The parliament: price and quality

Votes are still being counted in Ukraine. The tendencies are clear, but the questions about the final results, especially in simple-majority constituencies, still remain. The prob­lems that have been present during previous elections – titush­ky, manipulations with votes count, replacement of electoral district commission members have not disappeared today, primarily because MPs stubbornly did not want to change the electoral legislation left from Yanukovych’s times. So, the consequences followed.

Meanwhile, negotiations on the creation of parliamentary coalition are in progress. The president’s press secretary wrote on his Facebook page that the president “is engaged in forming a powerful democratic coalition” and has already had meetings with the People’s Front leader Arsenii Yatseniuk and Samopomich leader Andrii Sadovy. Despite the optimism of the president’s team before the election and statements concerning a fast formation of the coalition, it is obvious that the process is prolonged. The percentage of votes given to Petro Poroshenko’s Bloc turned out to be lower than expected.

What else did this election show?

Firstly, the inertia of voters. But you can understand them, there are reasons for it. Today’s problems added to the basis which was formed during the 1990s. We have stress­ed many times that the 10 years of Kuch­ma’s reign was the largest problem which created the clan-and-oligarchic system and formed a lot of templates for years to come. These templates are still being used by the same individuals.

People demanded to break this system during the Orange Revolution, but its leaders proved to be incapable of fulfilling society’s demand. There were other slogans, formal rules, perhaps even times, but the core of the system remained the same. It was mere mimicry. As a result, Yanukovych comes to po­wer and brings his regional clan peculia­rity, banditry. During this period the system reached its height, and the “Family” turned into a dead end of Kuchmism. A tragedy of murders on Maidan awaited us. And then, Russia’s aggression and thousands of killed fellow citizens, the annexed and occupied territories.

KYIV. OCTOBER 26, 2014 / Photo by Mykola TYMCHENKO, The Day

Yet even after everything we have been through, and despite the incumbent decision makers being in power (let us remind that an early presidential election took place in May this year, in which people put a lot of trust in Petro Poroshenko), the system continues functioning. And its founder even represents Ukraine during negotiations with terrorists and signs the Minsk protocols. All these consequences became one of the reasons of the citizens’ inertia during voting, and as a result, the fact that the Opposition Bloc and many odious representatives of simple-majority constituencies got into the parliament.

In order to carry out the lon­g-awaited reforms, a loyal parliament is needed by the current government, in which the society gradually starts losing faith. At least, they have stated this multiple times as an excuse. So, full reload has happened. We are waiting for reforms.

Secondly, we see the breakthrough of the new and young to the Verkhovna Rada. This is truly a positive signal for the country. The other question is how much influence they will have in the parliament and their political parties, since their main problem was that they failed to form a united new power after Euromaidan, which would put forward absolutely different people and approaches in politics. Meanwhile, the civil activists, participants of roundtables organized by The Day during and after Euromaidan, did stress the necessity to form a party which would represent interests of Maidan.

The absence of such a party in the ballot paper was also one of the reasons of voters’ inertia, since they did not find an acceptable political force they would like to vote for and for which they fought on Maidan. Lviv mayor Andrii Sa­dovy’s party Samopomich became a breakthrough of a kind in this situa­tion. The turning point was when Sadovy included active participants of Euromaidan in his party list. Among them is Hanna Hopko, who did not just declare her stand during the winter events. For example, she was the only representative of the public to openly boycott Kuchma’s family event, the YES Summit, which took place this September. And before that she wrote a letter to former president of Poland Kwasniewski with an appeal to do the same. Who dared to support Hopko then?

Therefore, it is very important that this stand is present in the parliament today. That the inertia, on which its architects rode into the parliament again, should not subdue the new people and impose old rules on them. The breakthrough must defeat inertia.

COMMENTARY

“THE DEMAND FOR NEW POLITICAL FIGURES HAS EXISTED IN THE SOCIETY SINCE THE 1990s”

Vadym VASIUTYNSKY, social psychologist, Doctor of Psychology, professor:

“Why did people vote for the old and the new? Society has a quite strong demand for new political fi­gures, but it has existed since the early 1990s. Perhaps, the old figures provide no satisfaction. We have never had a government that would evoke love. The only case was the first six months after the Orange Revolution. But it is sort of an advantage that we have never been fascinated by our government. In Belarus, where the government is much trusted and loved, society takes much longer to develop.

“What are the new figures? A pig in a poke. For 23 years plenty of them were offered, to fit any taste, but people treated them with caution. People do not like choosing something unknown, even though naive expectations do appear sometimes. But mass consciousness cannot be won over with the help of primitive television manipulations and persuasions. And if words and slogans had at least some effect in the 1990s, now people value specific results and the reputation of a poli­tical force. That is why it is harder for political forces to reach the top level. However, there is a specific political niche for that, which was occupied by Samopomich in this case. It includes new figures, but at the same time, it is supported by the image of Lviv mayor, a head of a romantic European city.

“As regards the votes given for the Opposition Bloc, the Communist Party of Ukraine, and Strong Ukraine, there were fewer votes for them, partly due to the Party of Regions’ loss of reputation after Mai­dan, Yanukovych’s escape, and the Party of Regions’ policies. But the main reason for this result is that Crimea and a part of Donbas did not participate in the election. However, the popularity of these political forces has decreased in Odesa, Kharkiv, and Zaporizhia oblasts. But it is impossible that after Maidan, the annexation of Crimea, and the invasion of Russia’s troops, everyone who had anti-European or pro-Rus­sian views should change their opi­nion immediately. A part of those people did change it, another one shifted to the category of those who could not make up their mind, but the majority stuck to their views. And a tremendous amount of work is to be done to change them, because these people can be convinced by specific actions and their results, but not by words.

“Now the majority of people from the east thinks that Ukraine was the one that attacked Donbas and no arguments proving Russia’s aggression can convince them. They supposedly wanted federalization and decentra­lization, but Ukrainian troops came to fight this. The elite of the southeast always meant decentralization on the regional level, but in the European understanding, decentralization must take place on the level of communities. The community and the state, and not the region, must be the key units. That is why shifting the decision-making in important local matters to communities, but not to regional authorities, will eliminate the danger of appearance of ‘independent principalities,’ which would tear Donbas from Ukraine. For exam­ple, the language issue. It is very simple to solve the problem of languages functioning in Ukrainian society on the level of laws, if representatives of various political forces do not fight over dainty morsels in this issue. The Party of Regions once adopted a language law, which nullifies all Uk­rai­nization efforts in the south-east. Of course, the language spoken by the majority of citizens on a local level must dominate, but this is the level of a community, not a region. In such a case, the language issue will be settled, and then it will be possible to talk about the formation of a Rus­sian-speaking Ukrainian identity in the most Russified regions. But while people live in the illusion of ‘Banderites’ from Kyiv, they will not accept the formation of Ukrainian identity and will gravitate towards the ‘Russian world.’

“It seems to me that the new parliament will be less prone to conflicts than the previous one. The powers were almost equally balanced there before, but now the pro-governmental parties will have serious advantage, while the opposition will be somewhat divided. Respectively, simple and reliable majority, and less opportunities to disrupt votes will be present.”