Aliona Babak, 47, a lawmaker with the Samopomich party, leaves the parliament, according to a statement published on the party’s website on March 11.
The party statement said Babak was leaving the Verkhovna Rada for family reasons. At the same time, Babak herself told Ukrainian News website that she felt politics wasn’t for her.
“I want to change the field,” she was quoted as saying. “I’m more an expert than a politician. Political activities are tough for me personally.”
Babak was elected to the parliament in 2014 on Samopomich party ticket. Samopomich, an opposition party that quit the ruling coalition in early 2016, holds 27 seats in parliament.
She is the head of Institute of Local Development that consults municipal administrations on issues of public services.
Babak received praise in the party statement and from her colleagues in the Rada.
“Aliona Babak is one of the most professional and successful lawmakers in this parliament,” said the leader of Samopomich Oleg Berezyuk in the statement. “But everyone has a personal life and certain circumstances that we should respect.”
Petro Poroshenko Bloc lawmaker Svitlana Zalishchuk said she was sad and surprised to learn that Babak was leaving parliament.
“The nature of the Ukrainian politics is that political activity isn’t difficult for Serhiy Lyovochkin, Roman Nasirov, Ihor Kononenko, but it is difficult for (honest) people,” Zalishchuk wrote on Facebook on March 11, referring to some of the controversial figures in Ukrainian politics.
Babak was listed number eight in the Samopomich’ list of deputies. She’s been a disciplined lawmaker, having attended 249 out of 276 parliament meetings.
Babak has served as deputy chair of the Committee on Municipal Engineering, Housing and Utilities. Her lawmaker’s portfolio included 30 passed bills. Most of them concerned utility services. She suggested amendments to the laws that regulate municipal architecture, investments in modernization of cities’ infrastructures, gas prices for citizens, processes of real property registration, city budget usage.
Now to accept the resignation, the Verkhovna Rada has to vote for it at its next meeting on March 14.
Then, according to the Samopomich press service, there will be a decision on who’s going to take her place in the parliament. The next on the party list is Yulia Vusenko, a secretary of the city council of Lutsk.
Kyiv Post staff writer Denys Krasnikov can be reached at [email protected].
