By Vestnik Kavkaza
An emergency meeting of heads of primary organizations of the ruling Party of Regions should take place in Kharkov on February 1st. Security of state buildings and facilities, public peace security, prevention of vandalism will be discussed at the meeting. Something must be done in the context of the developments which are taking place in Ukraine, they believe. Today many Ukrainian and foreign experts predict a split in the country, if the authorities don’t take radical steps.
Oleg Matveychev, Professor of the Higher School of Economics, told Vestnik Kavkaza that “in Ukraine the situation is, as physicists say, at the bifurcation point. That is, it can swing both there and here, and, so to say, "the wing of a flying butterfly" may define the future of Ukraine, even Europe, or the world. Indeed, the situation is very serious.”
According to Matveichev, several scenarios are possible: “The authorities or certain intermediaries can come up with a project of some constitutional or political reform. There is something to be reformed. In particular, for example, Ukraine has a unicameral parliament, and two chambers can be proposed instead. Gubernatorial elections can be also introduced, currently they do not exist in Ukraine, especially because the country is very varied from region to region, people speak different languages, believe in different gods, have different histories. They all are very different, and thus the regions should be provided fairly serious autonomy in the area of legislation and economic activity and so on. Naturally, the reform can be associated with the electoral system. In short, all this can be offered, and it can be a platform for discussion and dialogue not with Molotov cocktails, but at a round table.”
If no reforms ate proposed, and the parties are stubborn, it could lead to further escalation of violence and the victory of one of the forces: “If Yanukovych wins, probably a state of emergency will be introduced. He will demonstrate his strength and may score some votes in the East, but , nevertheless, no one will forgive him until 2015, and his chances for re-election will be quite low.
If the Maidan wins, the situation will turn illegal, the entire country will turn into one big Maidan, because the eastern regions and the southern regions of Ukraine will never accept any new power, totally illegitimate, like the Kiev nationalist forces. They will just disobey, and this would result in a split. If the situation remains critical, then different regions would simply declare that they are starting self-administration, because Kiev has no solutions, no authority, while the regions need to live somehow, to spend money, to carry out some budget process, to pay salaries and so on. And therefore the regional authorities will take everything into their own hands, each in a different way, the west of the country will act according to a different attitude than the east, and it will be a de facto semi-split state of Ukraine. Well, I think that it will all unfold by the first scenario, it is evident; in international practice mediators always appear and projects of political reforms develop. Most likely some projects are now being prepared by various parties.”
