Leader of the Front for Change Party Arseniy Yatseniuk has said the opposition insists that the 2012 parliamentary elections be held under the current election system, and that he categorically opposes the current authorities' attempts "to falsify the upcoming parliamentary elections."
According to the press service of the Front for Change, Yatseniuk said this at a parliament sitting on the election legislation on Tuesday, October 4.
Verkhovna Rada Chairman Volodymyr Lytvyn introduced a reduced procedure for the consideration of all bills proposing amendments to the election legislation submitted by MPs. All of the proposed documents were voted down by the MPs.
"The procedure for the consideration of election laws has nothing to do with giving Ukrainians an opportunity to elect people’s deputies of Ukraine that would work for Ukraine and Ukrainians," Yatseniuk said.
He added that the Verkhovna Rada is carrying out a technical task: to reject all of the opposition’s bills, so that the president of Ukraine can submit a new law on elections as soon as possible.
"The new law is aimed only at obtaining a 300-vote majority in the next parliament by unconstitutional means. They want to do this by passing a law that would permit the falsification of the next parliamentary elections – in the same way as they falsified the local elections."
Yatseniuk also said that the opposition representatives voiced their position to a delegation of the Venice Commission.
"All of the opposition parties demanded that the 2012 elections be held under the current election legislation. The Regions Party formed the biggest parliamentary faction in 2006 and 2007 under this law – a law that was described by the [international] democratic community as democratic and transparent."
According to him, the election system cannot be changed a year before the elections. Amendments to election legislation can be made only after the 2012 elections, he said.
Yatseniuk said the amendments should foresee, first of all, openness and transparency in the election process. This is envisaged by the law amending and completing some of the laws of Ukraine (regarding openness and transparency of the election process), which he himself registered on April 27 (No. 8448), Yatseniuk said.
"I proposed to add to the law provisions under which, by the way, President [Viktor] Yanukovych ran in the [presidential] election," he said.
"I mean the introduction of openness, transparency of the election process and open lists of candidates. The draft law envisages a procedure for publicizing all information about candidates for people’s deputies, attaching each deputy to an electoral district, and gives the possibility, on the basis of a local referendum, of revoking [the mandate of] any people’s deputy elected under party lists."
