02/05/2001 | Broker

Kyiv Post

http://www.kpnews.com/displaypr.php?arid=7286

Brave New World...minus the cowards
By Stephan Ladanaj - KPnews Editor



I'll have to admit, I cheated a little on our Kpnews readers by not posting a Ukrainian News article last week, which had political analysts suggesting that Ukraine's parliament could fall apart at the onset of its seventh session, slated to start right about now.

I had my motives.

I did what I did for totally selfish reasons. I wanted to use someone else's work as the basis for the present op-ed piece.

Spineless of me, I'll have to admit.

That's why I don't blame power-starved heads of state (Ukraine excluded, of course) for ordering top government officials to pop us would-be journalists every once in a while. Sort of like cleansing a democratic society of weasel-like guttersnipes who make it their business to toe an independent line.

We will never understand, the apparent top-down logic goes, that if the script is written for us, all we have to do is read from it.

It's much simpler that way. Independence makes the state weak, and unnecessarily complicates things. The weak and complex must be eliminated.

Good-bye, cowards. Unga-bunga.

THE WAYWARD TANGENT IN ME WILL NEVER LEARN

There I go again.

Instead of directly plunging into the point I want to make, and possibly helping President Leonid Kuchma in promoting his political wishes, I waste my readers' time with possibly senseless, if not completely absurd blubbering.

Which is why I suggest getting back to the break-up of the parliamentary majority.

The Ukrainian News opener from Friday, Jan. 26 reads: "With one week left to the opening of the Seventh Session of Parliament, political analysts are pessimistic about the future of the parliamentary majority that was formed one year ago, and they believe that it may collapse."

Perfect. That's about the best political news for Ukraine that I've heard to date.

The logic, analysts say, according to the article, is that the "pro-presidential" majority, which was formed in January of 2000, was created by force, with right, right-center and oligarchic forces scotch-taping themselves together against the leftists.

That's how I remember it, too. Although I wouldn't necessarily place all the blame for the lack of Ukraine's progress, economic and otherwise, on the left.

Basically, while left and right forces were engaged in a war of ideological annihilation, the pensioner and able-bodied electorate supporting them was taking the brunt of the political abuse through economic deprivation.

From two ends of exactly the same pole, what this fairly broad-based electorate has been doing all along is simply demanding from the state the social-economic security that belongs to them by right.

FORMING A COALITION GOVERNMENT

Since I don't really know what a coalition government is, I'm going to skip this line of argument altogether and move on to my next point.

SCANDAL

I believe that what the scandal surrounding Georgy Gongadze's probable murder by anti-opposition forces has done is essentially calm the political waters in parliament, rather than generate waves.

It has knocked most of the ideological wind out of the opposing camps in parliament and gave people's deputies serving in the majority a sense of relief that they no longer are obliged to serve "The Man", whether they want to or not.

As the Ukrainian News article correctly points out, the supposedly pro-presidential majority has not been able to agree on passing certain legislation, especially laws that would push through the president's favorite war cry - implementation of his referendum results, which would give him more power at the expense of the parliament.

But what they have managed to do along with leftist forces is pass nearly all resolutions surrounding the Gongadze scandal, all of which are aimed against the president.

As a result, by the close of parliament's sixth session, these developments galvanized a rearrangement and movement of otherwise disparate political forces to cooperate in mostly anti-presidential initiatives. A pattern was set uniting left and right that finally made sense to both sides. Only pro-presidential oligarchic forces, which earlier formed part of the majority in parliament, have consciously left themselves out of the loop.

WHAT THIS COMES DOWN TO

The parliamentary majority in its present form has outlived its usefulness. Now a true majority will be able to form on a far more honest and fair basis, joining both left and right.

This is beautifully reflected by the large-scale, well-organized and persistent Ukraine Without Kuchma protest action.

The fact that protesters from purportedly ideologically opposing forces have joined efforts to get Kuchma out of office shows the basic humanity of the movement. People want honesty, and for the government to treat them with respect, first and foremost. They don't need lies. They don't need scandals and deceit.

Once again, as a broad-based electorate, they are demonstrating their desire to live a normal life in a normal country, and it would seem that their elected officials in parliament could finally be getting the message.

And this, too, is beautifully reflected in the brave words of one of the Ukraine Without Kuchma organizers, Yuri Lutsenko.

On the last day of January Lutsenko told a news conference that the political parties participating in the protest are drafting plans to change the structure of Ukraine's government (Feb. 1 Interfax report).

"We see Ukraine as a parliamentary presidential republic with greatly reduced presidential authority and significantly increased authority of the parliament and premier," Lutsenko said.

This, according to another protest organizer at the conference, Volodymyr Chemerys, would mean that the president would be deprived of things like handpicking the governors that he wants in Ukraine's oblasts - minions, by the way, that Kuchma has effectively used to force people to demonstrate in pro-presidential rallies against their wills.

COWARDS NEVER COME TO THE FORE

Instead, what they like to do is hide behind lies, which is what Kuchma has been engaged in doing - apparently, one of his favorite pastimes.

Uncomfortably sandwiched between a now decidedly "anti-presidential" parliament, and a popular movement to change the country's political system aimed at weakening the president, what is "The Kuchma" to do?

According to another Ukrainian News report, on Tuesday, Jan. 30, presidential administration head Volodymyr Lytvyn told a news conference something that the president himself is apparently afraid of repeating yet again - that parliament has to implement the president's referendum results.

"Parliament is simply obligated to return to the issues voted through in the referendum. The president will appeal to Parliament," Lytvyn said.

Really? I don't know what's funnier - the entire phrase, or the word "obligated".

But it's the following bit of news that personally amuses me. According to the Ukrainian News article, Lytvyn does not rule out the possibility that should parliament ignore the referendum results, the president could announce another one.

As if that's going to change things in the president's favor.

"I want those referendum results implemented! I want them, I want them, I want them!"

Mr. President, against the background of everything that's currently going on with your life, isn't that what it basically comes down to?

AND YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE A ROCKET SCIENTIST

Which is exactly what Kuchma was before he became the country's pre-eminent liar.

To take the most basic of absurd presidential quotes to prove my point, I point to a little-known interview Kuchma gave to Radio Liberty a short while back.

In the interview Kuchma says that obscenities heard on a recording of what has been purported to be his voice are not words that he even has in his vocabulary.

The first reason why that is an out-and-out lie is because he said "words like that," strongly implying recognition of those words.

What Kuchma would have been better off saying is "What words? Repeat them to me and I'll tell you if I know them or not."

To say of himself that Kuchma is incapable of recognizing well-known curse words in the Ukrainian and Russian lexicons, let alone using them, is like Lenin saying: "Trotsky??? Hmmm, now where have I heard that name before...???"

During the same interview, Kuchma said that Gongadze was not well-known enough to be a target for murder.

Of course. Why didn't anyone else think of that? Mr. President, that completely exonerates you of any crime that you have been accused of. The logic is solid.

Only a truly well-known Gongadze would be worth killing. Which also means that if he's alive, as your prosecutor-general has maintained, he would be worth rubbing out all over again following all of the publicity he has received.

Mr. President, a time will very shortly come when you will eat all of the words that you have to date spoken to the Ukrainian people.

Bon appetite, Mr. President, but do it on your own time, because your time with the people is fairly nearly up.

Good-bye, coward. Unga-bunga.