Ukraine’s political system likely to change

Verkhovna Rada Speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn has urged the president, the prime minister, and political party leaders to open a dialogue on reforming the system of public administration. In his view, one must, above all, change the electoral law and switch to the open-list system. It is voters, not party leaders, who should decide on who will be elected to parliament, Lytvyn says. “I especially emphasize that this decision depends on the two largest factions,” the speaker said, giving a clear signal to the BYuT and the Party of Regions.

Yet, neither the BYuT headquarters on Turivska St. nor Yanukovych’s head office on Lypska St. has so far responded to Lytvyn’s initiative. Conversely, Bankova St. has given a speedy reply. The Presidential Sec­re­ta­ri­at supports the speaker’s idea of reforming the system of government and promises to submit proposals on altering the electoral law to the Verkhovna Rada in the next few days. According to the presidential chief of staff Viktor Baloha, the current election system has made it possible for party bosses’ massagers, secretaries, security guards, and chauffeurs to become members of parliame­nt.

Incidentally, in the years of independence the Verkhovna Rada has been elected six times according to five different versions of the law. Moreover, the electoral system has been changed three times, with over 20 amendments made to the election law.

The necessity of changing the current electoral law and system is a sort of a parliamentary byword: representatives of all party camps are speaking of this but everything remains confined to words only.

The parliament has registered as many as eight bills on reforming the electoral law and introducing open election lists. Here are just some of the legislative initiatives.

The nationwide pattern lobbied by Lytvyn’s faction calls for dividing the country into 450 constituencies, with only one mandate to be contested in each of them. In this case the voter opts for a specific political party as well as for a certain candidate on the party list of 450 names. As a result, those who have polled the largest number of votes among members of his/her political party will make their way to parliament.

Ihor Kril’s United Center is proposing the so-called regional model, whereby the country is to be divided into several dozen multi-seat constituencies and elections lists will consist of the top five and the remaining part. The top five candidates will be chosen by the parties themselves, while the other contenders are supposed to be attached to territorial electoral districts (their position on the list is determined by the public vote).

The joint legislative “brainchild” of Yurii Miroshnychenko (Par­ty of Regions), Vladyslav Kaskiv (NU-NS), and Andrii Shevchenko (BYuT) suggests dividing the country into 30–40 constituencies with 15 to 20 mandates in each. Then this is how many candidates each political party will nominate in a specific constituency. Like in the previous scenarios, the position of candidates on the list is determined by the results of voting.

“Closed party lists and the MP–voter gap are some of the factors that have discredited parliamentarianism as such. This is the problem of legislation that is going to change very soon,” the political scientist Andrii Yermolaiev says.

Speaking of the forthcoming reformation of the electoral law, experts forecast that the joint project of Oleksandr Lav­ry­no­vy­ch (Party of Regions) and Andrii Portnov (BYuT) will stand the best chances to go through the “legislative millstones.” This bill, in fact drawn up by the two parties’ “chief lawyers,” envisages a two-round open-list parliamentary election, which will enable the strongest factions in parliament to turn the originally unacceptable model to their advantage.

The former VR speaker Arsenii Yatseniuk considers open lists almost a panacea for this country’s political system. “But the question is whether the large parliamentary factions will vote today for this kind of electoral system, for it is about voting not only for a party but also for specific people on the party list. No. The political parties are not interested in this because they will have to recruit true politicians who have a position of their own. This will ruin the system under which one is forced to push the button, and it is more comfortable for political leaders to have speechless and essentially exploited people,” Yatseniuk said at a recent briefing. The former VR speaker characterized the results of the now existing election system in very sharp and original terms: “The same people, the same statements, the same pot, and the same dumplings—all they have to do is flip over by turns.”

Meanwhile, well- and not-so-well-known politicians are engaged in active party construction. It was reported the other day that the NU-NS MP Pavlo Zhebrivsky is going to found a new party, the Ukrainian Platform. The party’s founding congress, to which about 300 delegates have been invited from all over Ukraine, is scheduled for Saturday, March 14. The Day got in touch with Zhebrivsky, but the future party leader turned out to be reticent, to put it mildly. We only learned that this party’s ideology will be based on “liberalism in the economy as well as the goal of building a civil society and the national democratic philosophy of the Ukrainian state’s development.”

It will be recalled that last month Zhebrivsky, a member of Our Ukraine’s political council at the time, submitted a notice of withdrawal from the “Orange” party. What prompted him to make this decision was “an absolute lack of reaction to the criticism and proposals made by the party’s political council members and regional representatives about the crisis phenomena that became the precursor of a decline in democracy, morality, spirituality, and tolerance.”

Zhebrivsky is one of the five NU-NS MPs who were not admitted to any parliamentary group because they had failed to sign the coalition agreement with the BYuT and Lytvyn’s Bloc factions and, at the same time, did not join the parliamentary group For Ukraine headed by Viacheslav Kyrylenko.

The Ministry of Justice has informed us that there are 162 political parties and 2,782 various civic organizations registered in Ukraine today. And, by all acco­unts, their number will be increasing. As is known, Ole­ksa­n­dr Moroz recently “blessed” the Par­ty of Wartime Children, while Le­onid Hrach, expelled from the Communist Party’s leading body, is going to form a bloc named after him very soon.

However, although the Ukrainian party cauldron is boiling at full blast, quantity does not always translate into quality. Many of The Day’s experts often note that what Ukraine has today is not parties but clubs of various (not people’s, unfortunately) interests. Indeed, politicians are integrated to a fault with business circles and the programs of even the most high-ranking political partiers are oriented to the current expectations of their voters rather than to a stable ideological course (suffice it to recall how unwillingly and cautiously Yulia Ty­mos­hen­ko speaks about Ukraine’s integration into NATO).

In an interview with The Day, Yevhen HOLOVAKHA, Deputy Director of the Institute of Sociology, National Academy of Sciences, shares his views on how to dissuade political leaders from taking a situational tilt to the right or left that would more often than not be a departure from the original course, on the generalized image of an effective party, and on whether the financial and economic crisis will help improve the political weather in this country.

Mr. Holovakha, which of the present-day Ukrainian parties do you think can, firstly, play a consolidating role in society and, secondly, win the confidence of Ukrainians across the country?

“The freshest example is Barack Obama. Americans have entrusted their country to him, but it is the question of a leader, not of a party. In a parliamentary democracy, however, it is the question of a party, not of a leader. Party construction is still unfinished in our country. For example, the Communists are saying that they are the only ideological political force, but in the past few years they have been mostly doing the same as the others—making effective use of their votes for material benefit. We once had an ideological party, the Rukh in Viacheslav Chornovil’s lifetime, but his current followers are far from being ideological.

“We now really need an ideological party, and its ideology must serve to unite the greater part of the population. What kind of ideology can it be? In my view, it is the ideology of Western social democracy mildly oriented to European integration and not too much influenced by the ethnic factor.

“And if we assume that a political party with this kind of ideology is headed by a civilized leader, this party could well become a dominant force and do some good to this country.”

And who do you think could lead a party like this?

“Judging by the latest opinion polls, the leader is clearly discernible. I think Arsenii Yatseniuk is quite a fitting and popular figure, which, in contrast to many older-generation leaders, evokes no idiosyncrasy. I believe Ukraine would benefit from this option —especially in the conditions of a crisis because social democratic ideology is always oriented to supporting the underprivileged and, in this sense, would not cause as much aversion as is now being caused by practically all the political parties in Ukraine.”

But Ukrainians have been electing a leader, not an ideology, for at least the four past years. Factions in the current Verkhovna Rada are an illustrious example: the BYuT and the Party of Regions reflect the collective and private ideology of business interests. Why is it so?

“Because we came from a feudal and sub-feudal system, where everything is linked to the paternal tsar and his satraps, i.e. the inner circle. Very few are aware that we have a multi-institutional system and the Soviet regime strongly supported it. This is a residual system. Why do we need a new generation of leaders, at least those who were not Komsomol members in the 1980s? Because they do not know this system and will not be able to restore it easily and quickly. What concerns ideology, it is true that we do not have ideology-drived parties today, which is very bad. The parties are linked to regional interests, the ethnic factor, the language, or a passionate messianic personality.”

You mentioned social democracy as the most acceptable, in your view, ideology. But we have had it before…

“And why did the three attempts to establish something that resembles a social democratic party fail? Just because the leaders used it in their own interests instead of implementing ideological postulates.”

Can the crisis bring along a qualitatively new weather, including one in the party life?

“The very question you are asking shows optimism. A crisis is a catharsis followed by either the death or the recovery. I am also optimistic and believe that there will surely be a recovery and the crisis will rid us of so many outdated things.

“Firstly, there is a hope that new leaders will come and, secondly, that these politicians will at last understand what a horrible circus they are always showing to society, thus depriving it of the hope to overcome the crisis. They are no blithering idiots, pardon the expression, but quite capable individuals if they managed to assume such high administrative offices. They should therefore take into account the overall societal atmosphere, refocus, adopt a normal modern ideology, and work in this direction. Regrettably, they are now so much absorbed in their personal interests that there is so far no light at the end of the tunnel. But I think that the main trouble is different —they are still hungry. You see, in a hungry country politicians are also hungry.”

Are their appetites indeed insatiable?

“Do you know what distinguishes the people who run for top governmental offices? The greatest intensity of basic needs. There are much more talented and praiseworthy people around, but the point is that their appetites are not so much developed. As a result, they remain content with small things and then devote themselves to intellectual development, creative pursuits, etc.

“It is the politicians’ insatiability that pushes them forward. And, you know, it is not their fault: society should not be hungry if it does not want its politicians to be so hungry. In my view, we would become a normal society in this respect within five years or so, but the crisis has stopped us. On the other hand, this crisis will perhaps teach us something. At least I am hopeful of this.”

NOTES FROM A SURVEY

A poll conducted by Research and Branding Group shows that the Party of Regions leader Vik­tor Yanukovych is most likely to win the presidential race.

If the elections were held now, 23.5 percent of Ukrainians would vote for the chief parliamentary opposition figure.

Prime Minister Yulia Ty­mo­she­nko would poll 16.9 perce­nt of the votes, while Arsenii Ya­t­se­ni­uk, the former Ver­kho­v­na Rada speaker and the leader of the Front of Changes, would be trailing third with 12.6 percent.

Viktor Yushchenko’s rating (3.1 percent) is lower than that of Volodymyr Lytvyn and Petro Symonenko (4.6 percent each).

In the runoff, Yanukovych would beat Tymoshenko by 8 percent: 33.5 percent of the voters are ready to vote for him and 25.8 percent for Lady Yu.

If Yatseniuk forced his way into the runoff, he would in all probability be elected president: the VR ex-speaker would beat Ya­nu­kovych by 2 percent (32.1 and 30.2 percent, respectively) and Tymoshenko by 11 percent (31.5 and 20.4 percent).

The survey was conducted on February 17–27, 2009, in all regions of Ukraine. The sampling error does not exceed 2.2 percent.