PACE Rapporteurs very much less than glowing with praise for Ukraine’s politicians

Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe Monitoring Committee Rapporteurs, Hanne Severinsen and Renate Wohlwend, have suggested in their report that the Ukrainian authorities are unable to guarantee the supremacy of law and transparency of administration at all levels.

The PACE rapporteurs pointed to the non-transparency of the negotiations over six months ago on the formation of a coalition, as well as the "opaque" agreements, as a result of which a short-term "broad coalition" emerged.

They consider the new Cabinet of Ministers to be full of officials representing a corrupt merger of business interests and the government with the population not clear who they voted for.

They add that in their opinion, the ongoing confrontation between President Yushchenko and Prime Minister Yanukovych is obstruction the adoption of strategic decisions and the acceleration of absolutely crucial reforms.

The report says that the President’s Universal Memorandum simply made it possible for the Party of the Regions to come to power and to act without paying any heed to its provisions.

The Rapporteurs also believe that the introduction of a new political system in Ukraine has resulted in long-term conflict over division of power.

They also pointed out that the status of political reform remains disputable.

The framework and irreversibility of the reform remain permanent sources of conflict and confusion. From the outset, the main issue on the agenda of this reform was control of authority, rather than its balance, the report says.

In the Rapporteurs’ opinion, the first experience of applying the imperfect amendments to the Constitution raised a number of questions, including whether a proportionate system of closed candidate lists was suitable for a young unstable democracy; procedure for appointing and dismissing ministers; what were clear-cut grounds for dissolving parliament,;  whether the Constitution needed to regulate the procedure for creating a coalition, and whether an imperative mandate was needed for parliamentarians.

Severinsen and Wohlwend also pointed out that such an important instrument of parliamentary control as investigation commissions still had no legal base, determining the scope of their authority and their way of functioning.

Ukrainian News reports that Severinsen and Wohlwend plan to visit Ukraine in March.