2007

THE FUTURE REFORMS: REAL AND NOT TOO REAL

Ukraine now faces opportunity of the reforms in near future. First, they concern political reforms. Second, there could be reforms of economy. The political reforming is mostly about the new Constitution – or, at least strong amendments to the existing one. There are some already formalised projects for renewing the Constitution, by the President, the leaders of the Communist and Socialist parties. Also own proposals were made by prime minister Victor Yanukovich and the opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko. Often enough, the constitutional projects are extreme – and therefore not supported by majorities (of voters, MPs, etc.). Besides there are complicated procedures for amending the Constitution. The Presidential proposals to implement the new Constitution as soon as possible by the nation-wide referendum are rather desirable than realistic. Most probably the new constitutional reform will be a result of political compromise, depending on type and composition of the newly elected parliament. There are some conflict points which participants of the future parliament coalition have, but their leaders (the President on the one hand and the prime minister and tycoon Akhmetov on the other) try to avoid clashes. Whatever the coalition will be, it will not be able to eliminate conflicts between its participants (e.g. the national democrats and the regionalists) and even inside the political forces (two wings in the Party of Regions, that of Yanukovich and bureaucracy and that of Akhmetov). Most probably the Akhmetov group will try to form the new government and than to coordinate it. Also those three main groups of this process also prepare their visions of economic reforms for this country. However all sides seek better conditions rather for the large business, and all are not going to implement reforms of the state machine first. That is why such reformist efforts should be regarded with some dose of scepticism.