Taras Kuzio’s Blog

Remove Ivan Pliushch’s Parliamentary Mandate!

Our Ukraine-Peoples Self Defence (NU-NS) is deciding whether to follow BYuT in also expelling its defector (Viktor Byt). But, Our Ukraine deputy Stretovych did not believe that NU-NS would also expel its first defector Ivan Pliushch.

The question is why? Pliushch was secretary of the National Security and Defense Council (NRBO) when he decided not to sign the coalition accord in December 2007. Yushchenko as both head of the NRBO and Honorary Chairman of NU-NS could have ordered Pliushch to sign the coalition.

The decline in the orange coalition to its critical level of 225 following the defection of one BYuT and one NUNS deputy last month has sparked widespread debate, a closed BYuT meeting and a Constitutional Court ruling. The expulsion of both defectors and their replacement by loyal deputies is without a doubt the right step to take.

But the coalition was always short of one defector – Ivan Pliushch – giving it 227 and not 228 deputies. Why has NUNS not called for his removal, as Roman Zvarych did call for in December of last year?

What is disturbing is NUNS silence on Pliushch. Particularly as Pliushch was the first NUNS deputy to refuse to join the orange coalition. Why has NUNS not voted to remove him and replace him with a loyal deputy to the coalition?

Throughout the 2007 election campaign anybody standing in NUNS knew that they were campaigning for an orange coalition and the slogan was one law for everybody

To refuse to sign the coalition accord is tantamount to spitting in the face of Ukrainian voters who voted for NUNS last September. His conduct is disgraceful and a prime factor in explaining why NUNS has declined in popularity to the same level as that of the president: 6%.

The Constitutional Court ruled on 27 June that deputies are elected to parliament within parties and blocs, and not individually, and therefore they cannot remain in parliament outside a faction. The Constitutional Court’s ruling answers old questions while bringing up new ones. Does the ruling place Pliushch and the May defectors beyond the law as they have either not signed the coalition accord or have defected from it? The Court ruled on the relationship of deputies to factions, not deputies relationship to coalitions. The ruling does though place presidential secretariat head Viktor Baloga and his United Centre allies who defected in February beyond the law as they left the faction but remained within the coalition.

But, Pliushch’s contempt for Ukrainian voters is nothing knew. He continues to defend the contemptible February 2001 open letter attacking the Ukraine Without Kuchma protestors.

This is why NUNS should expel both of its defectors, first and foremost Pliushch, and thereby again reach a workable orange coalition. But this time the orange coalition will have 228, not 227 deputies.