On October 26, fifty-two and a half percent of the citizens who have the right to vote came to the polls. Quite a European level of attendance, especially under conditions of war and terror. The eighth Parliament will be quite legitimate, acknowledged by the Ukrainian public and our partners in the world. The enemy, Russia, will also acknowledge it.
Overall, the main victor of the elections is, indisputably, the public, which documented its responsibility and adequacy with its results. However, this victory is arbitrary and unaccomplished. The ‘Maidan parties,’ which took the first three places on the electoral pedestal, The People’s Front, Petro Poroshenko’s Block, Samopomich, during the electoral campaign resorted to the traditional electoral populism and consumerist means of advertising, without which their political marketing experts did not conceive success. This regards other parties which overcame the barrier as well. Once again, there was no conclusive political dialogue between the politicians and the public at these elections.
Generalizers, such as those who are ‘for peace,’ ‘for the European choice,’ ‘against corruption’… have to be filled with lists of concrete steps to achieve the goals they declared. Batkivshchina, whose program will encourage it to become part of the ruling majority, also has to propose its own steps in this regard.
As to the Radical Party, its position will be determined by the interests of the shareholders. Taking into account the complex configuration of these interests, this party will act situationally: in humanitarian-worldview issues it will support the ruling coalition, and in economic and government issues – its shareholders. However, many of their representatives will be found among majority members, and in the lists of the parties which will become part of the ruling coalition, Oppositional Block notwithstanding.
At the moment, nobody has invited the Radical Party to the coalition.
The coalition agreement
President Petro Poroshenko stated on the eve of the elections that the government coalition would be formed on Monday-Tuesday and that the text of the coalition agreement had already been prepared. However, the results of the voting do not give him any grounds to impose this document on his partners in a unilateral manner. A work group formed from the representatives of all parties who are willing to enter it have to work on the coalition agreement, except for Oppositional Block, as its very name denies its participation in government.
All the participants of the coalition should agree on a list of members who are unacceptable in the government, the people who are subject to lawful lustration criteria, as well as those who have been accused of corruption, bribing voters, falsifying results of the vote and other crimes. This public list has to be part of the coalition agreement. Such a parliamentary obstruction is necessary to continue cleansing the government.
The main article of the constitutional agreement have to be the basics of a constitutional order to prepare the project for a new Constitution and the principles of the electoral system for the Electoral Code. Elections to local councils next year have to abide by new electoral rules.
The principle of distribution of the posts in the government, local administrations, other executive government structures is the next article in the agreement. It should include the annual program of the government’s activity in the economic, social and humanitarian spheres, starting, naturally, with the main measures of the State Budget for next year.
A special separate point is to acknowledge the OUN-UPA a fighting side in World War II. This is a debt Ukraine has to repay to its soldiers for its freedom.
Only a chance
The results of the elections in majority districts are yet another testament to the fact that they were purposefully held according to the law ‘a la Yanukovych,’ in order to create an advantage for Petro Poroshenko’s Block when forming the majority. All the while, even under these conditions, the Ukrainian public managed to render the monopolization of government by a single political power impossible. Practically all the parties which surpassed the barrier (except for Batkivshchina) are fresh political projects tailored to these elections. They constitute unstable political environments, which not only conflict between each other in the Parliament, but have internal conflicts as well. These conflicts will slow down the work on the eighth Verkhovna Rada’s main goal: passing the Constitution and the Electoral Code.
Under the condition of the government’s inefficacy, possible economic stagnation, lasting war, the lack of compromise in renewing the country’s territorial integrity, survival of corruption schemes, public moods which will be positive at the beginning of the new Rada’s work may quickly change. And then we’ll have Maidan 3.0.
Two revolutions are enough for Ukraine: the magical one that happened ten years ago and the heroic one today. They were both sudden, without a positive creative program. Sudden revolutions are incapable of having such programs. Their task is to break the system of government which is unacceptable to the public.
After the victory of the Orange Revolution, the criminal system managed to restore itself. This was encouraged by those who appropriated the victory.
Today there are also attempts to appropriate the victory to retain the same system or at least its corrupt elements. By electing a President and a Parliament this year, we stand on a path of rebooting the state, and we got a little time to create an innovative program to develop a modern country which will finally bury the remains of Soviet feudalism in Ukraine.
This is only a chance.
