The long tradition of petitioning a government for change got a boost with the arrival of the Internet, when it became easier to collect signatures from the public for a cause.
Last year, President Poroshenko’s office introduced e-petitions, joining many governments, who’ve passed legislation that allow citizens to directly voice grievances with their leaders. But how effective are e-petitions in grabbing the ear of government and effecting change?
Not very, the figures in Ukraine would suggest.
In the four months since the signing of Ukraine’s law on electronic petitions, more than 19,000 e-petitions have been logged on the official Ukrainian presidential website. Only 36 have collected the requisite 25,000 signatures for the president to address them.
Law stipulates that if an e-petition garners the required number of signatures then the relevant government body has 10 days to respond with either a detailed plan of how to resolve an issue or a well-grounded refusal to act.
E-petitions can be submitted not just by individual citizens, but also by nongovernmental organizations, which can collect online signatures on their own websites and then submit their petition to the relevant authority.
Poroshenko’s office has responded to 33 e-petitions so far, with another three e-petitions currently under consideration. That means that only 0.2 percent of the e-petitions submitted have been successful, and the possibility is tiny that any of them will blossom into legislative proposals.
Furthermore, successful petitioners have no way of informing the 25,000 signatories of their victory too.
The petition website moreover needs improvement, said Denis Shevchenko who started a petition to forbid state officials from owning expensive vehicles. “It is inconvenient that on the main page except for the rubrics of ‘New e-petitions’ and ‘Popular e-petitions’ there’s no rubric as ‘Actual e-petitions’ or ‘Top-10 petitions for the last hour’ for those petitions which rapidly gain a lot of signatures,” he told the Kyiv Post. “Most good and needed petitions just have no chance to gain the needed number of signatures.”
Ukraine’s first e-petition – an appeal to reconsider a new dividend tax on small businesses – gained only 9,439 signatures. The first e-petition to collect the requisite 25,000 signatures to elicit a response, called for Ukrainians to be given the constitutional right to bear arms. However, the presidential administration failed to respond to the e-petition within the prescribed 10 days.
That e-petition has since gone on to collect 36,244 signatures, making it the second most successful one to date. Poroshenko’s only response so far has been to ask the head of the Constitutional Commission and chairman of parliament to convene a working group of the Constitutional Commission to discuss the possibility of approving a law on the right to bear arms.
The most successful e-petition so far is an appeal to scrap customs clearance and import taxes on cars, which has received more than 38,300 signatures. In response, Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk has instructed the government to carry out a comprehensive and thorough review of the issue, and take the required decisions resulting from the review.
Of course, the ease of submitting e-petitions means that some less-than-serious suggestions have been put to the Ukrainian government, but it has so far responded to these in good humor. An appeal to appoint Batkivshyna Party leader Yulia Tymoshenko as Ukraine’s ambassador to the Honduras was submitted last September and soon passed the 25,000-signature threshold for presidential consideration. Poroshenko responded dryly that “the system of foreign diplomatic institutions of our country is built on the basis of foreign policy priorities of Ukraine,” adding that although Ukraine currently has no ambassador to Honduras, Kyiv’s interests in Central American countries are appropriately handled by Ukraine’s embassies in Mexico and Cuba.
Another tongue-in-cheek appeal – to appoint Darth Vader the country’s prime minister (registered by “Master Yoda” last September) – was also batted back with official aplomb: The president pointed out that under the Ukrainian constitution and the law on the Cabinet of Ministers, the prime minister, although nominated by the president, is actually appointed by the Verkhovna Rada, and that the president’s nomination must first be agreed with the coalition of parliamentary factions in parliament.
Back to you, “Master Yoda.”
Kyiv Post intern Olena Astakhova can be reached at [email protected].
