Intentional disruptions and violence in Ukraine’s Supreme Rada:Political competition, order, and disorder in a post-Sovietchamber, 2006–2012

Ioulia Shukana

aUniversity Paris Ouest Nanterre and Sciences Po Paris, Paris, France

This paper focuses on diverse forms of parliamentaryviolence (blocking the orators’ platform and the chairman’spodium, destruction of equipment, violent brawls) during2006–2012 in the Ukrainian parliament, and analyzes them asa repertoire of habitual parliamentary actions. The paperattributes these violent incidents to two external factors.They must first be understood in the context of the generalde-pacification of relations among principal politicalactors in Ukraine as well as exacerbation of political andideological tensions among those actors. Second, theemergence of more violent episodes in the Rada, breakingwith a more routine modus operandi of disruptions, has itsorigin in the earlier, pre-political careers of certainmembers of parliament and their propensity to bring intopolitics particular dispositions (i.e., propensity to useviolence) acquired in those previous professionalexperiences.

Introduction

To the outside observer, the Supreme Rada (the Ukrainian parliament)presented a scene of shocking disorder, widely reported by thenational and foreign press on April 27, 2010. The ratification of thebilateral agreement signed by the Russian president Dmitriy Medvedevand his Ukrainian counterpart Viktor Yanoukovich, extending thestationing of the Russian Black See fleet in the Ukrainian port ofSebastopol until 2042, pitted members of parliament (MPs) from theopposition against those of the majority.1 Although determined toratify the agreement, representatives of the majority, formed aroundthe Party of regions (PR) that brought Yanoukovitch to power in 2010,2

were the first to break normal parliamentary order, even before theopening of the session (Nayyem 2010). Rather than sitting in theirseats on the left and center of the hall, they formed a human barrieraround the orators’ platform and blocked the two entrances leading tothe podium of the President of the Chamber, known as the “presidium.”3

The majority thus prepared for the announced plan of the opposition(the coalition uniting the Bloc of Yulia Tymoshenko [BYuT] and OurUkraine–Popular Self-Defense [NUNS]) to block parliamentary work andprevent the signing of the agreement with Russia, which theyconsidered threatening to the independence of the country.

Half an hour before the opening of the session, the MPs of theopposition readied themselves. First, they covered their benches withflags of their national colors, blue and yellow. Concealed by theseflags, MPs disabled electronic voting boxes by inserting cardboard inthe slots in order to stop those elected officials who had rejoined

1This agreement allowed Moscow to keep its fleet at Sebastopol, not justuntil 2017 (when the lease was due to expire), but for 25 additional years. Inexchange, Ukraine received a 30 percent discount on the price of Russian gas for 10 years.

2For background on the 2010 presidential elections in Ukraine, see Bloomand Shulman (2011) and Lukinova, Myagkov, and Ordeshook (2011).

3In Ukrainian, this term designates the place occupied by the President of the Chamber. For reasons of convenience, we will henceforth refer to it as the “chairman’s podium” or “president’s podium.”

the majority coalition a few weeks earlier from voting in favor ofratification. Objectsand projectiles brought into the semicircle4 (eggs, megaphones, alarms)were also placed under the flags. Finally, the MPs split to the rightand center right of the hall, some among them moving toward theplatform, right beside their colleagues in the majority. Once thePresident of the Rada (Volodymyr Lytvyn, a member of the majoritycoalition) finally made his way to the podium, the first eggs werelaunched in his direction. At the same time, MPs set off the alarmsthey had brought in. The President opened the session, amidst this dinand under a shower of eggs, sheltered by two umbrellas held bysecurity agents. The first physical confrontations between MPs fromthe two sides escalated quickly near the podium. Shortly thereafter,two smoke grenades were thrown into the Chamber, yet another tactic inthe opposition’s attempt to interrupt the session. The president,unshaken, continued the examination of the text under consideration.It was under these conditions that the agreement was ratified, in theabsence of a quorum in the Chamber and at the cost of significantmaterial losses (seats, desks, and broken voting boxes), bodilyinjuries on both sides (broken nose, hematomas), and even thehospitalization of a representative of the opposition due to headtrauma.

Although this episode was particularly intense, such events were notunheard of in the Ukrainian parliament. Patterns of premeditated andvoluntary disruptions of plenary sessions with the goal of blockingparliamentary work have become a common practice in this chamber of450 MPs. By disruptions we do not mean exchanges of invective,interruptions, noise, agitation, or animated private discussions,which have consistently been part of repertoires of disorder inwestern parliaments for years (Le Drezen 2008, Fayat 1999, Tanguy2008). Filibuster techniques exercised within the constructs of theinternal procedural rules of the Rada (multiplication of amendments,exit of MPs from the officially designated Chamber space [semi-circle]to prevent a quorum, etc.) also lie outside the scope of this study.The focus here rather is on the specific forms of violence that theUkrainian Parliament uses regularly, such as blocking the orators’platform and the chairman’s podium, disabling the electronic voting

4The hall of the Supreme Rada is organized in a semi-circle.

system, and intentional cutting off of power or even destruction ofequipment (microphones, voting boxes) by the MPs. These sequences ofevents are accompanied by, among other things, noisy interruptions(sirens, megaphones) and sometimes result in physical violence. Thisbehavior contrasts with the dominant and idealized representations of“parliamentary civility,” involving regulated exchanges and peacefulrelationships in parliamentary work (Fayat 2009, 371–372).

While both the national and the foreign press interpreted the April2010 incident as a sign of democratic immaturity, the evolution of theUkrainian parliamentary regime since the fall of the Soviet Union(USSR) permits a different conclusion (D’Anieri 2006, Goujon 2009). Atthe beginning of the 2000s, violent parliamentary disruptions occurredonly occasionally. At that time, the opposition to the authoritarianregime of Leonid Kuchma—namely Viktor Yushchenko’s Our Ukraine and theBYuT, but also the Communist and Socialist parties of the Ukraine—benefitted from representation in the Rada. They were also responsiblefor the main protest movements in the streets, the “Ukraine withoutKuchma” campaign launched in 2000 (Gongadze and Kudelia 2004) and“Rise Up, Ukraine” in 2002. The simultaneous presence of theopposition in the parliament and in the arena of “contentiouspolitics” (Tilly and Tarrow 2008, 20) seems to have favored theimportation of collective street actions (blockades of buildings,human chains) and tools (megaphones, panels and signs, flags) into theRada.

Since the regime change in favor of the Orange Revolution in 2004, theuse of these techniques in the Rada has become so widespread as toconstitute a repertoire of habitual parliamentary action. It wouldtherefore seem important to integrate into this analysis theparticular configuration of political competition from 2005 to 2012produced by this “revolution.” If the Orange Revolution produced,after a month of protests in the street and a third round ofpresidential voting, the political change sought by the oppositionunited around the candidacy of Viktor Yushchenko (Wilson 2005), itsemergence did not, however, signal an end to the conflict between theold opposition (NU and BYuT) and the existing regime. The latter,namely the PR, whose leader Viktor Yanukovitch was the officialcandidate to succeed Leonid Kuchma in 2004, embodied, in many ways,the continuity of his regime. In fact, the political competition

between these two blocs has since been exacerbated and they havesucceeded each other on three subsequent occasions in positions ofparliamentary opposition and governmental majority during the periodin question.5 These two political blocs—equally at odds over questionsof domestic policy, in particular the status of the Russian languagein the Ukraine, as over the choice of international alliances andspecifically the position regarding integration into North AtlanticTreaty Organization (NATO)—have a very difficult time regulating theirantagonisms and establishing procedures for compromise.6 As aconsequence, from 2006 to 2012 they came to blows time and again inParliament, suspending the standard order of the Rada and insteadusing force to introduce their points of view. Imposing theirpositions on the Assembly in this fashion became more common during astrengthening of the Ukrainian parliamentary system between 2006 and2010 following a constitutional reform introduced on December 8, 2004(Shukan 2007, 27–34).7

However, the annulment of this reform on October 1, 2010, marking areturn to a presidential system of government, resulted in a gradualmarginalization of the parliamentary institution, and thus a

5This situation contrasts starkly with that in Russia, in which the party of power, United Russia, has dominated the political arena since its founding in 2001. On that party’s relatively poor performance in Russia’s December 2011 legislative elections, and subsequent popular protest against anallegedly fraudulent count, see Gill (2012).

6In domestic policy, the disagreement over the status of the Russian language in the Ukraine has grown since the July 3, 2012 adoption, at the initiative of the PR, of a law regarding minority languages. This law allows for the possibility of conferring “regional language” status on languages spoken by more than 10 percent of a territory’s population. For the heads of the former NUNS and the BYuT, for whom electoral support comes primarily from Ukrainophone regions of the west and center, this situation is not acceptable,because it would lead to the decline of Ukrainian relative to the Russian language. Concerning foreign policy, the representatives of the PR opposed Ukraine’s entry into NATO, whereas NUNS leaders fervently defended this strategic choice. Finally, the BYuT supported more European-based structures of defense.

7During this period, the Supreme Rada selected by vote the Prime Minister, whose candidacy had been previously decided by the majority coalition of at least 226 MPs, which had the right to nominate all ministers except for Defense and Foreign Affairs.

significant reduction of the number of parliamentary interruptionsduring 2011 and 2012. Although rarer than in the preceding period,parliamentary disruptions are still marked by frequent excess anddescent into physical violence, which reveals the depth of thedisagreements between the two competing groups.

Contrary to the common notion of democratic immaturity that is used tocharacterize the post-Soviet transition, in this paper I argue thatthe diverse kinds of violence in the Supreme Rada, although sources ofdisorder, are anything but random. Rather, this study shows that thedisruptions, having been planned in advance by the parliamentarygroups, appear to be controlled and even rationalized by the MPs. Theyare not only part of a repertoire of typical, regulated, and recurringpractices of disruption, but also reflect an orderly division of laboramong representatives. These disruptions can as such be considered“instrumental,” in line with Elias and Dunning’s (1986)characterization of violence in sports, that this particular type ofviolence “doesn’t represent an end in and of itself to the players,but a means of attaining a long term goal, namely to win achampionship or a cup” (ibid., 319). Philippe Braud proposes the samedefinition of instrumental violence which, exercised “with the goal ofattaining defined interests, inscribes itself directly in a calculatedand efficient logic,” implying “a proportionality of means put intoplace in relation to a researched goal” (1993, 33).

I examine these instances of violence in the Supreme Rada in theirmultiple dimensions: practical (concrete modalities of escalation ofviolence), sociological (profile of the troublemakers), structural(established rules of parliamentary discipline), and, finally, causal(reasons for which the actors act). Integrating these four dimensionsinto the analysis makes it possible to show that, to the extent thepolitical actors still exercise effective control over the Rada, thisis because this “new” Chamber does not really exist as a “thing”(Lagroye 2002) separate from their calculations and their practices,and is not capable of controlling them by institutional rules androutines. In this regard, violence and tumult contribute paradoxicallyto the institutionalization of parliamentary order “in the making”(Gaiti 2006, 40).

Methods

This study continues my previous research on the biographies ofcommunist elites in Ukraine and Belarus during and immediatelyfollowing the disintegration of the USSR (Shukan 2006). It is based onresearch conducted during several field stays in Kiev (June–July andNovember–December 2010, June 2011, May 2012). Allowed temporary accessto the Supreme Rada, I conducted ethnographic observation, circulatingwidely in spaces open to journalists (rooms and hallways leading tothe Chamber, the press area at the right entrance to the Chamber, thelunchroom, and the smoking room) and observing plenary sessions fromthe balconies open to the press and the public. I also had the chanceto observe many blockades of the chairman’s podium and orators’platform, and the division of labor among the participants, as well asother types of disruption of political order.

In addition to these observations, I relied on interviews conductedwith 20 members of parliament, some of whom are regularly involved inparliamentary disorders. These interviews touched generally on thediverse practices that are involved in being an MP in Ukraine andspecifically on premeditated blockades in the Rada. The collection ofinformation from elected officials regarding these particular kinds ofviolence was not without its difficulties, as it is a question of“informal” practices (Briquet 1995), likely to be disavowed in favorof ideal and idealized models of parliamentary behavior. Some electedofficials were very evasive on the topic; others tried to play downthese practices, recalling parliamentary violence in other countries,or even diminishing the use of the violence by their affiliatedgroups. Despite this risk of disqualification, some MPs whom I metmultiple times nonetheless revealed in detail the modalities ofparliamentary violence and their participation in it. Nevertheless, inall of the interviews respondents adopted a defensive posture,justifying violence in the name of defending their electorate and therights of the opposition to express itself or of the majority togovern.

In an effort to maintain some distance from these justifications, butalso to enrich the materials available for analysis, I collectedadditional informal information through discussions with parliamentaryassistants or accredited journalists in the Chamber. Finally, Iundertook a thorough analysis of the print media as well as press and

other reports to compile a list of the type and frequency of blockadesand similar violent disruptions.

Practices of Instrumentalized Disorders and Violence

Many disruptive practices in the Rada depend on an instrumentalizeduse of space in the hall (e.g., orators’ platform, Rada chairman’spodium, the governmental lodge, electronic voting office) or even thelocal source of electricity for the building. They are aimed attemporarily overturning parliamentary hierarchies and transgressingbehavioral norms as well as established rules that dictate thespecialization of the spaces and the placement of the representativesin the Chamber. They are followed by a return to order and toparliamentary work. This return is nevertheless difficult to time, asit depends on the ability of the political actors to reconcile theirantagonisms and reach some type of compromise.8 Yet compromise remainsfragile given the non-peaceful relationships between the principalUkrainian actors and is often in doubt during times of increasedideological and political tension.

Before proceeding with a more general analysis of violent disruptionsin the Rada, a general description of the architectural layout (or“geography”) of the Chamber is helpful. The layout of the Chamber isintended to model parliamentary behavior and guarantee “the order ofthe Assembly” (Heurtin 1999). As noted previously, the Supreme Rada’shall takes the form of a vast semi-circle to promote parliamentarydeliberation. It is also configured to confer meanings on differentspaces and to reproduce power hierarchies. The office of the presidentof the Rada and of the two vice-presidents, the “chairman’s podium,”is situated above and dominates the entirely of the hall. Thegovernmental lodge and that of the judges are on the right and left,respectively, of the podium, also raised above the room, but lowerthan the office of the president. The employees in the Rada who

8The Conference of Presidents, known as the “council of conciliation” inUkrainian (pogodzhyval’na rada) and called to order Monday afternoon during the plenary week to determine the schedule for the Rada (and also following any conflict in the hall), is considered to be a form of mediation. Nevertheless, this institutional tool is not very efficient following blockades, as the principal political actors have a habit of negotiating behind the scenes and favoring extra-parliamentary compromises.

accompany the president of the Chamber during the session sit in aseparate space, situated to the right of the governmental lodge. Theorators’ platform is just underneath the podium and faces the hall.The rows of MPs’ seats face the president’s podium; they are dividedinto 15 sections and are separated by aisles the seats are equippedwith electronic voting boxes and microphones. The three entrances atthe center, the right, and the left of the hall open onto the hallwaysof the Supreme Rada and the hall. Two other entrances to the hall,behind the podium, are reserved for the president of the Assembly,underlining once again his preeminence in the parliamentary hierarchy.The governmental lodge and that of judges are each also equipped withseparate entrances. Finally, upstairs, around the entirety of thehall, are balconies reserved for journalists and the public. It ishere, at a significant distance from the MPs, where the electronicvoting office is located, separated from the public by a thick glasspartition.

The most frequent disruptions are blockades of the orators’ platformand the chairman’s podium. According to my observations, the scenetypically unfolds as follows. Roughly 30 MPs enter into the space thatseparates the orators’ platform from the first row of seats, forming ahuman chain around the platform and blocking all access. One or twoMPs place themselves behind the platform where orators usually stand,to occupy this functional Parliamentary space. Additionally, roughly15 representatives form a blockade around the chairman’s podium. Firstthey block the two entryways connecting the hall to the office of theRada President by placing chairs under their doorknobs, therebypreventing them from being opened from the other side. This preventsthe president from entering the Chamber. Other members then positionthemselves in the aisles leading to the podium, in front of theblocked entrances and in the governmental lodge where there is a thirddoor leading from the president’s office. Having accomplished theirrespective tasks, the representatives calmly chat amongst themselves,talking with colleagues who come to see them, reading the newspaper ormaking phone calls, waiting for the signal from the head of theparliamentary group to end the blockade. Those among them sitting inthe president’s and vice-presidents’ seats often announce theinterruption or the end of the session and do not hesitate to damagetheir microphones or computers in critical situations.

Blockades of the orators’ platform and the chairman’s podium canhappen before or during the session. In the first case, they takeplace before the official opening of the plenary session at 10:00 inthe morning. The MPs involved in the blockades sometimes spend thenight in the Chamber to prevent any counter-measures from theiropponents. Some of the MPs I spoke with recalled nights spent dozingin a chair in the meeting room with the lights turned off, waiting tobe replaced by a colleague. This was the case on October 23 and 24,2008 for an MP from the BYuT, when his parliamentary group was tryingto push through a review of economic and social measures initiated byYulia Tymoshenko’s government. This was also the case on February 2and 3, 2010 for two representatives of the PR, whose party requiredthat they vote on amendments to electoral law. As prolonged monitoringrequires a permanent presence in the hall, guard-duty rotations areorganized with MPs alternating day and night according to a scheduleestablished in advance. This advance preparatory work can take evenmore significant forms. There is often a detailed plan with theidentification of the most efficient forms of action and importantlogistical considerations (purchase of “munitions” [e.g., eggs, smokegrenades] and their transport into the Chamber), as was the case onApril 27, 2010 discussed in the introduction (Nayyem 2010).

In the second case, blockades can be decided upon during the session,in immediate reaction to an executive decision by the president, or amotion disrespectful of procedural rules, or even in light of adecision imposed by the parliamentary majority. They can happen,therefore, without prior preparation, simply based upon a decision bythe leaders of a parliamentary group. However, they always are part ofa repertoire of established practices understood and regulated by theMPs.

Parliamentary disruptions can last minutes, hours, or entire weeks.However, the constitutional reform of December 8, 2004 imposed a limiton long-term institutional blockades by granting the Ukrainianpresident the right to dissolve the Parliament in the event that it isunable to hold a plenary session for 30 consecutive days. As aconsequence, the longest disruptions tend to be interspersed withtraditional parliamentary work as was the case, for example, betweenJune and July 2006, when the principal political groups represented inparliament occupied the orators’ platform one after the other to weigh

in on the creation of a new parliamentary and governmental coalition.Similarly, blockades of the orators’ platform from June 23 to July 16,2009, and then during September of the same year, by the PR (at thetime part of the opposition and seeking a vote on the law regardingpay raises and retirement pensions), were not interrupted for morethan one or two days before starting back up again. The longestcontinual blockade lasted 23 days, from February 12 to March 6, 2008,when the PR protested against the request by the Ukraine to join NATO.

In addition to disruptions targeting the chairman’s podium and theorators’ platform, MPs often attack two other functional spaces of theRada, namely the electronic voting office upstairs on the rightbalcony, as well as the local source of electricity in the basement ofthe building. To put the electronic vote system out of service, 20 orso MPs forced their way into the office and unplugged the computers(June 26, 2006; November 12, 2008; and July 16, 2010). Anothertechnique employed to control voting, recounted to us by many MPs andconfirmed by journalists, consists of obstructing the voting boxes inthe desks with paper, cardboard, or coins to physically block thecounting of the votes (July 2006; October 24, 2008; April 27, 2010).Finally, shutting off the building’s electricity source, attempted onFebruary 27, 2007 by MPs from Tymoshenko’s bloc, allowed them to shutdown power to the electric voting system and even the hall itself.These diverse kinds of violence primarily target the president of theRada. Blockades of the presidential seat and his means of entry intothe Chamber are aimed at preventing him from entering into the hall,taking his place, and beginning the session. MPs sometimes go so faras to blockade the president in his office. Other forms ofdisturbance, such as material destruction, may force the president tosuspend or end the session. Finally, blockades are accompanied byauditory and visual disturbances. Large banners (“No to NATO,” “The PRWill Defend Social Security,” “Tymoshenko’s Government Is Against theRaising of Salaries and Pensions,” etc.) are hung in the orators’platform, on the wall behind the president’s podium, or even in thegovernmental lodge. MPs brandish signs and flags with the nationalcolors of blue and yellow. Megaphones, sirens, and recorders cancreate a deafening din.

Routine and mandated disorder, indicative of the desire ofparliamentary actors to use violence while at the same time

controlling it, can sometime spiral out of control. As Eric Dunningnotes, regarding sporting events, “the tactical use of violence oftenresults in a loss of self-control, proving as such that a specifickind of violence can quickly turn into another kind of violence”(Elias and Dunning 1986, 319). Tactical disturbances of parliamentaryorder incur a certain risk of loss of control and escalation intophysical violence in cases involving politically opposed MPs. Thephysical proximity of the MPs to one another when surrounding theorators’ platform, the presidential podium, or the electronic votingsystem, occasionally lead to situations in which MPs can more readilylose control and where the blows exchanged become violent anduncontrolled. These instances of physical proximity thus constitute“situations of violence”—i.e., situations involving people who are notnaturally prone to violence, but rather who find themselves in asituation weighing heavily on their emotions and their actions, thusincreasing the likelihood of physical violence (Collins 2009, 1–3).The physical violence in the parliamentary hall on April 27, 2010 is aprime example of this, much like the physical confrontation betweenrepresentatives on May 24, 2012 during the first vote on the law onregional languages in Ukraine. Other examples have occurred onFebruary 9, 2006; December 11, 2007 by the orators’ platform; July 16,2009 and February 2, 2010 by the chairman’s podium; and November 12,2009 near the voting system office.

Distribution of roles in violent sequences

All members of parliamentary groups responsible for disruptions whoare present in the Rada are asked to participate in these actions.During such moments, lesser-known representatives are just as activeas leaders and the most popular figures when taking on the role of MP-disruptor, grouping around the orators’ platform or the presidentialpodium. The majority of the MPs I met nevertheless affirmed that theydid not necessarily take pleasure in these activities or participatewith much conviction. They also participated in different ways;whereas some are always at the center of the disruption, others take amore reserved role without breaking solidarity with their group.Despite these differences in personal investment, all MPs with whom Ispoke seemed to perceive their participation in parliamentaryagitation as a type of professional obligation and conformed to itrigorously. One MP, having served in public prosecution service before

entering Parliament for the first time in 2006, described hisinvolvement as such:

In my previous work, I had to conduct home searches. I can’tsay that I really enjoyed this part of my work because itoften meant that I had to go through people’s personalbelongings. Of course it wasn’t pleasant to do, but as apolice officer I was obligated to do so. It’s the same forthe blockades. I am required to participate even if it isnot the most pleasant part of my work as a MP.9

9Author’s interview, Kyiv, December 9, 2010.

These explanations make sense when considered within the context ofthe electoral system in place from March 2006 to October 2011,existing eligibility conditions, and concrete relationships within theparliamentary groups that this system entails. The switch in 2006 fromthe single-member-district electoral system to full proportionalrepresentation with blocked party lists and one single nationalconstituency led to the weakening of the electoral bonds betweenrepresentatives and their constituents and to increased dependence ofrepresentatives on their parties (Frognier 1998). Following thisswitch, the devotion to the party and the active influence of theparty in a representative’s actions outside of the hall becameimportant criteria in political recruitment. Under these conditions,Ukrainian MPs are required to respond positively to actions taken bytheir groups of affiliation, including those related to disruptions ofparliamentary order. The tendency of the representatives to respondpositively to these expectations is nevertheless a function of theresources at their disposal. The fewer personal resources arepresentative has—notoriety or economic capital, especially as theparty does not benefit from public financing in Ukraine—the more he orshe must conform to these actions in the hopes of obtaining a positionon an electoral list. Some MPs go so far as to adopt excessivebehavior during their groups’ blockades to distinguish themselves, toget noticed by their leaders, and to increase their chances ofmaintaining their position. Participation in parliamentary violence isthus a type of political capital.

While involving all of the MPs within a group, diverse types ofroutine violence require a division of labor among the MPs to ensureefficiency. According to my observations, this assumes above all agendered division of roles based on the dominant traditionalrepresentation in post-Soviet space (Hrycak 2001) of “masculine” and“feminine,” and therefore “natural” qualities of the two sexes. Theyare considered representative of the effects of gender in relation tophysical force and its use. Increased physical ability and a quickturn to physical violence are generally considered to be masculinequalities, while sweetness, fragility, listening, and tolerance areattributed to women. As a result, blockades of the orators’ platformand the chairman’s podium as well as assaults on the electronic votingoffice and the local electricity source, are generally identified as

exclusively male activities. Female representatives are thereforeexcluded from these activities associated with going overboard,10 butthey are occasionally tasked with bringing “munitions” into the room,such as the eggs used during the April 27, 2010 confrontation. Femalerepresentatives appear to accept these gendered representations ofbehavior and political mannerisms. When asked about violence in theRada, one female MP confirmed that it really wasn’t a “female affair”;another qualified it as “a typically male means” of settling conflictheralding back to the male need to “flex their muscles.”11

The assignment of roles during these disorders takes intoconsideration the physical ability of the representatives to useviolence. Heads of the parliamentary groups assign strategicpositions (aisles leading to the president’s podium, entrancesreserved for the president) or specific tasks (destruction of theelectronic voting system, cutting off of electricity) to people ingood physical condition or with imposing builds, considered capable ofusing physical violence in the event that the plan goes awry. Someparliamentary journalists explain that the growth of the tactical useof violence in the Chamber has led some political groups to recruit“abnormal” members, such as former professional athletes. A formerOlympic wrestler and a former basketball player were thus brought intothe Rada as part of the PR during the legislative election in March2006, and then again for the anticipated vote in the autumn of 2007.They are part of a “hard core” of MPs mobilized by their group toaccomplish tasks requiring physical force, and who are already knownfor their propensity for violence.

Sociological profile of the “hard-core” troublemakers

Informal discussion and media analysis made it possible to identifythe principal figures of this “hard core” of the PR and theirsociological profile. It consists of roughly 10 people with an averageage of 45, generally entering politics for the first time in March2006 after careers in professional sports, security and police roles

10In the present Rada, elected on October 28, 2012, women MPs from the opposition groups tend to participate in blockades of the orators’ platform orthe chairman’s podium. They stay, however, in the background during violent brawls.

11Author’s interviews, Kyiv, June 23 and July 2, 2010.

(prosecutors, police officers, security forces), and above all comingfrom the world of business. They are political apprentices compared tothose who have spent their entire careers in party or stateorganizations and who have served as MPs for many consecutive terms.These troublemakers were, in their previous lives, directly involvedin the various types of physical violence inherent in sports, policework (Favarel-Garrigues 2005), and the post-Soviet business world,where mafia violence and physical elimination of competition weretactics employed by economically predatory business enterprises duringthe 1990s (Volkov 2002). In this study, I had the opportunity tointerview four representatives of this “hard core” of the PR (oneformer prosecution service officer, two businessmen and one formerprofessional athlete). These meetings led me to formulate asociological hypothesis: the occasional escalation of tacticalviolence in the Rada can be attributed to the presence of these typesof actors in the Chamber and their propensity to bring into politicsparticular dispositions (i.e., propensity to use violence) acquired intheir previous professional experiences. Having evolved in directcontact with violence without ever internalizing any means of peacefulconflict resolution, the four interviewees seemed to consider violenceas a necessary although not always pleasant tool that is entirelyacceptable in politics. They used violence in the Chamber at theservice of their political groups, thus fulfilling their designatedrole as MPs (Lagroye 1994).

The case of one of the four interviewees, Serhyi, is a prime exampleof this—the embodiment of the political apprentice emerging from thebusiness world, but also the epitome of the fighter-MP.12 Born in 1964in the Donetsk region and a graduate of the Maritime TransportEngineering Institute of Odessa, Serhyi began his professional careerin 1986, working in the warehouse at the port of Murmansk. Returninghome in 1989, he took advantage of increasingly liberalized economicpolicies in the USSR to start his own business, first in thetransportation sector and then in the financial sector. Over thecourse of the interview, he brought up, without truly going intodetail, the “savage” capitalism that predominated in Donetsk, the

12To preserve the interviewee’s anonymity, I have changed his name, without, however, changing the dates and trajectory of his career. Author’s interview, Kyiv, July 4, 2010.

ferocious competition among entrepreneurs, and the need for him to“fight” and to create strong “useful” relationships.13 Becoming, aftersome years, the director of an important investment fund, he decidedto seek local political office in order to protect his economicposition, but also to acquire the necessary power relationships tomake his business successful. He was elected to the regional assemblyof Donetsk in 1998, converting his economic capital into politicalcapital. He was reelected to this position four years later. From thepoint of view of converting economic capital into political one andentering politics, his trajectory is typical for a post-Sovietbusinessman. Having profited from economic chaos at the beginning ofthe 1990s and having accumulated significant personal capital throughconnections with both bureaucrats and criminals (Favarel-Garrigues2008), he entered into politics to defend his business interests, butalso to benefit from political and legal protection afforded byelectoral mandates (Lallemand 2008). In Ukraine, MPs with this type ofbackground began to be elected at the local as well as the nationallevel by the late 1990s, and in even greater numbers in the 2000s(Puglisi 2003, 109–111).

In 2002 Serhyi received his PR membership card and found himself incharge of electoral campaign logistics at the local, regional, andeven the national level. He focused on this domain and created, inaddition to his many other businesses, a political and public opinionpolling firm.14 His service to the PR led to his promotion within theranks: in the legislative elections for the Supreme Rada in 2006 hewas among the first 100 candidates on the electoral list of thisparty, and was reelected a year later during the 2007 elections.During his MP apprenticeship, Serhyi participated in the majority ofthe physical confrontations in Parliament. He often found himself on

13During the final years of the USSR, the city of Donetsk, situated in the eastern part of Ukraine, became a stronghold of criminal groups specializing in the extortion of money from private enterprises. During the 1990s, these groups began to compete over turf, resulting in a number of murders. They eventually succeeded in legalizing a substantial part of their previously illicit revenues by associating themselves with entrepreneurs and bureaucrats, thus emerging as quite powerful economic interests.

14My interview with Serhyi in the summer of 2010 took place in one of his firm’s branches in Kyiv. This choice underlined his position as a businessman as well as an MP.

the front lines and is thus present in many of the media images andvideos available online. His particular way of exercising the role ofMP is perhaps reminiscent of his attitude toward physical force, anattitude derived from his participation in the world of post-Sovietbusiness and professional sports—in particular wrestling, in which hewon awards in his youth. Serhyi brings these dispositions, whichappear to be popular and appreciated resources in the Chamber, andmakes them count in competitive and physical confrontations. Heaffirms, with a hint of a smile, that he is always ready to putphysical force to use in service to his party and to intervene at itscall to stop their opponents from disrupting the session.Nevertheless, his unreserved investment in parliamentary spats seemsto mask reasons more difficult to admit: it allows him to take hisplace at the heart of his political group alongside notables andwealthy MPs who contribute significantly to the financing of the PR.

Parliamentary code of conduct

The significance of these disruptions in the Supreme Rada must also beattributed to the inability of the Rada’s internal regulatory anddisciplinary measures to effectively constrain the MPs and theirbehaviors. Formal rules are bypassed, circumvented, and short-circuited both by the Presidents of the Assembly and the MPs to theextent that these “games” have become a daily norm in the Rada.15 Inaddition to the liberties that the actors take with the formallyestablished rules, existing disciplinary measures do not coincide withMPs’ informal practices or the unconventional actions they take in theparliament.

As a relatively new Chamber, the Rada does not have a well-prescribedmode of functioning. Efforts to establish a specific parliamentaryorder are a recent phenomenon, inasmuch as earlier Soviet-eralegislatures, conceived of as non-professional organizations and usedonly to justify decisions by the Soviet Communist Party, did notrequire detailed regulation.16 Essentially, the provisional procedures

15On the limited salience of the “rule of law” more generally, with a particular focus on Russia, see Hendley (2012).

16Their function did not tolerate unexpected disruptions or undisciplined manifestations, as Soviets had to present a unified front and vote as “one man” (Lesage 1987).

of the Supreme Rada, established May 22, 1990 (during the late Sovietera in Ukraine), did not contain any disciplinary measures. As aconsequence, the actual mode of functioning of the UkrainianParliament began to be put in place only between 1990 and 1994. Aninitial step toward the adoption of internal procedures was taken onJuly 27, 1994. Chapter 3.8 of these procedures, entitled “Disciplineand Ethics of Plenary Sessions,” was thus the first concerted effortto regulate the behavior of the MPs. It was also during this time thatthe first significant informal behaviors evident in today’s Rada(voting for absent MPs,17 occasional physical altercations between MPs)emerged (Whitmore 2004, 86–87).

The 1994 procedures determined, for the first time, rules of decorumin the Chamber. Under those rules, MPs addressing the hall from theorators’ platform must not “insult their colleagues and use obsceneterminology.” Representatives present in the Chamber were expected to“not partake in acts whose goal is to disrupt order, to disrupt themaking of or hearing of an intervention such as booing, exclamations,applauding, and loud exits from the room.” This regulation, amongother things, established the preeminence of the president indisciplinary matters involving the Chamber. The president, chargedwith mediating the debates, overseeing their smooth proceeding, andmaking people follow rules, was given the authority to take a seriesof graduated actions, depending on the seriousness of the infraction.Among these actions are personal warnings, call to order and censureduring the session (in the case of verbal misconduct), but also theright to order (with parliament’s agreement) for certain persistentlydisruptive MPs to leave the room, and also the possibility ofsuspending or canceling a session in the event that a violator refusesto leave the room. Finally, the procedures entrusted the Rada (inaccordance with the majority and after hearing the opinion of thedisciplinary committee) with the power to censure and bantroublemakers from five consecutive sessions. This penalty, whichprovisionally calls into question the quality of the representatives,is also a kind of symbolic sanction: their names must be published inthe official newspaper of the Rada Golos Ukrainy (Voice of Ukraine).

17If previously this was an isolated practice, between 2006 and 2012 it had become a routine practice of parliamentary groups, collecting voting cardsfrom their affiliated MPs to use at their convenience.

Despite the less than peaceful parliamentary sessions during the2000s, the code of conduct for the Rada did not experience anysignificant change during that decade. A new internal regulationadopted on March 6, 2006, and amended several times since, added“signs, banners with slogans, megaphones, and other objects notdirectly related to parliamentary work” to the list of things known tocause disruptions in the sessions. Nevertheless, such new versions ofregulations did not harden the existing penalties or alter them inaccordance with the kinds of violence exercised in the Ukrainianparliament. In effect, the penalty of censure, much like that of awarning, the call to order or the command to leave the room, which areindividual sanctions resulting in the naming of individualtroublemakers, are insufficient in the face of collective actions. Itis nearly impossible for the president to single out individualtroublemakers and to take inventory of their actions. When blockadesoccur prior to the opening of a session, they evade any kind ofregulation. Financial sanctions, used occasionally by successivepresidents of the Rada (deduction from the salaries of MPs for eachday of a blockade, payment for material damages by those responsible)do not overly concern the troublemakers. Indeed, these punishmentshave little impact when directed at a legislative body composed ofmany businessmen, for whom politics are not the only occupation. Inthe context of the tactical use of parliamentary disorder, thehardening of the code of conduct (as well as disciplinary penaltiescapable of constraining the behavior of MPs) does not seem tocorrespond to the interests of the political groups involved.18

Motives for parliamentary violence

The persistence of parliamentary violence in the Supreme Rada is alsotied to the benefits it is likely to bring to its perpetrators.

18It should be noted that the procedural rules of the Supreme Rada were amended substantively in November 2012, and now forbid MPs from disturbing parliamentary order. However, this amendment has not constrained the behavior of newly elected MPs, who consider, like their colleagues from the previous Rada, parliamentary violence to be a means of political competition. Tumultuous and violent episodes in December 2012, February and March 2013 are evidence of this.

Violence constitutes one resource, among others, at the disposition ofminority groups in parliament. These groups seek to participate inparliamentary activity by force when deliberation does not work, andby doing so thereby compel the majority to listen to them. Havingfound themselves in the opposition time and again from 2005 to 2012,the PR, along with the BYuT and Our Ukraine (NU), have used violencefor a variety of reasons. They have blocked the parliament to contestthe government’s foreign policy (January–March 2008 by the PR; April27, 2010 by BYuT and NU) as well as domestic policy (June–September2009 by the PR; February 2007, September 2010, and May 2012 by BYuT).MPs from the PR used disorderly conduct to impede the speech of PrimeMinister Tymoshenko (July 15, 2005). They also succeeded in impedingher inauguration (December 13, 2007), preventing her from presentingher anti-crisis plan (April 2–16, 2009), and causing the resignationof a minister of her government (May–June 2009). Their BYuTcolleagues, for their part, disrupted the session to gain extraspeaking time for their leader (October 31, 2006), to persuade theParliament to vote on social measures (February 2007), and to create aparliamentary commission to investigate governmental action (June toJuly 2010), as well as to denounce the political repression againstTymoshenko (May 2012).

This brief glimpse into motives shows that parliamentary disorderserves not only the immediate interests of political oppositiongroups, but also their electoral imperatives. Thanks to the largemedia coverage of plenary sessions (live transmission by theparliamentary TV channel, coverage by the press and televised newssources), violence in the Chamber constitutes an excellent tool ofpublic representation for the opposition and more closely resemblesstreet protests. Parliamentary disorder in the media allows oppositiongroups to reach out to citizens, to attract their attention togovernmental decisions that affect their lives directly (social safetynet provisions contested by the BYuT in February 2007, then by the PRfrom June–September 2009; raising of the retirement age denounced bythe BYuT in September 2010), and to show the work done in the name oftheir electorate—all the more so because they are situated within theframe of full proportional representation of party lists.

Challenges to parliamentary order are also occasionally used bymajority groups. Above all it is the need to counter the parliamentary

blockades of their colleagues from the opposition that leads themajority to deploy “preventative” measures, positioning their MPsaround the orators’ platform. This habitual transgression ofparliamentary order attempts to compensate for the inefficiency ofinstitutional tools to allow the Parliament to protect itself from theexcesses of its MPs. It guarantees the “good” functioning of thesession by allowing the president to enter into the Chamber to beginthe session. The violation of other procedures (voting in the absenceof a quorum on April 27, 2010) or, on the contrary, the strict respectof these rules (return to voting by raise of hand when the electronicvoting system is not functioning) allows a strong and determinedparliamentary majority to stop disruptions of the session by theircolleagues in the opposition. These instances of forced passage by themajority increase the risk of violence in the hall, as is illustratedby the session described in the introduction or even the May 25, 2012session, which pitted MPs from opposing sides of the question of thestatus of minority languages (and principally the Russian language) inUkraine.

Persistent problems of corruption among MPs (purchase of a one-timevote, diverse forms of retribution for switching parliamentaryaffiliation) and the lack of coherence in a “short” majority are alsolikely to encourage representatives to employ modes of parliamentaryaction favored by the opposition to win in the parliamentary game. Forexample, the parliamentary coalition formed by the BYuT and NUNSfollowing legislative elections in September 2007 held barely 227seats (the absolute majority in the Supreme Rada being 226).Consequently, after experiencing occasional defection of votes, thecoalition was compelled to resort to the methods of the opposition,blocking parliament to allow the Tymoshenko government to act upon (orconversely thwart) important initiatives (i.e., to prevent a vote ofno confidence in the government on July 9, 2008; to put on the dailylegislative agenda anti-crisis measures initiated by the government aswell as the government’s draft State budget [October 2008], or stillyet to sabotage efforts to deny funding to the President of theAssembly allied with the governing coalition on November 12, 2008 ).

Conclusion

During the period 2006–2012, diverse forms of violence have become

important tools in the Ukrainian parliament’s arsenal. The repertoireof habitual violent actions must first be understood in the context ofthe de-pacification of relationships between major politicalformations and the exacerbation of ideological and political tensionsamong them. As such, the actions described here are often employedoutside of the Rada’s internal regulatory and disciplinary framework,and at times outside of parliament entirely, with parties and theirMPs participating in blockades of government bodies or courts. Second,the emergence of the more violent episodes in the Rada, breaking withthe routine modus operandi of disruptions, has its origins in theearlier, pre-political careers of certain MPs and predispositions theyhave acquired there. It is the combination of these factors thatfosters the repeated use of violence in the Chamber despite itsdivergence from ideal and idealized models of parliamentary civility.These two explanatory factors (heightening of tensions between themajority and the opposition, and the particular predispositions ofcertain MPs elected to the Parliament) also are evident in the newSupreme Rada elected on October 28, 2012. They have already profoundlyaffected its work, as evidenced by the first plenary sessions(December 2012; February–July 2013), which were particularlytumultuous and violent.

Parliamentary violence can thus be understood as one possible means ofpolitical competition, albeit one that is indicative of thedifficulties in regulating the Supreme Rada. Some Ukrainian officialspresent the tumultuous scenes as blights to the country’s nationalimage. Nonetheless, this violence sheds light on the vigor and powerof political pluralism in Ukraine and the ability of the Parliament totruly represent this. From this point of view, the Supreme Rada hasdistinguished itself from other post-Soviet legislatures in the lastdecade—in particular the State Duma in Russia which, under thepresidency of Vladimir Putin, was stripped of its deliberativefunction and governmental control and transformed into a mouthpiecefor executive decisions (Remington 2008).

Notes on Contributors

Ioulia Shukan is Associate Professor of Post-Soviet Studies,University Paris Ouest Nanterre and Sciences Po Paris and Researcherat the Institute of Social Sciences of Politics (ISP/CNRS).

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