The Voice (“Golos”) party and its 20-member parliamentary faction has never been fully on board with President Volodymyr Zelensky and his governing Servant of the People party. On July 17, Voice officially declared itself an opposition party.
“We realized that our constructive approach is not useful. The government does not need help, it needs to be changed,” said lawmaker and party leader Kira Rudik from the parliamentary tribune.
Ukraine’s parliament doesn’t have a formalized opposition, meaning that there will be no formal change of status for Voice.
In the past, Voice supported some government-sponsored bills, such as the bank law and the law lifting the long-standing moratorium of farmland sale.
Although Zelensky’s Servant of the People has single-party rule over the parliament thanks to its 248 seats, due to internal opposition it often has to rely on other factions, including Voice, to pass some crucial laws.
Now, Voice says it will focus on drafting its own legislation and creating a shadow Cabinet of Ministers, according to Rudik. However, the party is not swearing off backing government-proposed legislation in the future.
The latest split between the government and the Voice party was triggered by Servant of the People lawmaker Maksym Buzhansky, who proposed a bill that would return the Russian language to Ukrainian schools. It would backtrack the 2019 law that prohibited teaching in any language other than Ukrainian in public schools.
For the past two days, hundreds of protesters have gathered in front of the parliament to oppose Buzhansky’s bill. The Voice party took part in the protests.
Voice’s announcement came weeks after the party’s founder, rock star Svyatoslav Vakarchuk, stepped down from parliament.
Stuck in between
Despite being critical of Zelensky and his party since the parliament started its work in August 2019, the two main pro-European opposition parties – the Voice and European Solidarity – supported some government-proposed legislation critical for Ukraine’s cooperation with foreign donors such as the International Monetary Fund.
Without support from those two parties, a number of crucial laws would have failed. The most recent example is the law on opening the farmland market.
Since 2001, Ukraine had a moratorium on buying and selling farmland for cultivation. The IMF required that Ukraine lift the moratorium in order to receive a new loan desperately needed for the country to weather the economic downturn caused by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
The law passed only because the opposition supported the bill, with Zelensky’s governing party falling 20 votes short of a majority.
In other cases, the Servant of the People party relied on the 44-member pro-Russian Opposition Platform – For Life party.
On March 30, Maksym Stepanov was appointed health minister. It was parliament’s second attempt at appointing him. Initially, his nomination was nine votes short of the required majority. His nomination passed only after the pro-Russian party supported it.
Language protests
Voice’s official statement of opposition comes as protests rage against Buzhansky’s draft law. If passed, the law would cancel the requirement for Russian language schools to switch to Ukrainian.
The law didn’t pass the information policy committee, led by Buzhansky’s fellow Servant of the People member Mykyta Poturaev. However, it was still registered in parliament for a vote.
The law was supported by pro-Russian lawmakers, but caused a rift inside the Servant of the People party, with many opposing it.
The 2019 language law that Buzhansky wants to change is itself controversial.
While the Ukrainian language is the sole official language of Ukraine, the country previously lacked a law regulating the use of the official language. On April 25, 2019, the parliament passed the language law, filling in the gaps.
According to the language law, all schools must teach in Ukrainian, while only certain classes can be available in other languages. Buzhansky’s law aims to reverse that.
The language law has faced criticism from two of Ukraine’s neighbors with large diasporas inside the country. Russian propaganda used the law to accuse Ukraine of discriminating against the Russian minority, while Hungary declared it will block Ukraine’s aspiration to facilitate cooperation with NATO and the European Union in case the law stands.
Later, Hungary eased its rhetoric allowing Ukraine to become a NATO Enhanced Opportunities Partner.
The Venice Commission, an advisory board of the Council of Europe, advised Ukraine to change the language law.
