Continual
confrontation in Ukraine is frustrating hopes for a political consensus in
making strategic decisions or stepping up the badly-needed reform process,
PACE’s monitoring co-rapporteurs have warned. In an information note Hanne
Severinsen and Renate Wohlwend regretted the "incessant tug-of-war" between President Yushchenko and
Prime Minister Yanukovich, and said the "promises of the Maidan" had
not been met. They called on Ukraine to resolve its constitutional crisis in
order to move ahead with serious reform.
“The
political reality in today's Ukraine shows that, apart from the conduct of free
and transparent elections in March 2006, the promises of the Maidan to introduce
clean, honest and competent governance and promote the rule of law and
transparency at all levels have not been met. The new Cabinet is top-heavy with
officials who personified the corrupt fusion of business interests with the
government and the manipulation of elections before the Orange Revolution
period. The non-transparent way in which the coalition negotiations were
conducted over half a year, the mismatch of the political 'colours' of the
so-called coalition partners and the murky deals that the short-lived 'grand
coalition' stemmed from means that people do not finally know who they voted
for," the note says.
According to PACE's monitoring co-rapporteurs, the
incessant tug of war between President Yushchenko and Prime Minister Yanukovych
follows the unfortunate example of Our Ukraine and the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc
that began to destroy themselves already during the election race a year ago. The
continual confrontation frustrates the hopes for a political consensus in
making strategic decisions or stepping up the badly needed reform process. President
Yushchenko's Universal in August 2006 was in itself a positive attempt to
maintain the momentum of the reforms launched by Mr Yekhanurov's government as
well as the course towards Euro-Atlantic integration; however, in reality it
only enabled the Party of Regions to come to power and exercise it without too
much regard for its provisions.
"Ukraine's unpredictable political system
without fixed rules, moral umpires or political traditions, where agreements
between political forces are signed only to be broken on the following day,
coupled with the lack of strategy and transparency, disinterest in reforms and
the return of discredited personnel from the Kuchma era to the state apparatus
cast doubt on the irreversibility of the spirit of the Universal, augment the
gap between the state and society in Ukraine and seriously undermine Ukraine's
international reputation as a reliable partner," the document warns.
