Kuchma not likely to sign Rada's new law on elections (02/04/01)

Kuchma not likely to sign Rada's new law on elections

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - President Leonid Kuchma's chief of staff indicated on January 30 that the president is unlikely to sign a new election law approved recently by the Verkhovna Rada.

The new law, passed on January 18 as the Rada prepares for parliamentary elections in March 2002, will elect legislators strictly by proportional representation. Put simply, if the president signs the law, all candidates to the Verkhovna Rada in elections to be held 14 months hence will have to seek their legislative seats through membership in a political party.

Volodymyr Lytvyn told a press conference that the president believes Ukraine needs to maintain its current mixed system of legislative representation, in which half the national deputies in the country's Parliament are elected from districts by majority vote and the other half by party affiliation based on proportional distribution of the vote.

Mr. Lytvyn said the new bill, which has yet to be signed by President Kuchma, would further alienate the deputies from their constituents.

"In this situation, the Parliament will not be serving the people, but quite the opposite," explained Mr. Lytvyn, who also said that the old mixed system was better for promoting "the structuring of Ukrainian society and making parliamentary activity more effective."

The 254 national deputies who voted for the new proportional system agreed that, as in 1998, there would be a requirement that a political party needs to attain at least 4 percent of the popular vote to qualify for seats in the Verkhovna Rada.

The new law stipulates that a party or political bloc must gather 500,000 signatures to qualify for the elections, whereas the old law required 1 million names. National deputies put a 2.5 million hrv cap on campaign expenditures by each political party, which includes government-supplied funds, as well as those from the private sector.

Because there has been little movement on implementing the national referendum held in April 2000 - in which one of the proposals that voters approved requires that the number of Parliament members be decreased to 300 from its current 450 - the national deputies did not stipulate in the election law how many seats would be apportioned to the parties that passed the threshold in 2002. They did, however, divide Ukraine into 225 electoral districts.

Four political factions close to the presidential administration did not take part in the voting, namely, the Workers' Party faction, headed by Serhii Tyhypko, the Social Democratic (United) faction headed by Viktor Medvedchuk, Oleksander Volkov's Regional Rebirth faction and Petro Poroshenko's Solidarnist faction. President Kuchma does not belong to any political party, which experts say is one reason he may oppose such a structuring of the new Parliament.

The same day it was passing a new election law, the Parliament canned a draft bill that was drawn up as the first step in the process of implementing the results of the April 2000 national referendum. The bills twice failed to gather the majority needed to put it on the Rada's daily agenda, even though it was the last day of the fall session.

The president wanted the lawmakers to begin the implementation process before the end of the just completed sixth session so that it might be approved before the 2002 elections, which would allow a new Parliament to begin its work under the Constitutional amendments.

In April 2000 more than 90 percent of Ukrainians voting in a national referendum approved four controversial changes to the Constitution, which, if implemented, will: give the president the power to dismiss the Verkhovna Rada if it is not be able to form a majority or pass a budget in a timely period; reduce the number of national deputies in the Verkhovna Rada from 450 to 300; remove national deputies' immunity from criminal prosecution; and transform the Verkhovna Rada into a bicameral Parliament.

Unable to reach a decision on how to proceed with the four changes and experiencing deep resistance from lawmakers in the wake of allegations associated with the case of the missing journalist Heorhii Gongadze and "Tapegate," the presidential administration agreed that a single bill should be tabled before the end of this session.

The president and his team decided they would first seek approval of the proposal that would allow the president to dissolve the Parliament if it could not form a working majority within 30 days, but on the last day of the session the national deputies showed no stomach for even considering the extension of additional powers to the president.

Instead, they agreed to set up an ad hoc parliamentary committee for the preparation and preliminary examination of the draft laws that will amend the Constitution as required by the results of the April 2000 national referendum. Second Vice-Chairman Stepan Havrysh, who is a member of the Rebirth of the Regions faction, will chair the commission.

Where that leaves the referendum proposals, which the Constitutional Court has ruled must be implemented, is unclear. Many national deputies believe the resounding defeat suffered by the president assures that this Verkhovna Rada will not consider any other bills associated with the national referendum.

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