Ukraine opposition supports return of 2004 constitutional amendments

The leading civic organization of the EuroMaidan, the All-Ukrainian Maidan Unification, issued a Feb. 11 statement calling for a return of the 2004 constitutional amendments that created a parliamentary-presidential republic in which government authority is shared between the two organs. The same day, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, leader of the Fatherland parliamentary faction, said all three parliamentary opposition parties support a return of the 2004 constitutional amendments.

Zenon Zawada: It’s clear that the two leading opposition parties, Fatherland and the Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reform (UDAR) , were widely criticized for drafting their separate versions of a new Constitution, which not only markedly differed from each other but also bore differences from the 2004 constitution that the opposition was supposed to rally around. So Yatsenyuk was doing damage control when endorsing the 2004 constitution, which is widely agreed to be the best temporary means of significantly de-escalating the crisis. It would deprive President Viktor Yanukovych of much of the power that he usurped in 2010 and would lay the groundwork for his gradual removal from the presidency.