Ukraine parliament may elect presidential ally as prime minister

Ukraine’s parliamentary majority will convene the parliament’s new season today with the election of longtime presidential ally Andriy Klyuyev as the new prime minister, as reported by opposition MPs and political pundits. Klyuyev previously served as National Security and Defense Council secretary before being appointed Presidential Administration chair on Jan. 24.

 

Emerging from his period of sick leave, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych attended a roundtable discussion on Feb. 2 and called for an end “to extremism, radicalism, igniting conflict in society on the basis of which a political fight for power has been placed.” He thanked the roundtable for organizing citizens into “a community of healthy people free from Nazism, racism and xenophobia.” Rather than addressing murders, tortures and beatings committed by police, Yanukovych referred to “vandalism that we see after the seizure of state buildings.”

 

The U.S. government is working with the EU and other partners to provide financial support for Ukraine, U.S. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki confirmed on Feb. 3. The talks are in a “very preliminary stage” and involve aid for a new technical government and its renewal of IMF cooperation. The decisions will be made after a new government is formed and consulted, Psaki said, elaborating slightly on comments made the prior day by EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Catherina Ashton.

 

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told German television on Feb. 3 that Ukraine needed to renew the 2004 constitutional amendments creating a parliamentary-presidential republic. “The most important phase has yet to be achieved and that’s changes to the Constitution to cut the power of the president, give more power to the government and return to the Constitution of 2004: that’s the most important piece of work that needs to be done by everyone involved in the situation,” he told ARD civic television. He also said in regard to Russian aid, “We are not supposed to enter a race of who will pay more. We are supposed to be interested in the country returning to a normal condition, that something would emerge in the negotiations between the protesters and president that would before the basis for the country’s political future.”

 

Sanctions are currently supposed to be used as a threat, Steinmeier said. “We are supposed to be ready for the appropriate moment if the progress in negotiations that we expect and demand isn’t achieved during the next days.

 

The Yanukovych administration’s political demands of the opposition in exchange for prisoners contradict democratic principles and are unacceptable, said Elmar Brok, the chair of the foreign affairs committee of the European Parliament. He called for implementing the amnesty law without any demands from the opposition, such as freeing state buildings under its control. “It can be said that the Ukrainian government is holding hostages,” Brok told a press conference in the European Parliament.

 

The Ukrainian government is violating fundamental democratic principles and civil liberties, deeming the human rights situation as “unacceptable.” “People are being thrown in prison, beaten and tortured,” he said. “Many activists have disappeared.” Brok also noted that Yanukovych didn’t meet with an EU parliamentary delegation that visited Kyiv between Jan. 28 and 30. Yanukivych suffered an acute respiratory illness, resulting in his hospitalization between Jan. 30 and Feb. 3. “As soon as we left Kyiv, President Yanukovych suddenly recovered,” he said wryly.

 

The Procurator General of Ukraine has yet to file criminal charges against the police that beat journalists throughout the EuroMaidan protest, beginning with the first assaults on Nov. 30, reported opposition MP Iryna Gerashchenko. A statement from the Procurator General merely promised to continue reviewing the legality of police’s actions. “The Berkut special forces – which smacked the press and shot at reporters – have long ago been granted amnesty without any mindless laws,” she said. Since the EuroMaidan movement was launched on Nov. 21, 136 members of the mass media suffered injuries related to their work, reported Kyiv’s Institute of Mass Information on Feb. 3. Injuries to Euromaidan activists have reached 1,739, with four casualties, reported the EuroMaidan Civic Sector.

 

Zenon Zawada: Klyuyev’s appointment would merely be the latest mistake by the Yanukovych administration in making a disastrous situation even worse. Klyuyev’s appointment will serve to sharpen the conflict with the opposition rather than relieve it. Meanwhile, Yanukovych’s statements upon his return to work confirm that he will continue to fight the opposition rather than seek compromise and reconciliation. In his calls against Nazism and xenophobia, Yanukovych is only exacerbating political and ethnic tensions himself by drudging up historical wounds and sifting salt upon them. In referring to the vandalism of buildings instead of torture of citizens, he is adding insult to injury. We believe that Yanukovych’s tenure as president is not only threat to Ukraine’s stability, but a threat to the nation’s territorial integrity as well.

 

We support the call of Western governments to return the 2004 constitutional amendments that would divide power between the president and parliament. We see the creation of a new majority coalition involving moderates from both sides of the aisle, which would enable Yanukovych’s dismissal, as the best way out of the current situation. Ideally, a new majority would form a technocrat government that would introduce significant structural reforms as means of beginning to address the nation’s political and economic woes.