Ukraine can only prove itself as a state if it keeps its democratic system, President Viktor Yushchenko said.
“This is quite a sensitive and important issue: how to preserve the
Ukrainian democracy and Ukrainian statehood today. I am deeply
convinced that any union of those political forces which are today
holding the voters’ mandate, will lead to a colossal loss of democratic
achievements we have made over the past years,” the president’s press
office quoted him as saying at a meeting with the alumni and faculty of
the Fedkovych Chernivtsi National University on Monday.
“The only way for Ukraine to prove itself as a state is by keeping
its democratic system and by ensuring the rule of democracy here. No
totalitarian model of one or two parties is capable to give an answer
to Ukraine’s immortality,” the president said.
Yushchenko outlined the key innovations proposed by his draft constitutional changes.
First of all, the parliamentary immunity must be abolished, the
president said. “The nation should not agree to the formation of a
system of power that would involve the existence of someone’s immunity.
This is not customary in a democratic country. It is an unacceptable to
have a category of people who are immune,” Yushchenko said. Immunity is
one of the threats to democracy that can only be lifted through the
Constitution, he said.
To stop the criminalization of politics, the electoral system must
be changed so that representative bodies really reflect voters’
interests, the president said.
The draft Constitution proposes to ensure the stability of Ukrainian
parliament by introducing an upper house based on territorial
representation, the president said. It is the upper house, the Senate,
that will have the powers of apolitical nature. “All national
institutions being apolitical must be approved on the basis of general
representation, and not on the partisan basis of the lower house,” the
president said.
The lower house of the parliament will form the majority and the
government and will pass the national budget and laws. The number of
the lower house members must be reduced by one third to 300 people.
“This in itself is already a big reform. This is an extremely powerful
impetus for the nation,” he said.
The draft Constitution also proposes to strengthen local governments
by giving them real powers, including budgetary ones, Yushchenko said.
