Viktor Chumak still has hope that Ukraine can change for the better, but not with the present crop of politicians.
The now-independent lawmaker left the Bloc of President Petro Poroshenko, the largest faction in parliament with 136 members, many of his colleagues were blocking anti-corruption initiatives.
He says the political turbulence will end only when new people come to power in the country, and, most importantly, they are elected under new rules.
“The political elite that we have now is old – these people have been elected from three to five times; they don’t want any change, including changes in the rules for entering politics,” Chumak told the Kyiv Post. “The state needs absolutely new rules to recruit different people into politics.”
Chumak, 57, was elected to Ukraine’s parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, in the Oct. 26, 2014, election, winning a first-past-the-post election in a single-mandate constituency in Kyiv. This is his second term as a lawmaker.
He says he is not afraid of early elections – which are a real possibility, as the ruling coalition appears to be on the brink of falling apart (Batkivshyna Party leader Yulia Tymoshenko announced on Feb.17 that her faction was leaving the four-party parliamentary coalition. The news came the day after Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk and his Cabinet of Ministers survived a vote of no-confidence in parliament).
Chumak told the Kyiv Post he was sure he would easily win his seat in parliament again. However, he warned that holding snap elections under the current election legislation would mean that Ukraine “falls into an even deeper pit.”
Chumak favors new election legislation that incorporates a system of open party lists. Under such an electoral system, citizens are able to vote not only for a political party, but also for particular members of the party. The candidates who get the most votes go to the top of the list, on the basis of which they are allocated seats in parliament.
But most lawmakers, including Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, don’t want to change the country’s electoral system, Chumak says.
“The president is a person who has been involved in politics for 20 years,” Chumak says. “Built-in standards and a way of thinking have imprinted on the president over these 20 years.”
He says Poroshenko doesn’t want to give up the practice of cutting backroom deals, and move towards open and transparent government.
As an example of a typical non-transparent decision, Chumak noted how parliament passed a bill that cancels the postponement of electronic declarations until 2017. The declarations are a requirement set by the European Union for Ukraine to be granted visa-free travel. However, a clause was surreptitiously slipped into the bill on the state budget for 2016, passed by Ukraine’s parliament on Dec. 24.
Poroshenko Bloc lawmaker Vadym Denysenko registered a draft law to cancel the amendment early this year. But during voting on his bill on Feb. 16, Denysenko proposed new amendments that hadn’t been discussed in committee beforehand. These new amendments, Chumak says, eviscerate the e-declarations.
According to one of them, officials are not required to declare “portable property” they bought before the law was passed. That means they won’t have to explain how they could afford to buy expensive jewelry or paintings on their modest salaries.
Another amendment to the bill that has outraged Chumak was one that allows officials not to declare property that belongs to their relatives if they don’t live together.
“So just register your wife in your neighbor’s apartment, register all of your property in her name, and you’re fine,” Chumak says.
“It was the president’s faction” that is to blame, Chumak says. “On the one hand, they’re shouting about how necessary this legislation is, that it’s needed for visa-free travel … while on the other hand they register a draft law that removes the ability to monitor (corrupt officials) through e-declarations. There is a mythical fight against corruption and a real one.”
Chumak is still an optimist, saying “Ukraine is still worth fighting for,” but “we need time, lots of time. What is 23 years for a state? It’s not ages. Ukraine is still a newborn in a diaper. Maybe your children will notice a difference. I’m doing all this for my grandchildren.”
Kyiv Post staff writer Alyona Zhuk can be reached at [email protected]
