Ukrainian Journal suggests that Ukraine may be about to abandon semi-presidentialism.

Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko’s party and the Regions Party of Viktor Yanukovych have been in discussion about constitutional reforms. The report in Ukrainian Journal says that 90% of issues have been agreed between the two parties. However, the crucial issue of whether the president should be directly elected or elected by parliament remains outstanding.

A clue as to what the final decision might be is contained in the article, which reports an opinion poll that indicated both Tymoshenko and Yanukovych would be defeated in a presidential election run-off by Arseniy Yatseniuk, who was dismissed as the Speaker of parliament in November 2008 and who is supposedly about to form his own party. Were the president to be elected by parliament, then it would be easier for Tymoshenko and Yanukovych to agree a deal. Currently, they have the support of slightly more than 300 of the 450 seats in the Rada. A constitutional amendment requires a two-thirds majority.

The negotiations between the Tymoshenko bloc and the Regions Party do not appear to be involving President Yushchenko or his party. Bear in mind that the Regions Party is, officially, an opposition party and that Yulia Tymoshenko is in coalition with some of the supporters of President Yushchenko. So, the situation is complex and wonderfully machiavellian.

As reported in a previous post a coalition deal has been reached in Ukraine that sees Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko remain in office. The deal brings together her own party, the small Lytvyn People’s Bloc and President Yushchenko’s Our Ukraine-People’s Self-defense group, or at least some of the members of this group. Ukrainian Journal reports that the President’s group has split over the coalition deal and the supporters of the President are now in a minority.

The Our Ukraine-People’s Self-defense group has 72 seats in the Rada. Apparently, 37 voted to support the coalition agreement and 35 opposed. The President opposed the deal. The leader of the group, a presidential supporter, has now stepped down claiming that he does not have the confidence of the group’s members. A press agency is reporting that President Yushchenko is talking of expelling the members of the group who voted for the coalition.

The support from (part of) the President’s group was enough to see the coalition approved, but it may not be enough for legislation to be passed. So, Ukrainian Journal speculates that Prime Minister Tymoshenko will need the support of the pro-Russian Communist party as well.

In Ukraine RTE/RFL reports Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko as saying that the government crisis is over. In contrast to previous speculation, the cabinet will reprise the Orange coalition from December 2004. Crucially, though, a new partner has also been included. Former colleague of President Viktor Yushchenko, Volodymyr Lytvyn, was elected speaker of parliament and his group, the Lytvyn People’s Bloc, which has 20 seats in parliament, has been included in the coalition. This gives the government around 248/450 seats.

The extremely complicated political situation in Ukraine may claim semi-presidentialism as its victim. Ukrainian Journal reports that Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and former prime minister, Viktor Yanukovych, leader of the opposition Party of the Regions, are pursuing negotiations to form a new government. Together, they would enjoy a substantial majority in the legislature.

One of the items being discussed is the idea that Tymoshenko would remain in power until 2012, while Yanukovych would be elected as president by parliament following a constitutional amendment next year. Needless to say, President Viktor Yushchenko opposes the reform, though he may be powerless to prevent it. He may still wish to dissolve parliament to try to return a legislature more favourable to him. However, he remains unpopular and there is no guarantee that fresh elections would significantly alter the parliamentary arithmetic.

In October President Yushchenko dissolved parliament and called a snap election scheduled for 7 December. (See a previous post). A couple of weeks later, he announced that the election would be delayed by a week. Now, RFE/RL reports that the election has been delayed again. The election will not take place before the Orthodox Christmas on 6 January 2009. No date after that time has been set.

One reason for the delay is that Yulia Tymoshenko’s supporters opposed the election. As a result, parliament is refusing to grant funding for it.

I admit to being more than a little confused about the situation in Ukraine. My understanding was that when the government collapsed Yulia Tymoshenko would no longer be prime minister. However, this is clearly wrong. She is still in office, though also at odds, to say the least, with the president.

To further add to the complications, Ukrainian Journal reports that the opposition Regions Party, the largest group in Parliament, is flexing its muscles. With the help of some small parties plus defections from President Yushchenko’s party, they have managed to engineer the dismissal of the speaker of Parliament, who was an ally of President Yushchenko. Moreover, they are now trying to have Prime Minister Tymoshenko dismissed. As far as I can gather, they are trying to get parliament to reconvene to discuss the financial crisis. If they can do so, then they can also lodge a vote of no-confidence. If they do that, then they believe that they have the votes to dismiss Prime Minister Tymoshenko. To dismiss the speaker of parliament, they gathered 233 votes in the 450-member parliament. If they can dismiss Tymoshenko, then they will argue that they can form a new government based on that coalition, which would presumably mean that Viktor Yanukovych would once again become the prime minister. This would, also presumably, mean that an election would not take place as a viable government had been formed.

The crisis in Ukraine deepens. President Yushchenko has dissolved parliament and called a snap election probably for 7 December. There is a good report by RFE/RL. There is also a slightly more detailed report in UkrainianJournal.

In one sense, this seemed like a surprising move, because recent stories had indicated that in recent days former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko had been back-pedalling somewhat and had been willing to revive the coalition with President Yushchenko’s movement. However, the president’s decision and the extremely bitter rhetoric that he used in his dissolution announcement against former prime minister Tymoshenko suggests that any post-election deal will be difficult to reach.

UkrainianJournal reports that the deal that was once proposed between the Tymoshenko block and the Party of the Regions was scuppered because the latter wanted the premiership and Tymoshenko refused to step down. Of course, the Party of the Regions may have calculated that this would happen in the hope that an election would be called and that it would benefit from the situation.

The phony war in Ukraine has finally come to an end as the governing coalition has been dissolved. According to the Constitution, there are now 30 days for a new government to be formed, otherwise an election can be called. The most likely coalition is between former Prime Minister Tymoshenko’s bloc and the Russia-focused Party of the Regions.

The next presidential election is due to be held in October 2009. Prime Minister Tymoshenko is likely to want to stand. Currently, President Yushchenko is extremely unpopular and his chances of being re-elected are slim. However, he is unlikely to step down. In addition, Viktor Yanukovych, the leader of the Party of the Regions, will also want to stand. The small number of coalition options and the potential for ongoing competition between the three leaders for the next year of more is likely to mean a period of instability even if parliament is dissolved.

The governmental situation in Ukraine has been bad for months now, but it appears as if the coalition has finally collapsed.

In parliament, Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko’s party allied with the opposition to pass a number of bills reducing the powers of the president. As a result, the BBC reports that all but one of 12 ministers from President Viktor Yushchenko’s party boycotted yesterday’s cabinet meeting. President Yushchenko is quoted as saying: “I will use my right to dissolve parliament and decree early elections if a new coalition is not formed within 30 days”.

Ukrainianjournal.com reports that one bill allows parliament to dismiss the foreign affairs and defense ministers, both of whom are currently nominated by the president. Apart from any other reasons, this change is particularly sensitive because President Yushchenko has been outspoken in his condemnation of Russia’s actions in Georgia and has called for Ukraine’s swift entry into NATO. However, this is opposed by the opposition Russia-focused Party of the Regions. Prime Minister Tymoshenko’s alliance with the Party of the Regions suggests that she has switched sides on this issue. Other bills take away the president’s power to nominate the head of the SBU security service and make it easier to impeach the president. President Yushchenko will probably veto all of the bills, but the alliance between Prime Minister Tymoshenko and the Party of the Regions is sufficient for presidential vetoes to be overridden.