The Hindu : International : Ukraine Parliament backs reforms

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Thursday, Dec 09, 2004

International

International

Ukraine Parliament backs reforms

By Vladimir Radyuhin

MOSCOW, DEC. 8. Ukraine's Parliament on Wednesday approved a package of bills to defuse a post-election crisis that has gripped the post-Soviet republic for over two weeks.

Verhovna Rada overwhelmingly endorsed a constitutional reform to trim presidential powers and amendments to the electoral law to prevent the kind of fraud that ruined a close presidential race last month and provoked a full-fledged political crisis.

The power reform effectively transforms Ukraine from a presidential to a parliamentary republic. It transfers power to appoint all top posts except for the Prime Minister, Defence and Foreign Ministers from the President to Parliament. Even then the Parliament has a key say in choosing Prime Minister as the President nominates a candidate for the post after consultations with the parliamentary parties. The President's candidates for the Defence and Foreign Ministers also need to be approved by legislators.

Package deal

The Opposition led by the former Prime Minister, Viktor Yushchenko, lifted its objections to supporting changes in the Constitution after the outgoing President, Leonid Kuchma, agreed to sack the Prosecutor-General and overhaul the Central Election Commission. The Opposition also won a nine-month delay for the power reform, which will become effective from September 1, 2005.

The package deal clears the way to a re-run of the second-round runoff between Mr. Yushchenko and the Prime Minister, Viktor Yanukovich, whose victory in the Nov. 21 vote was overturned by the Supreme Court last week.

It is yet to be seen whether the compromise achieved in Kiev today will help douse separatist tendencies in the pro-Russian south-eastern regions which threatened to vote for autonomy if the pro-Western Opposition leader becomes President. Russia, which backed Mr. Yanukovich in the presidential poll, accused the West of interfering in the crisis by using double standards in election monitoring and bringing pressure on the Supreme Court and the Government.

The NATO military alliance today postponed ministerial talks with Ukraine until a "legitimate government" is in place in Kiev, an official said.

Russian prosecutors today reconfirmed an arrest warrant issued through Interpol for Mr. Yushchenko's right-hand ally, Yulia Timoshenko. She is accused of swindling the Russian Defence Ministry of hundreds of millions of dollars when she was Deputy Prime Minister in Ukraine's Cabinet headed by Mr. Yushchenko in 1999-2001.

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