UKRAINIAN PARLIAMENT CHAIRMAN SLAMS DRAFT CONSTITUTION.

Parliament chairman Oleksandr Moroz describes Ukraine’s draft constitution as far from complete and potentially divisive. In media interviews this week, Moroz has objected to the concentration of executive powers in the president’s hands, in the absence of a clearly defined role for the prime minister. Moroz also takes strongexception to the draft’s provision for a bicameral parliament, this from concern that the innovation would make for an ineffective legislature. (14) President Leonid Kuchma appears to be embarking on a course of lining up support among regional officials for creating an upper house of parliament. Recently the president said that economic decentralization would call for regional representation in the bicameral setup. Kuchma would for his part obtain a counterweight to the present unicameral parliament, with which the president is at odds on some major issues.

1. Reuter, Interfax, November 24

2. Reuter, November 24

3. Interfax, November 23

4. Russian and Western agencies, November 21-23

5. Reuter, November 22

6. Reuter, Interfax, November 21

7. Interfax, November 23

8. Interfax, November 22

9. Interfax, November 22

10. Interfax, November 21

11. EBRD Report, November 1

12. Interfax, November 21 and 22; Nezavisimaya gazeta, November 23

13. Interfax-Ukraine, Itar-Tass, Reuter, DPA, November 22

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