TWO RULERS

Early March saw a peak in the latest phase of the aggravation of the long-standing political crisis in Ukraine. The Party of Regions and the Communists have effectively blocked Rada's work, insisting that the country's laws relating to Kiev's accession to NATO need to be amended. Hours-long consultations and discussions ended equally fruitlessly. According to the country's constitution, once parliament has been inactive for 30 days (the countdown started on 13 February) it has to be dissolved and early elections scheduled. However, as the date draws near, Ukrainian politicians are noticeably losing their nerve. President Viktor Yushchenko reminded them, through Ukrainian Security Council Secretary Raisa Bohatyryova, that this threat was quite a real one. It is hardly necessary to explain what new elections would mean for the Ukrainian public, which has re-elected the Rada with "enviable" regularity in recent times.

At the most critical moments, Ukrainian deputies do not shy away even from fisticuffs to protect their positions. However, this time around they have managed to get by without a melee: the passage to the speaker's podium was simply blocked with a chair and the speaker's seat, instead of its legitimate occupant, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, was occupied by the calm figure of Regional Faction member Oleksiy Zhuravko.

As mentioned above, the rebellious behaviour of the parliamentarians was triggered by a debate over the mechanism for reaching a decision on Ukraine's accession to NATO. In January, Viktor Yushchenko, Prime Minister Yuliya Timoshenko and Supreme Rada Speaker Arseniy Yatsenyuk sent a letter to NATO headquarters requesting a Membership Action Plan for the country.

As a result, the displeased "regionals" and "communists," who are certain that Ukraine is being "forced" into NATO, not only blocked Parliament's work, but also decided to start mass protest actions. At long last, the opposition and the ruling coalition managed somehow to agree on the text of a conciliatory decree. In particular, the document stated that a decision on Ukraine's accession to NATO will be reached "in accordance with the results of a referendum held on the people's initiative."

It should be noted that, while Ukrainian law makers were trying to break through the barricades of chairs, the leadership of the North Atlantic alliance - having apparently recalled the axiom "better safe than sorry" - decided to turn down the requests of both Kiev and Tbilisi. There will be no membership action plan for Ukraine or Georgia. The reason for this decision was also given: the absence of consensus on this issue among the NATO member countries. German Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke later against Georgia's and Ukraine's accession to NATO. In support of her position, she cited the argument that, in her opinion, only those countries where a significant part of the population, as well as the politicians, want to join the alliance should join NATO.

In Russia, the statement by Robert Simmons, the NATO Secretary General's Special Representative for the Caucasus and Central Asia, was immediately linked to Russian President Vladimir Putin's words that, "it is scary to even think about" what would happen if Moscow re-targeted its missiles at Ukraine in response to Kiev's accession to NATO. However, a number of Russian analysts have also suggested that Brussels is simply bluffing and biding its time until the moment is right for "consensus" on Ukraine and Georgia. It would be fair to say, therefore, that the "regionals", who have "made the moment wrong", had some degree of success. Especially if the ulterior motive for their anger over "Ukraine's being forced towards NATO" is the desire to return to power. The "Orange" coalition, at least, believes this to be the case. However, it is clear that both the tactical victory of the opposition and the "reconciliatory decree" signify only a brief calm before the next phase of aggravation, when chairs and threats will again be brought into play.

A completely different issue is worrying everyone, however. Confrontation between the ruling coalition and the opposition in Parliament is quite a normal phenomenon but, in Ukraine, the situation is complicated by the fact that the ruling "orange" coalition is so fragile. The leaders of its two constituent parts, Yuliya Timoshenko and Viktor Yushchenko, are not particularly fond of each other, despite their support for the "orange" ideas which they share. Their mutual resentment is quite a long-standing issue: Yushchenko has already once endorsed the resignation of a Timoshenko Cabinet. Apparently, in anticipation of a possible repetition of the scenario, Yuliya Timoshenko said that constitutional reform has gathered a head of steam in Ukraine because there are effectively two executive branches in the country: one headed by the president and the other by the prime minister. In particular, at the Ukraine-EU conference in Brussels, Timoshenko said she was certain that the Supreme Rada would support changes to the constitution envisaging a transition from the mixed parliamentary-presidential model to a parliamentary system of government. "Only the parliamentary form of government has a chance of approval by Parliament," the prime minister noted, adding that, in her opinion, the presidential form of government will not receive the approval of Ukrainian deputies.

The confrontation between the prime minister and the president manifested itself particularly clearly during the latest Russian-Ukrainian natural gas dispute. Yushchenko and Timoshenko competed for the title of solver of the Russian natural gas problem, that is, who would be able to pay off the debt and suggest an effective mechanism for buying gas from Russia. Without going into all the details and controversies of the debate between Kiev and Moscow over this issue, here is the essence: Naftohaz Ukrayiny and Gazprom are painfully seeking agreement on contracts for 2008 and on the amount of debt accrued to Russia by Ukraine.  Moscow even went as far as turning off the gas valve to Kiev. Further, the agreements reached on 12 February in Moscow during a meeting between Viktor Yushchenko and Vladimir Putin left Yuliya Timoshenko dissatisfied. And it should be added here that the conflict between prime minister and president over the natural gas issue is deeply rooted in the question of access to the funds which are synonymous with power.

It is clear, therefore, that the three main forces in the Ukrainian political arena - Yuliya Timoshenko, Viktor Yushchenko and Viktor Yanukovich - will again cross swords more than once. And it is even clearer that any one of them might take advantage of a conflict between the other two. In particular, the chances are high that Viktor Yanukovich will now begin to follow closely the probable process of transition from the "combined parliamentary and presidential form of government to a parliamentary system...."