In Ukraine elections are following one another with kaleidoscopic rapidity. No sooner had the presidential elections been over than preparations began for the parliamentary ones. As early as March 1 the Ministry of Justice will announce the official list of the political parties that will be allowed to vie for seats in the fifth session of the Verkhovna Rada, provided they registered on time.
Meanwhile, the public, assisted by the political elite and experts in this field, has launched a lively discussion of various nuances of the election law and prospects for the forthcoming campaign. One of the first actions undertaken in this connection was a roundtable with the mind-bending title “‘Closed’ Voting Lists in the Parliamentary Elections: Limits for Implementing the Principle of Transparency,” which took place recently in Kyiv under the auspices of the Ukrainian Center for Political Research.
The aim of the gathering was to determine to what extent “closed” lists meet election transparency requirements, the demands of voters who wish to take an active part in forming this country’s highest legislative body, and the principles of party development.
At the heart of the most heated debate was the possibility (or impossibility) of updating the election law. The participants were divided into two opposing camps of almost equal size. One group, led by People’s Deputy Vasyl Havryliuk, maintained that it is utterly impossible to alter the law in less than a year. The other group, headed by several public figures, tried to prove the opposite by citing the recent experience of revamping the presidential election law in the heat of the Orange Revolution. Political scientist Volodymyr Fesenko reconciled the debaters, declaring that the fate of the parliamentary election law totally depends on the newly- elected president. This expert believes that Viktor Yushchenko would be the first to welcome an updated election law, but a broad public debate is still inevitable. “The clauses of the election law should take into account the interests of political elites and rank- and-file voters alike,” Mr. Fesenko said. The ultimate goal is to fill parliament with high-skilled members capable of lawmaking, not just business elite delegates who are loath to draft standard-setting documents. Besides, it would be good if all regions and nationalities of Ukraine were represented as equally as possible in the session hall, including along gender lines. The discussion revealed that “closed lists” are somewhat problematic. This practice is fraught with negative consequences for the development of political parties. Experts believe that such an approach prevents ordinary party members from reaching the top of the list and from there into parliament, for they have to give way to their bosses, who wield more clout. Like a tree that grows from a root, a party should develop from local cells. Deprived of motivation, local party activists will likely lose all interest in working.
Another problem is to establish a balance between the program goals and the selection of personnel. Is it better first to draft a party program and then recruit people to implement it (thus rendering them “faceless”) or vice versa? The European political tradition opts for the former scenario and the Slavic one for the latter. Recalling their work experience in the constituencies, first-past-the-post parliamentarians are certain that the voter wants to know “his” deputy “up close and personal.” Besides, it is always easier to bring a concrete person “to book” than an “abstract” political force.
The organizers of the roundtable reached the conclusion that all these problems are quite solvable. The main question is to what extent the election law promotes the development of society as a whole, in particular enlarging political parties, purging them of the “miserable ideology of regionalism,” building a clear-cut structure of the entire political spectrum, and encouraging “ordinary deputies” to assert their position and increase their clout in society. According to Yury Kliuchkovsky, whose presentation focused on this subject, the latter is only possible if the “imperative mandate” (invalidation of a deputy’s mandate if he quits his party’s faction — a provision approved by the famous “package vote” on December 8, 2004) is repealed.
The main result of the gathering was a proposal that the Verkhovna Rada convene a congress of councils at various levels to fully discuss the outlined problems. This project should be implemented as soon as possible, in view of the upcoming elections and a very limited time to propose amendments to existing legislation.
