Serhii Podhornyi: temporary commission on electoral reform – is a veil over the government

Serhii Podhornyi - Chairman of the subcommittee on election legislation and civic associations and a member of a newly-formed temporary special commission of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine for the preparation of the draft Law of Ukraine on Elections of People's Deputies of Ukraine. The deputy spoke about his impressions of the commission's work and shared his thoughts on the electoral reform perspectives.

- Electoral bills were very hastily considered by the Parliament, without proper conclusions of certain legislative committees. Committee hearings on the law were held with big difficulties. That’s why I think that forming temporary special commission of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine for the preparation of the draft Law of Ukraine on Elections of People's Deputies of Ukraine is not a compromise, but a veil that government draws over itself. The first meeting of commission was held on the fourth of November to consider questions of organization. To my mind, the Committee chairman Ruslan Kniazevych has put precise object: the aim of commission – is to develop a new draft law. There is not much time, so he said: let’s take what we have: a current law on Parliamentary elections, a law on Presidential elections and a law on elections to local governments. Besides that, there are 13 bills, recently voted down by the Verkhovna Rada (in fact, they were not studied and a Profile committee hasn’t considered it) and, finally, there is a bill introduced allegedly by the President. Lets start from the analysis of the effective law and see if its substantial change is so necessary, or maybe there could be changed only provisions at which pointed out Venice Commission (including introduction of open lists). Though, representatives of the majority don’t want to analyze anything. They propose not to “beat the air” and quickly put the bill to the vote. We understand that the ration of commission members is 5 to 7 (YTB and OUPSD have only 5 representatives.) The majority needs this commission only for cover, and expects to hold it the same way as in election laws in the State Building Committee were considered draft electoral laws. The bill by Yurii Kliuchkovskyi will be again highly appreciated. Some time before, a deputy Demchyshen from the Party of Regions said on the meeting of the committee: “This Law is good and reasonable; we would support it, but..." As a result the committee approved the bill by Yefremov. The commission is going to do the same. We may introduce a lot of amendments, but after the voting machine is turned on (and it’s turned on), it’s very difficult to change something. Moreover, it’s difficult to imagine how well you must be specialized to develop such a complicated bill in two weeks given to the commission. But why did they give only two weeks? It’s connected to the date of 19 December (Ukraine-EU Summit – editor). That’s why they try to do everything as quick as possible. Some things we will manage to do in time, the opposition is ready to compromise and have already prepared certain amendments. But believe me, there is no great optimism about that. Of course, there may be adopted very satisfactory bill, but later will be made amendments changing everything. Than the government will say – it was widely discussed and a group in the Parliament worked on it, so everything was held democratically. Thus, only a radical mass public opinion may direct this work to democracy. However, if the community and European experts will be silent, nothing is going to change. I reckon that since we have such a situation today, it’s better to improve effective law on elections and introduce open lists, and new fundamental law within the Election Code should be developed and adopted by this Rada, but on the next convocation.

- Is it possible to conduct fare democratic elections by the elective Law?

- Yes, it is. There only should be corrected the regulation on voter lists. Public opinion also could be taken into consideration, what means introducing open lists. The other way is to ensure voting for open lists (it can be done technically), or to open the procedure of lists' compilation, so that voters could see how lists are formed or influence this formation on regional or district conferences through internal party voting. There are corresponding mechanisms for that.

- There is an opinion, that opening voter lists is impossible now because of the possible size of the ballots.

- On the contrary, bulletin for such a system is very small. There is only to the name of elections, district and polling station numbers indicated, and then written: “I vote for a party No. …” and stencil (like on envelopes in the part which refers to the postal code), where should be put the number of party for which you want to vote. Later is written: “From the list of this party I choose a candidate No. …” Taking into account that the bill provides only regional lists, the number of candidates will be around 20. That’s all. I mean, that the bulletin is very short. The other question is providing broadsheets with all lists for each polling station. Technically, everything is possible, all is needed is political will of the President. If he agrees, the Parliament will vote.

- Are there procedural aspects in the bill by Yefremov which may be used for prevention of falsification?

- No, all that law is written in such a way that the elections is going to become a pure falsification. Only imagine that the law has no regulation which provides that the election commission shall inform district election commission at the end of voting, and the last one shall inform CEC about the number of votes. We always received the information on the voter turnout right after the end of voting. Now, we are not going to have this anymore. But why, what for it was done? In order to make falsifications in majoritarian districts. What for exists the regulation which provides that voter lists shall be delivered right to the precinct election commission, but not to the district commission? I mean that we will not even know the number of voters in districts. There is an ambiguous norm on protocols. Precinct election commission fills only 4 protocols: One to the CEC, one to the district commission, one “to the case” and the last is hanged on the stand. That’s all, a member of commission can’t get a protocol. So, if there is no protocol, it is impossible to appeal the decision at the polling station. There is another problem with recognizing the election void - it’s possible to do at the polling station, but not at a district election center. If the district, for example, has 100 polling stations and in 30 of them has won the candidate from the government, and in 70 - a candidate from the opposition, than in these 70 “oppositional” polling stations voting may be recognized void and the candidate from the government will win. Moreover, the question of recognizing voting void is very subjective. Here may be used different complaints, is it has recently happened at the local elections to the Brovary district council. One of the reasons for consideration voting void in that case became “poor street lighting". Supposedly it was the reason why voters could not come and vote! In fact, 90% of our villages have no street lighting. In this case, the last Presidential elections also should be declared void.

- Does the majority have a compromising solution for the electoral law?

- It concerns only the majority. However, taking into consideration that from the Communist party this bill was signed by Adam Martyniuk, from Lytvyn faction - Ihor Sharov, from the group "Reforms for the Future" – Ihor Rybakov, and from the Party of Regions - Oleksandr Yefremov, than we may suppose that the majority has this consensus at least at the moment of introducing this bill from the government to the Parliament.

- Why then was formed a temporary parliamentary commission on elections?

- To my mind, the President is worried that on the 19^th of November he will be shown the red, but not yellow card, and than will be removed from the field of Europe. That’s why certain steps are made. It’s connected to the Opinion of the European Parliament which says, that parliamentary elections must be conducted by the law which is based on recommendations of the Venice Commission. Thus, the President has to at least pretend that something is being done about that. Nevertheless, I’m not very optimistic in that sense. I doubt that the commission is going to take radical steps. It maybe will approve 5-10% of propositions introduced by the opposition, and than will say that they considered the opinion of the opposition.

Interviewer: V’iacheslav  Shramovych (Agency for Legislative Initiatives)