PUBLIC FORUM “EFFICIENCY OF POLITICAL PARTIES IN UKRAINE: PROBLEMS AND PROSPECTS”

On 8-10 December 2006, Donetsk hosted a public forum to discuss the efficiency of political parties in Ukraine, their problems and prospects”. The discussion was initiated and organised by the Agency for Legislative Initiates (Kyiv), the Centre for Legislative Initiatives (Donetsk), the Council of Europe, and a number of expert institutions of Lutsk, Sumy, Zaporizhzhya, Luhansk, and Kherson. The Forum was also supported by the joint European Commission and Council of Europe initiative for democratic development.

The forum primarily aimed to outline the problems of the party system in Ukraine, as well as to consider the ways to improve the efficiency of participation of political parties in the political processes in the context of democratic transformations. In particular, the following issues were discussed:

  • Ideological basis of political parties in Ukraine;
  • Institutional and staff capacity;
  • Efficiency of public oversight of political parties;
  • Ways to ensure and improve the efficiency of the legislation on political parties;
  • Funding of political activities;
  • Transparency of party finance and political corruption;
  • Constitutional reform and political responsibility;
  • Ways to ensure responsibility of political parties to the voters; and
  • Results and prospects of the proportional representation election system with closed lists.

The forum collected about 100 participants from 19 regions of Ukraine:

1) Members of the Verkhovna Rada (V. Skubenko, V. Stretovych, V. Ivanov);

2) Members of local councils and other local self-governance representatives (О. Beznis, А.Demura, D.Bezuhlyi, Yu. Bova, V. Bohdanov, А. Bodrov, М. Hrekov, О. Vitryanyi, S.Zelinskyi, А. Ivanov, О.Kryshko, О. Krukivskyi, М. Levchenko, Yu. Mindyuk, D.Tkachenko and others);

3) Political parties local representatives (V. Bukhtiarova, О. Dzekanyuk, А. Klymenko, V.Levytskyi and others);

4) NGO and think tank experts (І. Kohut, Chairman of the Board of the Agency for Legislative Initiates; R.Kovalenko, Director of the Centre for Legislative Initiatives; R. Kobets, Analytical Director of the Ideal Country Project; О. Lytvynenko, Leading Policy and Law Expert of Razumkov Centre; О.Miroshnyk, Director of Local Democracy Foundation (Kharkiv); Е.Rakhimkulov, Co-Director of the Parliamentary Development Project of Ukraine and others);

5) Scholars (М. Prymush, Doctor of Political Sciences, Professor, Head of Political Sciences Chair of Donetsk National University; О. Shcherbanyuk, Assistant Professor of the Constitutional, Administrative, and Financial Law Chair of the School of Law of Chernivtsi National University and others);

6) Media (S. Maksymova, Editor-in-Chief of the Legal Journal; О. Kharchenko, UNIAN Editor-in-Chief and others).

Also, the forum was attended by representatives of the CoE Directorate General for Political Affairs and other international institutions (J. Gützkow, Director of the NGO and Civil Society Office of the CoE DGPA; P.Nikolov, CoE DGPA Political Advisor; О. Papernyi, NGO and Democratic Governance Expert, OSCE Democratic Institutions and Human Rights Office (Warsaw); and Ye. Radchenko, OSCE Project Coordinator Office in Ukraine).

Forum Programme:

  • Plenary Session: „Modern Political Parties in Ukraine and Problems of Their Participation in Political Processes in the Context of Democratic Transformations”;
  • Round Table: “Quality of Political Parties and Party Finance”;
  • Round Table: “Parties, Election System and Political Responsibility”; and
  • Announcement of the Address to Political Parties and Non-Governmental Organisations and its discussion.

Plenary Session

In his welcoming address to the forum participants, Ihor KOHUT, Chairman of the Board of the Agency for Legislative Initiates wished them a constructive dialogue in the framework of a broad public and political discussion on the place and role of political parties in the modern political system of Ukraine, as well as proposed to assess the efficiency and prospects of the domestic party building in the context of democratic transformations. Uta GUTSKOV, Director of the NGO and Civil Society Office of the CoE DGPA outlined the priorities of the CoE-Ukraine cooperation in the context of support to the party building and informed on the measures planned to be implemented in Ukraine with the support of the Council of Europe.  Roman KOVALENKO, Director of the Centre for Legislative Initiatives defined a number of special interest problems concerning the assessment of the efficiency of political parties in Ukraine, in particular the inefficiency of the proportional representation election system, excessive politicisation of local councils, failure of political parties to meet their election promises, low legislative activity and improper quality of bills submitted for the parliamentary consideration.

At the discussion part of the plenary session, Denys KOVRYZHENKO, the Agency expert systemically presented the problems related to the development of the Ukrainian party system, mentioned the factors that cause them, and proposed certain steps to strengthen the role of political parties in Ukraine. MP Volodymyr STRETOVYCH raised the problem of the staffing of political parties and stressed the necessity to cover the gap and settle the conflict between political parties and the society. MP Volodymyr SKUBENKO put forward his own vision of the role of political parties in the modern world focusing especially on the responsibility of political parties to the people as the basis for the development of a balanced system of power in Ukraine. MP Volodymyr IVANOV spoke about the problem of party discipline and underlined the importance of the capacity to work in the opposition.

Round Table: “Quality of Political Parties and Party Finance

The main issues concerned the weakness or lack of the ideological basis of the modern political parties in Ukraine, inefficiency of political parties in the period between elections, the necessity to optimise the financial basis of political parties to improve their quality. Also the participants discussed the problems of the gap between the elected representatives on the one hand and political parties and voters on the other after elections, lack of the mechanism of the mandatory reporting of party members on their activity, switch of the decision-making centre from party bodies to factions, weakness of the party staff reserve, lack of transparency of the incomes and expenses of the party budgets. The issue of the political parties’ sources of funding divided the audience; one part insisted on the necessity to extend their list, while the other advocated its contraction. The discussion was moderated by Roman KOBETS, Analytical Director of the Ideal Country Project.

Round Table: “Parties, Election System and Political Responsibility”

The participants focused on the discussion of such issues, as efficiency of the election system, constitutional reform and the ways to ensure the responsibility of political parties, operation of political parties in the period between elections, decision-making mechanisms and internal party discipline. The main subject of the discussion was the efficiency of the proportional representation party system with closed lists for local councils. The majority of the audience agreed that this system has proved efficient at the national level as promoting the political structuring of the society. However, it needs to be modified for the application at the local level through introduction of open election lists. The discussion was moderated by Yevhen RADCHENKO, OSCE Project Coordinator Office in Ukraine.

Address

On the results of the forum, its participants adopted the Address to Political Parties and Non-Governmental Organisations where they expressed their hope that political parties would become true agents of national, regional, and local politics by turning into a sole “path to power” and opening the way to further deconcentration and ideological structuring of the Ukrainian society. The main emphasis was made on the necessity to overcome the deficiencies of closed lists and one-stage nomination of candidates which decreases the role of local party organisations. The Address also contains a call to make decisive transformation of political parties by means of:

  • Reconsideration of the efficiency of closed lists for the elections to councils of all levels;
  • Stimulation of the internal party democracy;
  • Clearly-defined ideological position and formation of programme positions on the basis of internal party discussions;
  • Establishment of cooperation between party representatives in authorities and party organisations;
  • Establishment of mechanisms of political education of political party members and supporters, as well as dissemination of information on the successful experience of organisation of work;
  • The necessity of periodical reporting of party representatives in authorities on their activities;
  • Drastic reorganisation of work of central party bodies that coordinate the operation of factions in local councils;
  • Public refusal from the morally doubtful sources of funding.

A special emphasis was made on the necessity to apply European standards of political party activities in terms of their efficiency assessment criteria, amendment of legislation on political parties, dissemination of conclusions made at the forum among the members of the Verkhovna Rada and local self-governance representatives.

The forum was broadly covered in the media. Altogether, about 40 media representatives participated in the forum. The issued raised at the discussion will find their continuation and development at the next public forum that will be dedicated to the constitutional reform issues and is expected to take place on 15-17 February 2007.

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