It would be reasonable to forbid political blocs
and to present the right of taking part in parliamentary elections only
for political parties.
Vice Speaker of the
parliament Oleksandr Lavrynovych expressed his opinion recently.
According to him, the state will achieve three major strategic goals:
- Such measures will increase responsibility of parties, as there will be nobody else to blame but the very party;
- It would be easier for voters to understand who they are voting for;
- It will make the political market more transparent and will complicate the process of trading political parties.
If to remember the participants of the latest parliamentary
campaigns we will see that these are mainly blocs. 1998 - 48 political
forces including 9 blocs. 2002 - 34 political forces including 9 blocs.
2006 - 28 political parties and 17 blocs consisting of 50 parties.
Early parliamentary elections of 2007 - 11 parties and 10 blocs. Three
blocs won seats in the parliaments - Bloc of Volodymyr Lytvyn (2
parties), Bloc of Yulia Tymoshenko (3 political parties) and Our
Ukraine - People's Self-Defense bloc (9 political parties).
Let's ask for opinions of other politicians concerning this
issue. It is obvious that asking the Party of Regions is pointless as
the answer is already known - the party ran for parliament as a party
and now has the most representatives - 175 deputies.
The Communist Party does not have many mandates, but it never wanted to make any blocs.
Ihor Zgyniv, member of the party "Reforms and Order"(BYuT faction):
In my opinion, this path is wrong
- There is a common tradition - both parties and blocs have a right
to take part in elections. Anyway, formation of a coalition between
parties or blocs is normal practice of the political life.
There is another normal practice in other countries - to increase
the passing barrier. I think this is logical, as political blocs carry
less responsibility and can split easier. But to change the
Constitution and laws just for certain people and under certain
condition is a wrong path.
Ivan Zayets, member of the Ukrainian people's party (OU-PSD faction):
It will result into two-party system
- In this situation all suggestions are directed to development of
two-party system in Ukraine. This system will remove all ideological
parties form the political arena, and those business-holdings will
change one another. I give you 100%.
The ideal situation, of course, is when only parties take part in
elections. But under the present conditions the real intentions of
those initiators are exactly as I mentioned above.
If we apply this model we must open the lists of political parties,
which leads to the change of the election model as well, ‘cause if use
close model with high passing barrier there will be only one result -
two-party political system.
Oleh Zarubinsky, member of the People's party (Lytvyn's bloc):
Do you think a party is more sincere than a bloc?
- All these philosophical discussions seem very artificial. A
subject of an election campaign should choose the form for running for
seats. If political forces want to run together, it is normal. For
example, one political force has better representation among rural
population, while another one among city residents, and if ideologies
of these parties do not confront I don't understand how they can be
forbidden to choose their own format of an election campaign. Do you
think that a party is more sincere than a bloc?
I agree blocs don't take part in elections in Russia, for example.
But they have different election system. Let's start with that they
have "specific democracy" as they state. As for democratic winnings,
may be should look not at Russia, but Germany, Italy, Switzerland or
the United States at least.
