On 11 March, election law experts, MPs of Ukraine, civic activists and journalists gathered on a discussion, dedicated to the reforming of parliamentary election law, organized by the Civil Network OPORA.
All the discussion participants agreed that the new law on parliamentary elections should guarantee voters' influence on membership of the Parliament, and correspond to recommendations of European institutions and election law experts. The draft Law on parliamentary elections #1068-2 as of 12/11/2014, which was included in the agenda of the fourth session of the Verkhovna Rada of VIII convocation, was considered the best most suitable one.
MPs, who joined the discussion, particularly Oksana Syroid (Deputy Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine), Ihor Popov (Radical Party of Oleh Liashko), Ihor Soboliev (Samopomich Union), Ruslan Sydorovych (Samopomich Union), Leonid Yemets (People's Front), Yehor Firsov (non-faction), stated that it's quite difficult to get a real support for changes at current Ukrainian parliament. “However, the reform is extremely important, as long as introduction of open lists will make Verkhovna Rada the decision-making center,” – stated MP of Ukraine Leonid Yemets, co-author of the bill #1068-2.
“At the same time, – said MP Ihor Popov, – open lists is a brand that is very easy to sell to the public, and there is still shortage of votes for real and efficient changes to electoral legislation in the Parliament.” “There are around 70-80 Members of Parliament, who are ready to vote for the reform, – says MP Yehor Firsov, – However, there must be a strong pressure of the civic society and mass media to get it adopted.” This thought was also supported by other MPs. For example, Ruslan Sydorovych insisted on a wide-scale advocacy campaign for election law reform.
Participants of the discussion especially stressed the need to substitute all members of the Central Election Commission. Thus, MP Yehor Soboliev has announced that Samopomich Union faction will focus on this issue on the nearest votings at Parliament. Thus, Parliamentary and Electoral Programs Coordinator at Civil Network OPORA Olha Aivazovska has emphasized that substitution of CEC members is the primary step towards election law reform: “The factions will have to reconsider the nominees for CEC members, as long as there are persons in the list, who didn't give a personal agreement. The shorter list of candidates is, the more efficiently MPs will vote.”
“Adoption of the new law on parliamentary elections will also stop the debates concerning the possibility of early election this autumn,” – says Deputy Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Oksana Syroid.
Development Director of the Internews-Ukraine Yevhen Radchenko has mentioned that the next convocation of the Parliament will be of a very low quality if there is no electoral reform. However, the expert is convinced that civic organizations and everyone who is going to advocate for the parliamentary election law reform, should be radical. All the civic activists agreed with him, ready to stand for the changes in electoral legislation. For example, Head of the Board of the Committee of Voters of Ukraine Oleksii Koshel said that the new law shouldn't contain any compromise concerning prohibition of political advertising, lowering of electoral threshold and majoritarian component. Tetiana Bibik, Senior Program Manager at the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES), emphasized that there is a need to find sources of influence on Ukrainian MPs, as well as to attract international partners.
Volodymyr Fesenko, Head of the Board of the Penta Center for Political Studies, has mentioned that the level of political culture Ukrainian voters have is quite low and, therefore, electoral legislation will be efficient when both candidates will adhere to it and citizens will feel the responsibility for their choice. Vladyslav Gresiev, Head of the OPIR.ORG non-governmental organization, has raised the issue of low voter turnout, and said that it's possible to get it higher through the legislation. Andrii Kruhlashov (CHESNO Civic Movement) insisted on the need to keep the thematic discussion topical, and was supported by all the participants.
Thus, MPs of Ukraine, election law experts and civic activists have all agreed to unite into a single working platform to develop and lobby for the electoral legislation reform. Besides that, they decided to set a deadline for adoption of the law for the beginning of June, 2016.
If you have a desire and knowledge to join the creation of road map for electoral legislation reform, write us at [email protected].