Ostap Yednak is certain that Ukraine’s Constitution can be changed even in wartime. However, the 34-year-old lawmaker has already paid a price for trying to do so.
Yednak is one of five lawmakers kicked out of
Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovy’s Samopomich faction, which had 31 lawmakers in the
421-seat parliament.
While most of Yednak’s colleagues were against
the law, Yednak and fellow faction members Hanna Hopko, Pavlo Kyshkar, Viktor
Kryvenko and Viktoria Ptashnyk voted for proposed changes in the constitution that
would decentralize powers, including to areas now under Russian occupation in
the eastern Donbas.
Sadovy claimed that attempts were made to
bribe members of his faction before the voting.
Yednak denied the accusations.
“No one pressured me,” he explains. “But the
question of the decentralization became one of the manipulation tools many
politicians use.”
According to Yednak, decentralization is
needed to dismantle the Soviet system of the government.
“We just have those clumsy local councils and
some executive committees in cities, but they are not effective,” Yednak
said. ” Instead, this will be a complex approach to the management.”
The biggest problem, Yednak says, is the lack
of understanding society has on what decentralization means to Ukraine.
“We’re going to launch an initiative aimed at
explaining the specifics of decentralization in the next two-three months to
people all over Ukraine. Using videos, graphics we need to make it simple for
everyone,” Yednak explains.
Yednak, a Lviv native, was elected to
parliament in October. He studied international economy at Ivan Franko Lviv
National University and also got a master’s in business administration at
Steinbeis University Berlin in Germany.
“During the EuroMaidan Revolution I had a
feeling I want to do something and, with the help of Hanna Hopko, I joined the
civic sector of EuroMaidan to help the activists,” Yednak says.
He then became an expert at the civic group
Reanimation Package of Reforms. He said it wasn’t an easy decision to shift from
civic activist to lawmaker, but he had “no doubts” about joining Samopomich.
“Now you’re a lawmaker, but not long time ago
you hated them. On the other hand, I am satisfied with my work. Sometimes,”
Yednak says.
Samopomich has always been “a diamond” of the
coalition, “criticizing the president and worked on numerous draft laws to
improve them. But most importantly we knew when to stop criticizing and adopt
the laws,” he says.
It didn’t work with the law on the
constitution, though.
“I asked my colleagues, maybe we’re
wrong?” in voting against the changes. “Total criticism became a
worrisome point for me.”
Still Yednak has no regrets. He will not join another party and will remain unaffiliated.
Hopko, who used to be No. 1 on the Samopomich
party list, says that she “feels ashamed that a party which was supposed to be
a modern, democratic alternative is sliding into populism and Bolshevik
authoritarianism.”
Yednak is working on a law to help internally
displaced people take part in the Oct. 25 local elections. He is also working
on a law about environmental impact assessments. “It helps discover which
businesses cause the biggest environmental damage,” he says.
He believes in the effectiveness of the
current parliament.
“A new law on the accounting chamber has been
passed. Some of the German experts told us that it’s a quantum leap. The law on
the Anticorruption Bureau – these are one of those effective results of the
parliament’s work. And the coalition has survived after all,” Yednak says.
“We’re at the moment when progress can finally be seen.”
Kyiv Post staff writer Olena Goncharova can be reached
