Experts: Civil activists in parliament will change Ukraine
For the first time in Ukraine, about 10 percent of the Verkhovna Rada will be comprised of former journalists, public figures and volunteer corps commanders who fought against separatists in the country’s east.
These new officials will be the driving force of the new parliament, bringing novelty and proposing reforms that are necessary for the country’s democratic development, analysts said.
Civil activist Oleksandr Chernenko is one of about 40 new MPs. For 14 years, he’s been working in a powerful non-governmental social organisation, the Committee of Voters of Ukraine.
As the head of the organisation, he has been seeking fair and transparent elections and working to improve the country’s electoral law. But this year he became a parliament member from President Petro Poroshenko’s Bloc.
Famous investigative journalist and civil activist Tetyana Chornovol, who was beaten during the Maidan protests in Kyiv, is one of the newly elected MPs. [AFP]
“I already felt what the parliamentary mandate means,” Chernenko told SETimes. “I heard a lot from ordinary people about what they think about the deputies while traveling around Ukraine and meeting voters. And you know, it was like somebody poured a bucket of slop onto my head.”
Most civil activists participated in the elections through the political parties, such as Petro Poroshenko’s Bloc, Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk’s People’s Front and Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovyy’s Samopomich (Self-Reliance) Party.
“Having many activists is better than keeping oligarchs’ protégés or representatives of the old regime in the parliament,” Chernenko said. “The main difference between public figures and ordinary deputies is professionalism in separate fields. Each of us has our own special kind of background in the civilian sector. As I worked on the electoral process, I will pursue this cause in the parliament. For me, the main task is to implement the reform of the electoral law. I want to implement open party lists in the elections.”
Political analysts said civil activists will become an engine for reforms in Ukraine’s parliament.
“We really need reforms,” Mykola Havronyuk, director of Scientific Development Centre for Political and Legal Reforms, told SETimes. “Not cosmetic laws, but serious profound changes. And social activists will be able to implement them. They will work under the close supervision of those public organisations that nominated them. I don’t think that people will forgive them if they do nothing.”
Hanna Hopko, of the Samopomich Party list, represents the NGO Reanimation Package of Reforms, Havronyuk said. “The NGO unites 120 people — and they are not just good people, they are serious professionals with excellent education and practical experience. They will also propose laws in the parliament,” he said.
According to experts, civil activists came to the new parliament because they really want to change the country. Many of them have already paid a big price for the new Ukraine.
Journalist Tetyana Chornovol is one of the newly elected MPs. In the past, as an investigative reporter, she exposed corruption and was beaten by unknown people during the Maidan protests. Pro-Kremlin militants subsequently killed her husband, who was fighting as a volunteer in one of the special units in the east of the country.
“Normal people who really love this country entered this parliament,” Chornovol told SETimes. “Many people ask me now, ‘What will the veterans of the war do in the Verkhovna Rada?’ I answer, ‘What did the previous deputies do? They didn’t work, just stole money from the state budget. Veterans, at least, are ready to die for this country.””
Experts said the main difference between the new and previous parliaments is that MPs now support and are expected to support the reforms offered by civil activists.
“In Ukraine, it looks like a novelty, something unusual, but in Europe, the third sector, civil society, has been the main field where true politicians are born,” Chernenko said. “They don’t appear from business, as in Ukraine, but only from civil society.”
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