UJ.com

Top 2 

                        FRIDAY, MARCH 29, 2024
Make Homepage /  Add Bookmark
Front Page
Nation
Business
Search
Subscription
Advertising
About us
Copyright
Contact
 

   Username:
   Password:


Registration

 
GISMETEO.RU
UJ Week
Top 1   

    
Nation    

Regions bill weakens parliament speaker
Journal Staff Report

KIEV, July 2 – The Regions Party on Monday submitted a bill making it easier for Parliament to appoint and to dismiss its speaker, a sign the party is unsure whether it would dominate the legislature after October elections.

The bill submitted by lawmaker Vladyslav Zabarskiy calls for a speaker to be approved or dismissed by a simple majority vote in Parliament as opposed to a two-third majority.

Also, the bill would replace the vote by secret ballots with an open vote in which lawmakers can be identified.

“The Regions Party clearly understands it will be done after the elections,” Serhiy Sobolev, a senior lawmaker from the opposition Batkivshchyna party, said. “They won’t have the majority. So, they will try to control the speaker of Parliament, for example, through a constant threat of dismissal.”

Under the 1996 constitution, which was re-introduced in Ukraine by a controversial ruling of the Constitutional Court on October 1, 2010, at least 300 lawmakers are required to approve the speaker in a special vote by secret ballots.

The Regions Party, which currently commands 250-lawmaker majority in the 450-seat Parliament, on several occasions earlier this year has failed to approve key decisions when the voting was carried out by secret ballots. The reason is internal splits and disagreements within the party, analysts said.

President Viktor Yanukovych’s administration can resolve the disagreements by putting pressure on those lawmakers that vote out of line with the party. But it needs to identify them first, and this will be easy after Zabarskiy’s bill is approved.

But opposition groups said the bill would be in direct clash with the constitution.

“This norm is not in line with the constitution,” Sobolev said. “All voting by two-third majority and by the secret ballot are regulated by the constitution. For some reason, they [the Regions Party] want to make it easier.”

Parliamentary Speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn said Monday the bill is not an immediate threat for him, and added it is not likely to be approve before the October elections.

“This is not realistic and impossible,” Lytvyn said. “The rest are simply plans for the future that I don’t want to be part of.”

Lytvyn is expected to run for a seat in Parliament at a majority district in the Zhytomyr region because his party, the People’s Party, is not likely to collect enough votes to make it to Parliament.

Meanwhile, more voters are willing to vote for the leading opposition party, Batkivshchyna, than for the ruling Regions Party, according to the most recent opinion poll by the Razumkov Center, a Kiev-based think tank.

At least 27.9% of anonymous respondents polled on the streets said they would vote for Batkivshchyna, compared with 23.9% for the Regions Party, the center said.

The same poll made with pollsters knocking on doors of respondents show the Regions Party is slightly ahead with 28.3% vs. 26.2%, the center reported.

Analysts said the respondents at their home are not telling the truth to the pollsters because they are afraid of retaliation from the authorities, and are more likely to support the opposition in October.

“This is demonstration of fear. The people are afraid the authorities,” Roman Shrayk, an independent journalist, wrote in his blog. “This is a diagnosis for our ailing country.” (tl/ez)




Log in

Print article E-mail article


Currencies (in hryvnias)
  28.03.2024 prev
USD 39.23 39.14
RUR 0.425 0.422
EUR 42.44 42.44

Stock Market
  27.03.2024 prev
PFTS 507.0 507.0
source: PFTS

OTHER NEWS

Ukrainian Journal   
Front PageNationBusinessEditorialFeatureAdvertisingSubscriptionAdvertisingSearchAbout usCopyrightContact
Copyright 2005 Ukrainian Journal. All rights reserved
Programmed by TAC webstudio