Discussion on Ukraine's election law heats up as the mixed system that allows to elect half of the parliament through party lists and another half through single-mandate constituencies has proven to be a ground for corruption, experts say.
Opora, a civil
network, reports 1,114 facts of vote-buying in 44 single-mandate districts
during the 2014 parliamentary campaign. Experts name fictitious charity funds
as a major source of bribing the voters with money and food.
According to the
coalition agreement, signed by the leaders of five parliamentary factions on
Nov. 21, 2014, current mixed electoral system should be reformed by July.
However, the
parliament has not passed any
alterations yet.
Experts, in the meantime, are sure that war in the
Donbas and critical economic problems are only excuses for procrastination. According
to Opora’s analyst Oleksandr Klyuzhev, current system should be reformed
immediately because it allows the candidates, close to the authorities and
oligarchs, to abuse the so called administrative resources, which is nothing
but pushing the public employees to vote for them.
Three contradictive bills on electoral reform have
been waiting to be passed by the Verkhovna Rada for two months. However, they
are being criticized too.
Opposition Bloc’s version implies a proportional
system with voting for party lists with no primaries and sets a 1 percent entry
barrier, allowing marginal parties, sometimes launched ad hoc for the campaign,
into the parliament.
Bill submitted by Batkivshchyna implies party lists that
they call open, but still how the primaries should be held is not clear.
Petro Poroshenko’s Bloc version describes open party
lists that will be formed based on the polls, which will block minor marginal
parties, that sometimes do nothing else but trade their votes, from taking
seats in the Rada. Moreover, the bill regulates political advertisements and
reduces the chances to use the state budget for self-promotion.
Venice Commission, Council of Europe’s group of
experts on the constitutional law, supports Poroshenko’s version of the reform
that makes it the most likely candidate for further adoption.
However Yuriy Klyuchkovsky, one of the bill authors
who is also head of the Suffrage Institute, says there are risks accompanying
the document. He says, it should be submitted by the parliamentarians, not
Cabinet or Presidential Administration. Otherwise, it could lead to a
bureaucratic mess.
Klyuchkovsky emphasizes, voters should be explained
how the law works after it’s adopted. “We remember poor Polish experience.
They only changed the ballot structure before the 2011 parliamentary elections,
resulting in more than 20 percent of votes getting lost,” he says. “People
didn’t know how to fill in the ballots and spoiled them.”
Finally, the experts warn that such an electoral
system provokes hard competition inside the parties, which may lead to a rat race
and destabilize the parliament. “We need this electoral system, but it is
big responsibility for the voters and members of parliament as well,” said
Oleksandr Chernenko, member of the Rada’s committee on legal policy and
justice.
Kostiantyn Yanchenko is the
Kyiv Post’s intern.
