Parliament passes election law after nine months of wrangling (09/28/97)

Parliament passes election law after nine months of wrangling

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - After nine months of many attempts, Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada finally shed itself of its archaic and ineffective electoral system on September 24 and pushed through a new election law that observers say will strengthen the role of political parties in Ukraine but still leaves room for non-aligned legislators elected from electoral districts. The feat wasn't accomplished without some controversy, however.

The vote, called historic by many national deputies, will give the next elected legislature a composition of 225 deputies elected directly from districts and 225 deputies picked by parties. The distribution of deputies from the varying parties will be proportional to the percentage of support the party receives.

"This is the civilized evolution of the political system of Ukraine," said National Deputy Yevhen Marchuk after the voting. "We are moving toward European standards. A mixed system is more progressive. It will help the political development of Ukraine."

That step forward took 13 attempts over more than six months - and six votes at the September 24 session alone - before the Verkhovna Rada finally passed an election law by a vote of 230 to 73.

A majority of Parliament members had long agreed that the old system could not remain but could not agree on a new one. Three proposals, a strictly proportional system like in most of Europe, changes to a majority system that made it impossible to elect a full legislature in 1994, and the mixed system that finally won out, split the deputies to the point that no single proposal could get the needed 226 votes.

Six months ago, a revamped majority system looked to hold the edge. A bill supporting changes but leaving the old system in place was passed in its first reading in March. But questions arose about whether that bill, which did not change the old law but merely attached amendments to it, would be legal under the new Constitution. The bill hung in committee for several months as the Verkhovna Rada battled with the legal question surrounding the bill as well as with a 1997 budget.

On September 10 a new bill suggesting a mixed election system with 25 percent turnout needed in a district to elect a deputy (and not the 50 percent called for in the old law), and a requirement that a party needed to achieve at least three percent of the vote to gain representation, came to the legislative floor.

Acting Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Viktor Musiyaka suggested that the non-controversial aspects of the bill be worked through article by article and the more difficult passages be left for later.

He also suggested that the Parliament vote in principle for the majority electoral law, the mixed law or a third law that had been introduced, which would have allowed parties to be represented by deputies proportionally to the votes the party gathered in elections. The straw voting in the Verkhovna Rada, termed a "rating vote," took place several times because none of the proposals could attain a majority.

Until September 24 that did little to break the logjam, but it did give deputies a clearer picture of where the body stood on the three proposals. After each vote, the legislature recessed for meetings of factions and of faction leaders to work out compromises and gather support.

Then, with Chairman Oleksander Moroz back from a month's leave due to illness, the bill on the mixed system came up for a second reading, after having been approved in its first reading on September 10 and with only the controversial features of the bill left to be resolved. Mr. Moroz, it seems, was determined to get a bill passed - preferably the one on a mixed system, perhaps to show that he still retained firm control over the legislative body.

After a rating vote in which the mixed system gathered 185 votes, close but not enough to attain a simple majority, and after the chairman called for a break and a meeting with the faction leaders, several more rating votes were attempted. With each one, the mixed system proposal gathered more support. The fourth vote fell a vote shy, but on the fifth try exactly 226 deputies voted "yes."

Then, in a controversial move that some deputies are calling a breach of parliamentary procedure, Chairman Moroz called for a final vote on the bill on a mixed system in its entirety, without a completed second reading, which passed with 230 deputies voting for. Volodymyr Stretovych, chairman of the Committee on Legal Policy and Judicial Reform, said the bill required no third reading because "no outstanding provisions have been left."

But Mykhailo Syrota of the Constitutional Center faction said after the vote that the results were forced. "If the issue can be put to a vote 12 times in a row, and the required 226 votes squeezed out, then I must congratulate Oleksander Moroz on his democratic victory," said a sarcastic Mr. Syrota. Mr. Syrota was a proponent of a majority system for the 1998 elections and had proposed that a mixed system be implemented in succeeding elections.

The new law supercedes the old statute that required a majority from at least 50 percent of voters in an electoral district to elect a national deputy. That law had dragged out the elections of 1994 for almost three years because certain electoral districts could not achieve a 50 percent turnout or the 50 percent vote required to elect a candidate. Many feared that without electoral reform the next Verkhovna Rada would not be seated for lack of a constitutional majority of 300 elected parliamentarians.

Because even a completely rewritten law for a majority electoral system was considered constitutionally questionable by many legal scholars and because President Leonid Kuchma, who supported a mixed electoral system, retains the power to dismiss the Verkhovna Rada, much of the discussion that took place on the legislative floor revolved around the notion of the political survival of the legislative body.

Serhii Soboliev of the Reform faction said, "Vote for any of the proposals, so that a law is passed. If not, we will be left with the old law - and that is a direct path to the dismissal of the Parliament. The old law is not in line with the Constitution and that will play directly into the hands of the executive branch."

Vladyslav Nosov, who is non-aligned, commented: "Deputies, don't play with the Constitutional Court because it will play with you. It is a cat-and-mouse game and you will be the mouse. if you do not vote for a new system, this Parliament will be dismissed."

The new law requires that the 450 current electoral districts be restructured into 225, which must occur 120 days before elections, and that electoral commissions for the new districts must be formed within 90 days of the elections. New elections to the Verkhovna Rada are scheduled for March 29, 1998.

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