Endemic political corruption has plagued Ukrainian democracy for decades, and the situation ahead of the local elections scheduled for Oct. 25 seems to be no different. Political parties still franchise out local party branches to tycoons with deep pockets and local business interests to secure, activists from around the country say.
At the national level it was even worse. Top spots on party lists, which
would virtually guarantee a seat in parliament, have allegedly been up for sale
at prices reaching millions of dollars.
The sums involved meant that corrupt, individual interests – not the
common good – often determined the outcome of political decisions. Experts say
political corruption has been one of the major reasons why the country’s
economy and living standards have lagged behind those of its Central European
neighbors.
But the Oct. 25 elections could be the last to
feature this kind of “democracy for sale.” Beginning in July 2016, the nation’s
political parties will have to open up their books, under a new law approved by
parliament on Oct. 8. In return, they will be eligible for financing from the
state budget, much like the system in some Western countries.
Under the new law, individuals will be allowed to donate up to Hr
500,000, while businesses can provide up to double that figure. Records of all
donations will be accessible to the public, and subject to auditing by
anti-corruption bodies. Moreover, the new state financing of parties comes at a
price of only 80 kopecks per month to the taxpayer.
Beginning from 2017, all parties receiving two percent or more of the
popular vote will be eligible for state financing.
The authors of the law and reformist lawmakers like Serhiy Leshchenko
hope that the new legislation will deal a “significant” blow to political
corruption by introducing transparency to party financing.
“This law breaks the ties between the
oligarchs and the political system, said Leshchenko, a pro-presidential MP and
promoter of the law in parliament. “Now citizens will pay for the parties (they
vote for). Eighty kopecks is a low price for a democracy – instead of oligarchs
looting state finances through their henchmen (in parliament).”
”We should have done this 10 years ago,”
Leshchenko said while presenting the law in parliament.
But will the law make that much of a difference?
“Yes,” says one of the co-author’s of the law, Dmytro Kotliar, a leading
anti-corruption expert with the Reanimation Package of Reforms group.
Kotliar told the Kyiv Post that the
implementation of the new party financing rules “will transform the political
system and decrease, if not eliminate, the oligarch’s influence on parties. It
will bring transparency to money in politics. Parties will (have to) report
about all their revenues and expenses, and all party donators will be known to
the public.”
Kotliar expects public scrutiny to maintain
oversight of party finances and ensure compliance with the law. Public support
was high for election finance reform, with 74 percent demanding disclosure of
campaign contributions, according to a June survey commissioned by the
International Foundation for Election Systems, which promotes free and fair elections
worldwide.
But how was it even possible to get the party financing law approved by
a parliament that is still heavy influenced by shady oligarchical interests
antipathetic to transparency?
Well, it almost wasn’t. It took several rounds
of voting and debating, and the law was eventually passed with a slim three-vote majority in
the 450-strong parliament.
“This law will free the parties from the
oligarch (burden),” deputy parliament chairman Andriy Parubiy said prior to the
vote.
But not all parties wanted that link broken, it appeared. The factions
representing the former Party of Regions ruling elite, the Opposition Bloc and Vidrodzhenya, as well as the populist Radical Party of
Oleh Lyashko didn’t back the law.
And with oligarch influence also present in the governing coalition, it
took foreign pressure to pass the law. The European Union tied the passing of
the law to the issue of granting Ukrainians visa-free travel to the union –
which has long been a topic of concern to the broader public.
In fact, if the EU hadn’t tied the adoption of the law to the issue of
visa liberalization, the law wouldn’t have stood a chance of passing, Yaroslav
Yurchyshyn, advocacy manager at the Reanimation Package of Reforms civic
initiative, who also lobbied for the law, told the Kyiv Post.
Parliament considered the party funding law along with a package of other
anti-corruption measures to meet EU and Council of Europe minimum standards
under the Public
Order and Security block of the EU Visa
Liberalization Action Plan.
The law was passed on the last session day before a
three-week break for local election campaigning. The EU is to scrutinize
Ukraine’s progress on the action plan’s benchmarks in late October.
Yurchyshyn also said that the parties now would have to scramble to
clean up their books. “It will be a challenge for parties to qualify” for state
financing, he said.
Kotliar co-authored a previous party financing transparency law back in
2003 together with the main author of the current law, Denys Kovryzhenko, for
the Laboratory for Legislative Initiatives, a nongovernmental organization,
while still law students at the Kyiv Mohyla Academy.
The law was set to take effect in 2005, but the required financing
wasn’t provided from the state budget, and the law was later repealed
altogether. Appointed deputy justice minister after the 2004 Orange Revolution,
Kotliar was unsuccessful in defending the law.
He saw a “similar risk this time too,” if the funds
for the party financing aren’t included in state budget in the coming years.
But Kotliar was still hopeful, as the current “reform is much more
comprehensive (and) provides a comprehensive
system of restrictions on party financing, with more detailed transparency and
accountability requirements.”
“These include mandatory
independent audits of party accounts, an elaborate system of state controls
overseen by the National Agency for Corruption Prevention, and strict
sanctions,” including criminal liability for violations, Kotliar said.
Kyiv Post staff writer Johannes Wamberg
Andersen can be reached at [email protected]
