Blue &Yellow: Politics and Economics in Ukraine

The president resurrects the idea of a new constitution even as he calls for early elections.  BYuT isn't interested in funding the president's project. According to Eurasia Daily Monitor (Volume 6, Issue72) the president's renewed called for a new constitution is not supported by any of the other faction leaders. 

The main change Yushchenko proposed was the introduction of a bicameral parliament to replace the current unicameral chamber. The upper chamber would serve as both the body representing the regions -as each region would elect three senators- and mitigate conflict between the president and the lower chamber. However, Yushchenko is too politically weakened, and his draft constitution has been rejected by his rivals. Several of them claimed that Yushchenko was not driven by concerns over political stability, but his desire to retain power in some form after the forthcoming presidential election -which he is widely expected to lose- prompting an attempt to change the constitution, and make former presidents life-time senators.

 

Tymoshenko is his most outspoken critic, saying that the draft constitution is designed "to employ one person," the incumbent president (Ukraina TV, April 3). The Parliamentary Speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn, an ally of Tymoshenko's, warned that the senate would be full of "oligarchs." Former Speaker Arseny Yatsenyuk, currently one of the most popular presidential hopefuls, predicted that an upper chamber would complicate the legislative process. Even the PRU, which has always favored strengthening the regional element within the government, has not been enthusiastic, saying that Yushchenko's idea is too late (Ukrainska Pravda,March 31).

From BBC Ukraine, Communists , Regions, and a part  of Nasha Ukraine block vote on anti-crisis bill in Rada.Oleksandr Stoyan from Regions explained that the legislation is bad for small and medium business and that Regions is against cuts in the state pension.  In response to this action, the Tymoshenko government has circumvented the Rada and adopted the reforms on its own, according to Forbes. 

President wants funding for early simultaneous elections, but the Communists are against early Rada elections. Taras Kuzio doesn't like the idea either. 

There are in fact five good reasons why holding pre-term parliamentary elections is a bad, unnecessary and wasteful idea.
First, it would require time-consuming constitutional and legislative changes when Ukraineshould be focusing on dealing with the impact of the global crisis. Second, it would be expensive and, just like last years pre-term elections, unnecessary. While Ukraine is affected by the global crisis a better option than early elections is for the current parliamentary orange coalition  to be expanded again to grand by adding a fourth faction, the Party of Regions.
Third, simultaneous elections would mean nobody was in charge and that the authorities had gone on holiday.
Fourthly, the argument that pre-term elections would bring new blood into parliament is not convincing, except for those who want to see the populist-nationalist Svoboda enter parliament. Representatives of the rising young generation of politicians – Arseniy Yatseniuk, Anatoliy Grytsenko, Yuriy Lutsenko – are already in parliament or government. Leaving elections to be held until 2012 would permit this rising generation to build up their current weakly organised political forces and for other young generation to appear and follow suit.
Fifthly, why should Ukraine hold pre-term elections only in order for Yushchenko and Baloga to enter parliament to receive immunity? Yushchenko has nothing to fear from criminal charges once he loses the elections after which he should plan on adopting the role of an elder statesman. As for Baloga, he should be dealt with by the prosecutor’s office.

 He also points out in another post that Yushchenko's decision to anoint Yatseniuk as his successor may have the same effect that Bush had on McCain. 

Meanwhile, a BYuT deputy, Andrie Kojem'yakin, does not rule out a BYuT-Regions coalition. He cites the present economic and political events in Ukraine and suggests that something could happen between two parties. More importantly, he says that Regions support for anticrisis legislation is needed before BYuT will support early Rada elections. 

 Its unclear how serious these discussion are among the two parties, there have been attempts in the past to form a ByuT-Regions coalition without success. I think the last attempt collapsed because Tymoshenko and Yanukovich could not work together. However, the real possibility of early simultaneous elections means that the two could be thinking about working together to get what they want. In Tymoshenko's case it’s the presidency and for Yanukovich its a return to the prime ministership, without destroying each other's chances.