Rada overrides Kuchma veto of election law (03/14/99)

Rada overrides Kuchma veto of election law

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada firmly rejected changes to the draft law on presidential elections submitted by President Leonid Kuchma when it convincingly voted to override his veto of the bill on March 5.

The proposed law, which had been thoroughly debated in Ukraine's legislature and finally passed on January 15, lays the ground rules for the presidential elections scheduled for October 31.

Citing constitutional concerns, President Leonid Kuchma proposed that several changes be made to the draft law, including a cut in the length of the campaign season from 180 to 120 days and a stipulation that at least 50 percent of the electorate turn out for the vote for the elections to be considered valid.

The parliamentarians found the two-thirds majority (300 votes) constitutionally required to overturn a presidential veto - and more. In all, 313 national deputies from both the left and right decided they could not agree with the president's proposed changes, which many consider a strategic move by President Kuchma's team to give him an advantage in the 1999 race.

National Deputy Oleksander Lavrynovych of the Rukh faction said the proposals were drawn up in a way that would limit the number of candidates who would qualify for the elections so they "do not offer the current head of state a strong contest."

The president had also asked that the Verkhovna Rada agree to change the draft law so that the administrative system for the elections would be broken down into 805 oblast and regional electoral districts, with regional state administrations giving aid in forming local election commissions. The national deputies decided that an administrative system based on territorial constituencies that reflect the Verkhovna Rada's 225 single-mandate districts would be fairer and more efficient.

They also rejected a presidential proposal that individuals be allowed to sign only onto one candidate's petition. Many experts believe that the large number of signatories required - 1 million per candidate - will make it difficult to gather a wide spectrum of candidates as it is, and that, with the stipulation that a voter could endorse only one candidate, the field could have been reduced to two political horses: President Kuchma and a representative from the Communist Party.

As Vyacheslav Chornovil, head of the Rukh-I faction in the Verkhovna Rada explained, "The proposal was meant to turn the presidential elections into a vote for one person."

The national deputies also did not go along with a Kuchma proposal that would have allowed public organizations, such as labor unions, to field political candidates

Many national deputies simply disliked both the version that the Parliament had passed and the new proposals by the president, but felt that the Parliament's draft law was the lesser of two evils.

"The proposals by the president were even worse than the text of the bill," said Volodymyr Marchenko, national deputy of the Progressive Socialist faction and a political partner of Natalia Vitrenko, one of the more vociferous voices in the Verkhovna Rada and an announced presidential candidate.

The national deputies did, however, accept some of Mr. Kuchma's proposals, in essence making the bill they passed a new presidential elections law.

They agreed that the new law should specify the presidential term of office (five years), even though that is already clearly stated in the Constitution. They also gave the nod to proposals that allow the Central Election Commission to develop the rules that will govern candidates' use of the mass media; that candidates must file financial statements on their income and property for the last year; and that "foreigners and stateless persons" could not contribute to an individual candidate's election campaigns.

Nonetheless, the future of this particular law on presidential elections remains uncertain. "I foresee a complicated future for this law," said National Deputy Roman Besmertnyi, the president's representative in the Verkhovna Rada.

On Bankivska Street, the home of the Presidential Administration, the word is that President Kuchma will submit the draft law approved by the Verkhovna Rada to the Constitutional Court for scrutiny before he signs it, which by law he has 10 working days to do.

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