Constitutional referendum becomes more realistic (01/16/00)

Constitutional referendum becomes more realistic

RFE/RL Poland, Belarus and Ukraine Report

PRAGUE - Ukraine's Central Election Commission has registered 218 initiative groups that want to collect signatures in support of a nationwide constitutional referendum, Interfax reported on December 30, 1999. The registration followed the decision of a district court in Kyiv on December 21, 1999, that obliged the commission to register the first initiative group from Zhytomyr. The groups propose referendum questions connected with holding a nationwide vote of no-confidence in the current Parliament, terminating the current Parliament's powers, reducing the number of national deputies, creating a bicameral legislature, lifting deputies immunity, and introducing a rule to adopt the country's Constitution by a nationwide referendum.

According to the current Constitution, a popular initiative to hold a nationwide referendum must be supported by at least 3 million signatures collected in at least two-thirds of Ukraine's regions (at least 100,000 signatures in each of them).

President Leonid Kuchma has voiced the idea of holding a referendum on the dissolution of the current Verkhovna Rada and the creation of a bicameral legislature. Most commentators considered the idea to be a threat in order to create a pro-government majority in the Parliament. Now, however, after the registration of the support groups, the referendum idea may gain a momentum of its own.

More than 50 parliamentary deputies have asked the Supreme Court to cancel the decision registering the initiative group from Zhytomyr as illegal. Parliament Chairman Oleksandr Tkachenko said the referendum cannot be held because Ukraine has no law on referendums. He also told Interfax that the country has no money to hold nationwide plebiscites.

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