The mixed election system is back a decade after it was last used in Ukraine.
On Oct. 28, a new set of rules will govern how 450 candidates get elected to the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine’s parliament.
Voters will cast their votes using two separate ballots. And it’ll be an election bonanza with more than 9 candidates wishing to run for every seat in the legislature.
One ballot will have a list of parties that will compete through a proportional system to take 225 seats in the Rada. The Central Election Commission said that 22 political parties have submitted party lists, 12 of which it had registered as of Aug. 15.
The other ballot will be different in each of the 225 single-mandate constituencies, where candidates will compete in first past-the-post races.
According to the Central Election Commission, there are 3,113 single-mandate candidates, 1,706 of whom are party affiliated, with the remaining 1,407 running as independents. The election governing body is still registering additional candidates. Overall, 87 political parties are involved in the election campaign, the election governing body reported.
The other 225 seats up for grabs will be chosen through a proportional system, closed party lists. Voters can’t chose people on the party list, they can only vote for the party, which put together the pre-selected list. Parties will only get representation in parliament through the proportional vote if the percentage of votes they muster exceeds the 5 percent threshold.
In 2002, when a similar system was used in Ukraine, the threshold was 4 percent. The higher threshold makes it likelier that only a small number of parties will get elected, between four and six, according to current polls. The votes given to the parties that fail to clear the threshold will be proportionately distributed among the winners.
Unlike in the 2002 mixed system, the current system limits participation in the election to individual parties, without giving them an option of forming blocs. This boosted mergers of minor parties with bigger ones to get any chance of representation.
Candidates in the single-mandate constituencies will compete in districts divided up by the Central Election Commission. They can represent parties or run as independents. Their number in each constituency is not limited.
Thus, the next Rada is likely to be even more volatile than the current one. And lawmakers are likely, some say, to feel freer to change their allegiance.
The mixed election system was adopted last November by both the pro-presidential majority and most of the opposition. This took place after two internationally-recognized free and fair parliamentary elections in Ukraine – 2006 and 2007 – which took place under a closed list proportional party system with 3 percent threshold.
Olha Ayvazovska, head of the non-partisan election monitoring group Opora, said that it is not the system itself that makes elections clear, but its implementation.
“[The] mixed election system in Ukraine’s context contains elements of corruption,” said Ayvazovska. “The use of administrative resources to give preference [some chosen candidates] by local authorities and bribing of voters is pervasive.”
She added: “Under the corrupt Ukrainian conditions, this election system is more advantageous to people in power, namely the Party of Regions and President Viktor Yanukovych, due to the opportunity to retain power.”
While some praise the new system for providing opportunity for new leaders from business and civil society to emerge through single mandate contests, in turn shaking up the rigid party structure, it has some pitfalls.
“The single mandate constituencies will be vulnerable to voter bribing,” said Oleksandr Chernenko, head the Committee of Voters of Ukraine, an election watchdog. “Candidates [in those districts] will be pumping lots of money into their campaigns and fighting to win the election at any price. They will use both legal and semi-legal methods.”
Chernenko says this means a greater workload for election observers, particularly the long-term observers. He welcomed the new system, nevertheless, hoping that it will in the long-term bring in a new pool of politicians capable of challenging the stale political elite of the last decade. Moreover, candidates who make it in through the single-mandate races will become a major source of manpower for shaping the next majority in parliament, be it pro-presidential or oppositional.
“Factions in the parliament will try to recruit independent deputies for a new coalition,” said Chernenko. “But these deputies will remain more independent [compared to those elected through closed party lists] and they will be hard to convince to taking voting orders.”
So, the next parliament will probably be less predictable than the current one, which tended to rubber-stamp laws approved by the pro-presidential leadership, which rules the roost in the Rada and forms the core of the current majority.
Ihor Kohut, head of Laboratory of Legislative Initiatives, a Kyiv-based think-tank, believes that some deputies elected in single mandate districts might be both more independent of President Yanukovych, while most others will be vulnerable to pressure to join the pro-presidential majority.
“In single mandate districts we see mostly representatives of various businesses that might be pressured by tax authorities to join the majority loyal to the president,” he said.
He also predicts that the parliament will become more flexible with various influential groups emerging. “And these groups will not always be loyal to the president,” added Kohut.
Kyiv Post staff writer Mark Rachkevych contributed to this story. Kyiv Post staff writer Yuriy Onyshkiv can be reached at [email protected]
