The new political season kicks off on Aug. 29, with the newly elected parliament gathering for the first time and promising a lot from the get-go.
After the pro-presidential Servant of the People party secured a landslide victory during the June 21 parliamentary elections, receiving 254 seats in a 450-member parliament, as much as 100 laws are in consideration to be voted on during the first day.
Among them are laws on lifting parliamentary immunity and creating a procedure by which the president can be impeached.
Both laws must receive 300 votes — more than a simple majority — to pass because they require amending the constitution.
The parliament is also expected to fill all top government posts, voting on the parliament’s speaker and the country’s prime minister and prosecutor general.
A day before the Verhovna Rada opens its doors, the Kyiv Post has broken down everything you need to know about the new parliament’s eventful first day.
Nominees
The parliament’s first meeting will feature a ceremony in which new lawmakers swear an oath to the country and a performance of the national anthem. After that, the lawmakers will get down to business deciding on the parliament’s speaker and his or her deputies. This is the first step taken by every parliament.
Dmytro Razumkov, leader of Servant of the People, is expected to become parliamentary speaker, as his candidacy is unopposed, according to David Arakhamia, sixth on the party’s list.
Ruslan Stefanchuk, the party’s second in command, is expected to become the first deputy speaker, while Arakhamia himself will become the leader of the pro-presidential faction in parliament.
The other deputy chair position will be given to an opposition party. The former president’s European Solidarity party nominated Mustafa Dzhemilev, a Soviet dissident and former leader of the Mejlis (Parliament) of the Crimean Tatar people, while independent lawmakers nominated Iryna Konstankevych for the job.
Konstankevych worked for businessman and now independent lawmaker Ihor Palytsa, a close ally of oligarch Ihor Kolomoyskyi.
Next, the parliament will be tasked with voting for committee heads.
On Aug. 27, the parliament’s preparatory commission divided the 23 committees between elected parties. According to the arrangement, Servant of the People will chair 19 committees, while four committees will go to the opposition. Most notably, Nestor Shufrych, from the pro-Russian Opposition Platform – For Life party, will chair the freedom of speech committee.
Many Ukrainian journalists oppose this nomination, and MediaRuch, a union of journalists, called for his nomination to be rescinded.
Once the parliament has finished this, it plans to continue its work, filling the rest of the vacant top government posts.
It is expected that on Aug. 29, Oleksiy Honcharuk will be voted in as Ukraine’s new prime minister.
Lawyer Honcharuk entered politics in 2014, when he unsuccessfully ran for parliament as the leader of the Syla Lyudei party, receiving less than one percent. He then became an advisor to Ecology Minister Ihor Shevchenko. After Shevchenko was fired, Honcharuk became an advisor to Stepan Kubiv, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister and energy minister.
In May, he was appointed deputy head of the presidential office, where he oversees economic policy.
The parliament is also expected to vote on the new Cabinet of Ministers. Outgoing lawmaker Serhiy Leshchenko published the names of several likely candidates.
According to him, Timofiy Mylovanov, honorary president of the Kyiv School of Economics, will head the economy ministry, while current Minister of Finance Oksana Markarova will keep her post.
Vsevolod Kovalchuk, head of state-owned energy company Ukrenergo, is expected to head the energy ministry, while Vladyslav Krykliy, a former member of the interior ministry elected on the Servant of the People ticket, is expected to become the new minister of infrastructure.
Lawyer Ruslan Riaboshapka will also become the new prosecutor general. He previously worked as deputy head of the justice ministry. Later, he worked in the National Agency for Prevention of Corruption.
The biggest question will be whether current Interior Minister Arsen Avakov will keep his post.
Ukrainian anti-corruption watchdogs and civic activists have repeatedly called for Avakov to be fired due to his controversial reputation and numerous corruption scandals associated with him. Avakov denies all accusations of corruption.
Legislature
On Aug. 22, during a preparatory commission briefing, Stefanchuk stated that Servant of the People is currently working on 465 laws. Later, on Aug. 28, Ukrainian media reported that around 100 of these laws will be presented on the very first day of parliament.
According to Stefanchuk, the party’s primary task is to vote to end parliamentary immunity for lawmakers. That bill was registered in parliament back in 2018, but never received a vote.
The law requires amending Ukraine’s constitution. In order for it to pass, the parliament must first vote on it with a simple 226-member majority and then, during the next parliamentary session, confirm the changes with a 300-vote constitutional majority.
Although Servant of the People lacks a constitutional majority, Stefanchuk expects that other parties will support the draft law — primarily European Solidarity, which registered the draft law in parliament last year, and the Voice party, which publicly supported lifting parliamentary immunity.
If passed, the constitutional change will allow lawmakers to be prosecuted without the approval of the majority of parliament.
Another draft law promised both by President Volodymyr Zelensky and his party is the law on impeachment. It will formalize the process of impeaching the president should he or she engage in illegal activities.
This law also requires amending the constitution.
Lawmakers are also expected to vote on reforming the Prosecutor General’s Office. That draft law would reorganize the office’s regional divisions and shut down the “highly controversial” 650-member military prosecutor’s office.
Danylo Hetmantsev, a Servant of the People lawmaker who was named the head of parliament’s financial and tax committee, promised that several tax laws will be adopted as well.
On Aug. 28, in an interview with the Ukrainska Pravda news site, Hetmantsev said that the party is working on a law that would allow Ukrainian citizens to legalize their undocumented assets by paying a five-percent tax. The law is meant to encourage Ukrainian businesspeople to have all their assets on the books.
Assets worth less than Hr 300,000 ($12,000) will be legalized without a fine, encouraging Ukrainians to deposit their money in banks instead of keeping it at home.
In 2018, the International Monetary Fund issued a report stating that Ukraine’s shadow economy accounts for 45 percent of the country’s total economy.
Other draft laws may include a reduction of the number of lawmakers in parliament and the right to dismiss lawmakers for missing parliamentary hearings and voting in place of absent colleagues, a wide-spread practice in Ukraine’s parliament.
Most of the laws that will likely be introduced to parliament on Aug. 29 have not been presented to the public. As a result, their details are largely unknown. However, deputy party chief Stefanchuk promises “a lot of changes to the constitution.”
