Political Reform Faces Vicious Circle in Parliament

The presidential decree to subject the bill On Amendments to the Constitution of Ukraine to a nationwide referendum has aroused much speculation and criticism. The broad consensus on the need for a transformation of the political system into a parliamentary republic, revision of the interrelationships of the branches of government along with changes in the structure of Verkhovna Rada and the system of parliamentary elections, does not correspond to the ways and means of effecting these changes. Even today it is obvious that most proposals will require new rounds of discussions, while political and legal innovations will have to be adjusted to the interests of major political forces.

It has long been known that political systems limit the choice of new political models in the same way as they limit the choice of political decisions. Meanwhile, political forces choose the rules and procedures that would guarantee them maximum long-term political dividends. Within this context, it would be instructive, in terms of both the strategy and technology of pushing presidential initiatives through the parliament, to analyze the repeated failures to enact the bill on proportional representation. The conflicts surrounding the vote on the draft new electoral law illustrate the paradoxes and pitfalls of majority votes in unstructured parliaments.

The most recent fiasco of the vote on two drafts of the electoral law was in part because of political and institutional factors. It is obvious that if there is no stable majority the bill in question cannot possibly win the votes needed. As a result, the process becomes caught in a vicious circle, since a proportional representation system is needed to lay the groundwork for a viable majority and coalition government. However, hearings on the proportional representation system have reached an impasse precisely because of the absence of any majority capable of garnering the needed votes. Deputies have faced a dilemma when no alternative could pass.

To understand the essence of this dilemma, imagine the following situation: three deputies with differing ideologies, that is, leftist, rightist, and centrist, have been asked to determine what is more important for a country: social guarantees, defense, or education. The leftist deputy attaches the highest priority to social guarantees, followed by education and defense. For the rightist deputy defense comes first, then education and social guarantees, while the centrist attaches the greatest importance to education. Should each of them vote in accordance with their beliefs, they will be caught in a vicious circle where none of the alternatives can win a simple majority. In economic and later political science literature such a phenomenon became known as a voting paradox.

In lawmaking, a voting paradox is possible in two cases. In the first case, lawmakers’ votes reflect their beliefs and, as a result, are distributed among all of the alternatives. Then, as a rule, neither alternative will win enough votes, which will touch off a new cycle of voting. To break this circle, a certain group of deputies will have to choose the lesser evil and cast a strategic vote thus creating a floating or situational majority.

The legislative battles accompanying the electoral reform in the French Fourth Republic provide an example of the first case of a voting paradox. Then, about ten parties and political forces supported a change of the proportional representation system in the National Assembly, each of them offering its own version. Supporters of the majority electoral system prevailed, but because they split into two camps, one supporting a one round election and the other a runoff, neither bill received enough votes to be enacted.

Illustrative of the second case are hearings in Verkhovna Rada when deputies’ votes are determined by the political situation, or when they pursue some long-term strategic goals, sacrificing their personal or party interests. As a result, there is the opportunity to turn parliamentary hearings into unending cycles of votes whose aim is to delay making the required decision until an opportune moment or bury the initiative altogether.

A graphic example of the latter is the recent vote on the electoral bill. Two bills were voted on February 18, one traditional and the other quite innovative. The bill drafted by deputies Rudovsky and Melnychuk proposed a classic proportional representation system. Under the bill, political parties would be put on a single electoral ticket and elections would be held in a single nationwide constituency. This bill won 217 ayes from Our Ukraine, SPU, CPU, Yuliya Tymoshenko bloc, and part of SDPU(o). The opposition is an uncompromising supporter of the proportional system. The stance taken by the SDPU(o) deserves special mention. Supporters of party-based elections, the Social Democrats see the proportional system as one of their priorities. Incidentally, an SDPU(o) representative co-authored the bill on the proportional representation system. However, the votes of this group split which could be evidence of a hidden strategic motivation within the party. After all, the vote fell short of 9 ayes to enact the bill.

The other bill, the joint effort of Deputies Havrysh, Yoffe, and Dashutin, received few votes. The system proposed by this bill is quite original and, according to its authors, designed to solve the problem of the connection between the deputy, constituencies, and the party. But the fact that it was supported by merely two fractions, the Democratic Initiative Party and the Party of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs & Labor Ukraine bloc totaling 65 deputies, is evidence that the bill did not win the necessary support in the parliament. Despite the explanation provided, the proposed electoral system remains unclear to the deputies, and, obviously, its accessibility to the electorate also remains in question.

The stand of centrist factions accounting (about 165 votes), who opted for neither of the proposed bills, can be interpreted as maintaining the status quo. Simultaneously, the fact that deputies are set to change the existing political system is evidenced by the results of the vote to send the bill back to the committees for revision. A total of 233 deputies voted to return the Rudkovsky-Melnychuk bill for revision, which is evidence that the centrist factions accept the proportional representation system, but their strategy is to delay the decision. The airing of the presidential alternatives served as a signal for the centrists to break the impasse. On the face of it, the law on proportional elections received the green light, that is, both the opposition and centrists can support it. However, after the possibility of a presidential veto was eliminated, limitations of a different nature have come to the forefront. First, this is the opposition’s rejection of the idea of dividing the legislature into two chambers. Second, there is an obvious conflict between the instruments of a parliamentary republic (parties form the majority which forms the Cabinet of Ministers) and to give the president additional powers and the right to dissolve the lower chamber. The electoral law has yet again returned into a field of bargaining between the president and opposition, the more so that the president has proposed to reduce the number of lawmakers and introduce the right to disband the lower chamber thus provoking new conflicts. What could be the solution? No matter how paradoxical this might sound, it is the proportional representation system. First of all, the political reform on a grand scale should start from the reform of the electoral system. Second, the legislature cannot be an initiator and active participant of political reform without a viable parliamentary majority. Third, the president and parliament alike must be equal co-authors of any political reform. Be that as it may, by proposing his bill and exercising his right of legislative initiative the president has made his presence felt. Now it is Verkhovna Rada’s to act.