Broken compromise

The Party of Regions has gained its end. The number of single member constituencies in Kyiv will be reduced from 16 to 13. The decision of the Constitutional Court proves it. The other day it ruled unconstitutional the provision of law on the parliamentary elections according to which foreign polling stations were included into the single member constituencies in Kyiv. This is what 59 members of the Party of Regions asked the court about.

The peculiarity of this decision is that the foreign polling stations will make part of the national multiseat electoral district and not of any single member constituencies. The voters abroad will vote only with party lists. According to the Central Election Commission of Ukraine, there are 400,000 of them. According to the law, single constituencies must have nearly the same number of electors in each district.

So, opposition’s fears have justified. According to the leader of the party Front of Changes Arsenii Yatseniuk, Pandora ’s Box of law amendment has been open. “The authorities realize that the Kyivites will not support them, this is why they hoped to get additional mandates in the controlled regions where they can rig the elections,” party’s press office quoted Yatseniuk as saying. “The election process has started and the cheats from the Party of Regions decided to change rules of the game as they wish... The parliament has to adopt the decision about invariable procedure of single member constituencies’ creation and make it impossible to amend the law at all.”

“Three additional districts in Kyiv gave a conventional advantage to the opposition,” political expert Volodymyr FESENKO commented to The Day. “Today the authorities manipulate with districts. However, in fact those three districts will not turn the scale of elections. It seems to me that this decision comes from very influential MPs. Thus they demonstrate who rules the country. Such a quick decision of the Constitutional Court is related to the fact that by April 10 the Central Election Commission has to adopt the decision to define the number of districts in each region and create them by the end of April. There are two options. The first one: only two positions will change (territorial districts and double ballot). It will look more or less decent; however, it will be clear that such decision is politically motivated. Another thing is if other provisions of law are amended. Thus, the compromise will be completely ruined. It would be the worst variant since it would aggravate the conflict around the election legislation and strengthen the tension and distrust during the election. It even may lead to the non-recognition of the elections by the opposition and a part of international observers.”

According to the head of the Committee of Voters of Ukraine Oleksandr Chernenko, from the judicial point, the Constitution is violated in any case. “On the one hand, the law on the parliamentary elections provides that foreign electors are equally distributed in the districts. However, it does not specify how it should happen. The situation is absurd: electors in Moscow vote for the majoritarian members in Holosiievo and electors in Milan vote for majoritarian members in Darnytsia, though they do not have anything to do with each other. From this point the decision of the Constitution Court looks logical. However, on the other had, if foreign electors vote only with party lists, it will violate Ukrainians’ constitutional rights. It means that some people will vote for the majoritarian members and party lists and others will vote only with the party lists. Thus we will have a vicious circle. In fact the mixed system is anti-constitutional, it makes impossible to assure the election rights. In 2002 we had the same story.”

We did, but, as we can see, they did not learn any lessons. Probably, it will allow the current authorities winning tactically but not strategically. After the election in 2002 the governing majority was created but everyone remembers how the year 2004 finished. Except for repeating the old mistakes, there is one more disease. Political agreements in our country are hardly respected. It is known that the current election legislation was adopted by the constitutional majority. The power was the first to break the compromise. What is next?