrainian nation, UNIAN reported. First, Yushchenko stressed that Ukraine needs changes to the constitution because, he added, the 2004 political reform has upset the balance between power branches. Second, the president said that the Ukrainian authorities need to formulate a system of priorities for themselves. According to Yushchenko, such priorities should include supporting Ukrainian as the state language, forming a competitive market in the country, pursuing European integration, making Ukraine's national security a part of European security, and uniting the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. JM
UKRAINE, HUNGARY SIGN COOPERATION DEAL. Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych and his Hungarian counterpart Ferenc Gyurcsany signed a bilateral cooperation accord for 2007 in Budapest on March 6, Interfax-Ukraine reported. Yanukovych told journalists in Budapest that he offered Hungary the use of Ukrainian gas-storage facilities. According to Yanukovych, Hungary receives 12 billion cubic meters of gas annually via Ukraine but consumes only 8 billion cubic meters. Yanukovych also told journalists that the two countries are discussing plans to build a hydropower plant on the Tisza River. JM
CALLS FOR EARLY UKRAINIAN ELECTIONS UNLIKELY TO SUCCEED
Last week, a lawmaker from the ruling Party of Regions submitted to parliament a draft bill on holding simultaneous early parliamentary and presidential elections this coming fall. A week earlier two opposition parties, the Yuliya Tymoshenko Bloc and Our Ukraine, signed a unity deal in which they pledged to seek early parliamentary elections. Is Ukraine poised to plunge into a whirlwind of electioneering this year?
"We see that the situation is getting out of control, including the president's control," Party of Regions lawmaker Vasyl Kyselyov told journalists two days before submitting his draft bill to the legislature. "Therefore I, as a people's deputy, am working out a draft bill, or a draft resolution, on simultaneous early presidential and parliamentary elections in the fall, approximately on September 30." The next presidential election in Ukraine is due in 2009, and the next parliamentary elections in 2011.
Kyselyov's initiative seems to be the ruling coalition's "asymmetric" response to the opposition's formalized vow to seek early parliamentary elections. Will the Verkhovna Rada put the bill on early parliamentary and presidential elections on its agenda?
Ivan Bokyy, head of the Socialist Party parliamentary caucus, believes that if the political rivalry between Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych and President Viktor Yushchenko continues, Kyselov's proposal may be not only put to a vote but also endorsed by the ruling coalition.
"There is madness on the part of one political force, and the other political force has also begun to go mad and wants to propose this madness to all of Ukraine," Bokyy said. "But if this madness goes on, if this affliction is not cured on Bankova Street [in the presidential administration] or in parliament, if there is not enough sense to realize that playing with the idea of the dissolution of parliament is hopeless, we will have to support this [bill]."
Yanukovych and Yushchenko have recently locked horns over a bill that extends the powers of the cabinet and the parliament at the expense of the president. Yushchenko vetoed the bill but the ruling coalition of the Party of Regions, the Socialist Party, and the Communist Party managed to override his veto with the help of the opposition Yuliya Tymoshenko Bloc. Yushchenko subsequently appealed against the bill to the Constitutional Court.
In what seemed to be a political tit-for-tat, the ruling coalition rejected Yushchenko's nominees for the posts of foreign minister and head of the Security Service.
Ukrainian political analyst Kostyantyn Bondarenko believes that early elections could be a way out of the current political standoff in Ukraine. "There are no legal grounds [for early polls] but there is a problem of confrontation and a problem of the dead end in which Ukraine has found itself because of the institutional confrontation between the Cabinet of Ministers and the Presidential Secretariat," Bondarenko said. "[Such elections] would not be the worst scenario."
Bondarenko is right in suggesting that Kyselyov's draft bill on holding early parliamentary and presidential polls makes no legal sense. Staging early parliamentary elections is the exclusive constitutional prerogative of the president, who calls for such polls if the Verkhovna Rada fails to form a majority within 30 days after its first sitting or a new cabinet within 60 day after the dismissal or resignation of the previous one; or, if it fails to gather for a sitting within 30 days during an ongoing parliamentary session.
Thus, in order to produce formal grounds for early parliamentary elections, the ruling coalition would need to prohibit its lawmakers from convening for a month rather than pass a bill with no legal force.
On the other hand, the opposition could create prerequisites for early parliamentary polls by challenging the legality of Yanukovych's cabinet before the Constitutional Court.
The current Verkhovna Rada convened for its first sitting in late May 2006. The parliamentary majority supporting Yanukovych's cabinet was formed in early August 2006, thus apparently overstepping the time frame set by the constitution by more than a month. Consequently, if the Constitutional Court confirmed that Yanukovych's cabinet was formed beyond this time frame, Yushchenko could dissolve the legislature and call for new elections.
The Ukrainian Constitution stipulates that an early presidential ballot may be held only after the incumbent president has resigned or died, has become unable to perform his duties because of his health, or has been impeached by parliament. Clearly, no such preconditions are present in Ukraine.
Lawmakers from the ruling coalition seem to realize, too, that Kyselyov's draft bill is more of a propaganda move than a real threat to Yushchenko's presidency. Lawmaker Volodymyr Zubanov from the Party of Regions suggested that Yushchenko could resign as Leonid Kravchuk, Ukraine's first president, did in 1994 in order to defuse a political confrontation.
"In 1994, when there was a parliamentary and presidential crisis, Kravchuk agreed to leave his post before the end of his term and hold an early election," Zubanov said. "I think that today it would be timely for Yushchenko to step down and hold early [parliamentary and presidential] elections on September 30."
But Yushchenko has no intention of following in Kravchuk's footsteps. Last week, Yushchenko said the idea to hold an early presidential election is "provocation, blackmail, and psychological pressure." According to him, potential early parliamentary elections would reinstall the same political forces in parliament that are there now.
This week, Yanukovych also went public and said that the calls for early parliamentary and presidential elections are "groundless." Yanukovych's statement may imply the imminent withdrawal of Kyselyov's draft bill from the legislative agenda.
However, the topic of early parliamentary elections is likely to remain on the public agenda in Ukraine. This because the Yuliya Tymoshenko Bloc, a major opposition force in the country, seems to be interested in holding such polls.
According to recent sociological surveys, the Yuliya Tymoshenko Bloc could count on some 28 percent of the vote in parliamentary elections -- that is, 6 percent more than it won in the March 2006 ballot.
Surveys also suggest that the Party of Regions could repeat its election result from 2006 by winning 32 percent of the vote. The heaviest losers would be Our Ukraine with only 7 percent of the vote (14 percent in 2006) and the Socialist Party, which currently scores below the 4 percent voting threshold required for parliamentary representation.
Yuliya Tymoshenko, who had a series of high-profile meetings and talks in Washington last week, returned to Kyiv with the news that the West would support early parliamentary elections in Ukraine if they were "constitutional, democratic, and legal." She appears determined to pursue the early-election idea at least for the time being.
(Tetyana Yarmoshchuk from RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service contributed to this report.)