Will New Deputies be Elected the Old Way?
It is always interesting to watch our people’s deputies in Verkhovna Rada deal with matters relating to lawgivers. One such matter is the bill on proportional parliamentary elections vetoed by the president. It was vetoed formally because the bill, in Mr. Kuchma’s opinion, violates human rights, as the stated election procedures will reduce citizens to voting only by party rosters. The actual reason — and no one is trying to make a big secret of it — is the almost guaranteed dominance of the Left in the parliament, and their popularity is mounting courtesy of the current policy of reform.
Several months ago, overriding the presidential veto seemed to present no problems, as evidenced by the alignment of voting forces; there were more than the required number (300) to override the veto. Now the situation has changed. The number of those willing to discard the opportunity to get elected in constituencies is not large enough to pass the bill: 259 of the legislators present in the audience pressed the aye button. Since the ballot was secret, one can only guess who bungled the election bill. The fact remains that, on the vote date, several very influential deputies representing the so-called oligarchic factions left the audience, meaning that they knew the turnout in advance and decided to attend to more important matters.
In other words, the new parliament will be elected on the old mixed basis, in keeping with the election law still in effect. Proposals to tip the balance between the lawmakers elected from majority districts and those from party lists voiced May 17 do not seem realistic. Most likely, the final rules of the election game will be known immediately before the starting gun goes off, maybe even during the race (as is now traditional).
The election bill’s fiasco points to a change in the alignment of Verkhovna Rada forces. This change is taking place slowly, discreetly, but surely. Another interesting vote — on the priority hearings of impeachment procedures — turned out 173 ayes, mostly owing to the orchestrated action of the Communists, Socialists, and Batkivshchyna. Other factions, supposed to back the no-confidence effort, showed signs of uncertainty. Apparently, some of the heretofore pro-Yushchenko bloc — e.g., Reforms and Kostenko’s Rukh — are no longer eager to vote an expression of no confidence against the president.
Considering that all this took place against the backdrop of consultations between the president and faction leaders, concerning the premier’s candidacy, new changes, expected and otherwise, might take place in the parliament. Failure to overcome the presidential veto of the election bill started the election game by the old rules and this is what will in many ways determine the stand of many lawmakers.
