A start to a new parliament

In the evening of August 25, the president of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko announced the early termination of the Verkhovna Rada in a video message. New elections to the parliament are to be held on October 26, 2014. “A powerful social demand for restarting the government is more than obvious. Election is the best type of lustration,” stated the president, who, among other things, had promised to dissolve the parliament.

The formal reason for the disbanding of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine was the absence of the coalition, which split on July 24 after the factions UDAR and Svoboda left it. Poroshenko announced the dissolution of the Ukrainian parliament back on August 21 during his visit to Mykolaiv. He said then: “The decision will be made when constitutional grounds appear, and as everyone knows, time for them comes on Independence Day.”

But the Verkhovna Rada has not made any changes to electoral legislation, according to which the current parliament was elected. Thus, none of the civil society’s demands, including the change of election system, reduction of electoral threshold, transparent funding of political forces, etc., were heard by Ukrainian legislators. So, what is the meaning of the Verkhovna Rada’s dissolution? Should changes of electoral law be expected? The Day’s experts answer these questions.

“THERE IS NO OTHER POSSIBILITY TO HOLD THE ELECTION ACCORDING TO A NEW FORMULA, BUT TO INTEGRATE THE OLD POLITICAL ELITES INTO THE NEW GOVERNMENT”

Viktoria PODHORNA, political analyst:

“The president’s step was expected, because everyone has been waiting for the termination of the parliament for a long time. But, perhaps, the president did not want to spoil Independence Day, which has become a holiday for absolutely everyone who considers themselves Ukrainian for the first time. Certainly, it would be inappropriate to mention parliament termination on such a day, therefore the president settled this issue on the next day, literally after the date of the Verkhovna Rada dissolution drew nearer.

“The other question is why the president was in such a rush to terminate the Rada so fast, on the evening of August 25, since there is no regulation in the Constitution which would require doing it on the nearest day? I think this is connected to the international meeting in Minsk, the president wants to pose as a strong and principled politician who keeps his promises and to demonstrate that he has will and desire to move the process of changes in Ukraine. Foreign partners had to understand it. Putin had to see it too, who, as a representative of Soviet power structures, will use pressure and blackmail among other tools. In this way he influences not only weak (from his point of view) countries, but powerful ones too. The president of Russia always acts rather impudently. Certainly, on the eve of the meeting Poroshenko wanted to show with this symbolic step that he is not a person that can be pressurized. The president wanted to send a signal that psychologically he is not weaker than Putin, he is ready for negotiations and has serious arguments on his hands: the parliament that could introduce military situation has been terminated, and Poroshenko himself hopes for peace and cessation of military operations by Russia.

“It is interesting that the president announced his decision by using a modern method, through Twitter, and the video message appeared later.

“I do not know whether Poroshenko talked to the leaders of parliamentary factions on the eve of making the decision, because there was no public information concerning this. But perhaps, he could have talked to them about the law on election, which has not been adopted yet, and it is the most burning issue as of today. The law that is currently in force receives a lot of negative feedback from the society and there are no votes to change it, but maybe, the attempts to do it will be made. Among the issues is the replacement of the current electoral system with a proportional one, at least with closed lists, for the current formula is dangerous not only because of the political corruption and bribery of voters by the Party of Regions. But the danger also lies in a fact that the Verkhovna Rada will not be complete: it is impossible to receive the necessary number of mandates on the simple-majority constituency level because of annexation of Crimea and partial occupation of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, where about 40 mandates are lost. As a result, an unstable situation will occur, when Russia and other Ukraine’s enemies will say that our parliament is not legitimate.

“As far as I know, there are not enough votes today to change electoral law in any way. People who represented the former government have virtually boycotted it, because they are not going to benefit from either proportional formula, or open lists, which provide transparency. It has to do with the fact that the Party of Regions’ rating today is no more than three percent, that is why it will not make it into the parliament. The same applies to other new political projects, which were made out of the Party of Regions. People from all oblasts of Ukraine do not want to see representatives of the Party of Regions in the parliament, and representatives of the former government sense it and do their best to hold on to their parliamentary immunity through simple-majority constituencies. That is why Korolevska appears in Sloviansk today, and there are rumors that Yefremov will try to hold election in Luhansk and Russia will not interfere, because they need to have at least a part of their people in the new parliament. This poses a threat for Ukraine, but the situation for the Party of Regions members is bad anyway, the society in the east is changing, public opinion changes not in favor of Russia’s proteges as well. These people must become history, because we are done with this page of Ukrainian politics.

“The problem of early election is complex, because there is no possibility to hold it according to the new formula, but to integrate old political elites into the new government. Of course, the president might have other arguments, including economic ones, he can highlight some issues in a rather harsh way, for example, the issue of reprivatization, which is timely now. For example, Bohuslaiev privatized Ukraine’s military enterprises and is trying to blackmail the government.

“The question is that a large number of votes is required for legislative changes, which are hard to receive in this way, since there were 172 MPs in the former coalition; the rest were people close to Yanukovych’s regime.

“The information on procedural changes in legislation should be expected from the Central Election Commission, but not from the president, this issue is not on his level. The election was scheduled for October 26, but the start of election campaign was not announced, so it should be expected that it will be shortened to 45 days. These are rather strict frames, including representatives of simple-majority constituencies. It can be related to the fact that the president also does not want representatives of former government to pass on level of simple-majority constituencies. Voters do not trust those who simply come and try to buy them, since after Maidan, there will be few willing to take bribes from politicians who discredited themselves.

“MPs of the current Verkhovna Rada will work until the dissolution, and the main goal they need to achieve is to ratify the Association Agreement with the EU. The president has added this issue to the agenda. The other matter Poroshenko might try to press is a law on government purification.”

“IF THE CHANGES IN LEGISLATION DO TAKE PLACE, THEY WILL CERTAINLY NOT BE THE IMPROVING ONES”

Ruslan ROKHOV, public activist, “The Power of People”:

“The set of changes that must be adopted by the parliament is identical to that demanded by the ‘Reanimation Reforms Package.’ It includes threshold reduction, open lists, transparent funding of electoral funds, and harsher regulation of responsibility for violation of   electoral laws. And these are the main issues, to which both civil society and new political elites agree. However, I suppose that if changes in legislation do take place, they will certainly not be the improving ones.

“Ruslan Kniazevych’s draft law is the closest to being adopted. It offers to raise the threshold for blocs to seven percent and also to keep the mixed election system. Everything else, I think, will not be adopted. But there is a compromise. An exclusively proportional system with closed lists can be adopted on the condition that threshold for blocs will be raised to seven percent. Perhaps, they will raise cash deposit sum for registering candidates for simple-majority constituencies. But if simple-majority constituencies and proportional system are both involved, cash deposit will grow almost 10   times to cut off all new political forces from participation in election on registering stage.

“Other limiting options are possible. For example, parties that have been registered within a year prior to election and less cannot participate. And we see, who these changes are directed against.

“Obviously all legislative regulations will be designed as attempts to set additional barriers for hampering the real renewal of the parliament. Therefore, oligarchs and large parties will preserve monopoly on the formation of the new parliament, and all new political teams will have to somehow come to an agreement with large parties or their owners about the order of running, financing, constituencies’ coordination, etc.

“Everything shows that no one really wants to change the government and uses decorative renewal to show people the changes have allegedly happened.

“It depends on the composition of the new parliament whether it adopts the changes the society requires. If at least 20 percent of quality renewal takes place, it will obviously not vote for these changes. We understand that turncoats will chant Maidan slogans, because they  will not be elected otherwise. But if quality new people pass in small numbers or don’t pass at all, we should not expect sensible reforms. Names of draft laws can be very pretty, but their content will not correspond to the changes demanded by Maidan.

“Civil society can still affect the adoption of these decisions, but only if it clearly shapes its demands, brings people near the Verkhovna Rada for the session week that is to take place in September, and unanimously speaks its demands. Perhaps, the draft law on purification of the government, according to which a list of specific people will not be allowed to participate in the election at all, will be voted for in the second reading.”