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Yatseniuk threatens Rada election boycott
Journal Staff Report

KIEV, Oct. 31 – Ukraine’s second-largest opposition party on Monday vowed to boycott the next parliamentary election in October 2012 if pro-government lawmakers ignore its amendments to an election bill that must be debated this week.

“The word election is derives from the word to elect, not to appoint,” Arseniy Yatseniuk, a former parliamentary speaker and the leader of the Front for Changes party, said in an interview with Ekho Moskvy radio. He said boycotting election would make the next government illegitimate.

“If opposition leaders are simply put in jail, and the election bill is re-written to one brief, and lawmakers in the next Parliament are appointed by the presidential decree, what should the opposition do? The opposition should delegitimize the election process as such,” Yatseniuk said.

This is not the second time that Yatseniuk has called for boycotting the election over the past 1.5 months, a sign that pro-government lawmakers and opposition groups have failed to find a compromise on the crucial bill.

Batkivshchyna, the most popular opposition party led by former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who has been recently sentenced to seven years in prison for negotiating a controversial natural gas bill in January 2009, has so far refused to support the boycott.

However, Ivan Kyrylenko, the leader of the Batkivshchyna group in Parliament, said the party will boycott debating the bills that had been already submitted by pro-government lawmakers.

Some bills calls for replacing the proportionate vote with a split system when half of Parliament is elected on party lists and another half in individual districts. Other bills call for increasing the election barrier to 5% from 3%, making it more difficult for smaller parties to enter Parliament. Both measures are thought to have benefited the pro-government party.

“If the bills stay, we will not participate in the debate,” Kyrylenko said.

Kyrylenko suggested creating a 50-50 commission that would include pro-government and opposition lawmakers in order to draft a bill that can receive broad political support.

President Viktor Yanukovych’s rule may be challenged in October 2012 due to his continued decline in popularity, while the opposition groups are expected to perform strongly.

The suggested election bill may change the way the lawmakers get elected with pro-government lawmakers suggesting amendments that may favor pro-government party, the Regions Party.

Maryna Stavniychuk, an advisor to Yanukovych, said the president would sign a bill that can get support of Parliament and that goes in line with the constitution.

“SO, improving the current election law is exclusively an issue for Parliament,” Stavniychuk said. “The president’s position is that the democratic and transparent parliamentary election must take place in 2012.”

“The president will support any position of Parliament that does not contradict the constitution and goes in line with its clauses,” Stavniychuk said. (tl/ez)




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