The first session of the newly elected parliament, which began on Aug. 29, went long into the night, when lawmakers from the pro-presidential Servant of the People party, who control the majority of parliament’s seats, were speed voting to introduce the president’s agenda.
The parliament approved the speaker and Cabinet and proceeded to vote for 74 draft laws, going on almost until 3 a.m. of Aug. 30.
However, no laws were fully passed: those were preliminary votes that set the agenda for the next session, which will take place on Sept. 3.
First, with a 383-vote in favor, the 450-member parliament, supported the preliminary lifting of parliamentary immunity. Since the law requires amending the constitution, an additional vote will be required during the next parliament session on Sept. 3.
Later on, the governing party remained in its seat voting to shorten the procedure by which draft laws would pass all required hearings, sparking upheaval from opposition lawmakers.
In the middle of the night, a total of 74 draft laws were passed this way, which were proposed by President Volodymyr Zelensky in a written request and were deemed urgent by the president.
Lawmakers were given the name of a law and voted to fast track the required presses of submitting the law into parliament, passing on the required part of discussion a law, while also limiting the lawmaker’s ability to pass amendments.
The actual laws would be put for a vote during the next parliament session, some of which will require a 300-vote constitutional majority.
Among the most interesting presidential draft laws that were adopted to take place under a fast track procedure, is the draft law on allowing the parliament to impeach the president, the law on decreasing the number of lawmakers to 300 and switching to a proportional representation system.
Other laws would be increasing the president’s power, giving the president the constitutional right to manually fire the heads of National Anticorruption Bureau of Ukraine and of the State Investigation Bureau.
The State Investigation Bureau is currently investigating Zelensky’s political opponent, former President Petro Poroshenko, opening 11 cases in which Poroshenko is currently involved as a witness.
Another draft law proposes constitutional amendments to transfer the National Guard of Ukraine from the Interior Ministry to the president, allowing Zelensky to appoint its head.
The content of the laws wasn’t available before the vote, prompting opposition lawmakers to leave the parliament in protest. Among them were the 27-member European Solidarity faction led by Poroshenko and the 17-member Voice faction, which remained in the parliament building, but declined to participate in the voting.
Serhiy Rakhmanin, former journalist, elected on the ticket of the Voice party, said that the pro-government lawmakers don’t know what they are doing.
“To vote for a bill, there has to be a physical copy of a bill present during the parliamentary hearing,” said Rakhmanin, to journalists from Radio Free Europe, one of the few who remained in the parliament building through the night. “They are performing mistakes and they don’t know that they are doing them.”
Nonetheless, political expert Volodymyr Fesenko doesn’t see anything worrisome, citing that no law was adopted as the parliament only simplified the procedure of adopting some laws in the future.
The actual laws would be submitted during the next parliamentary session.
“It’s Zelensky’s style, he doesn’t want to wait,” says Fesenko.
Concerning the idea to increase presidential powers, Fesenko says that striping the internal ministry of controlling the National Guard is long overdue, while the heads of the Anticorruption Bureau and the Investigation Bureau are already appointed by the president after a tender procedure is conducted.
“It’s simply a formality,” he says, adding that the key question is whether a tender procedure will be properly maintained. “If the tender procedures won’t be maintained then yes we can say that the president is willing to subject those agencies.”
