Some 64 supporters of ‘dictator laws’ return to parliament (INFOGRAPHICS)

The majority of them are former Party of
Regions lawmakers who got re-elected in single-mandate districts in Kharkiv,
Donetsk, Dnipropetrovsk, Odesa and Cherkasy oblasts including one nominated by President Petro Poroshenko’s bloc in
Chernihiv Oblast, while ten are coming back on the party list of Opposition Bloc, which received more than 9 percent support.

Yulia Lyovochkina, the sister of Serhiy Lyovochkin, the former chief of staff for Yanukovych, oligarch Vadym Novynsky, head of parliament’s health
committee Tetyana Bakhteyeva, are among supporters of ‘dictator laws’
re-elected on party list of Opposition Bloc. Meanwhile, in single-mandate
constituencies multi-millionaire Serhiy Klyuyev, former parliament speaker
Volodymyr Lytvyn, former governor of Chernihiv Oblast Vladyslav Atroshenko and
others are making it to the parliament.

Vladyslav Atroshenko, former member of the
Party of Regions faction, who was re-elected in a single mandate district in
Chernihiv with the support of Poroshenko’s bloc recalled that Jan.16
vote took place after the urgent adoption of a state budget and was held under
pressure. 

“I regret that, though it was not my fault, I
faced some losses to my image,” Atroshenko said. “But under those circumstances
and with that motivation, I voted frankly considering that it would defuse
situation on Maidan. If the situation was different, if I predicted that it
would embitter Maidan and cause casualties, never in my life would I have
voted.”

Atroshenko later withdrew his vote as well as
some other members of parliament and submitted a draft law to cancel Jan. 16 bills.

Bakhteyeva is also mentioned on parliament’s
website among those who voted for Jan. 16 laws, but she denies it.

“That day a scuffle started in the hall almost
from the very beginning and a representative of Batkivshchyna, Yuriy Voznyuk, smashed head of the member of parliament Volodymyr Malyshev. As a doctor I immediately provided first aid to Malyshev and accompanied him to the hospital. So I physically was not present during the
vote,” Bakhteyeva told the Kyiv Post in the email.

This confusion might be a result of a widespread practice in Ukraine when members of parliament vote with the cards of
their absent colleagues which is illegal. They also often do not read the text
of laws they vote for, so cases similar to Jan.16 voting can happen again.

“The parliamentary procedure has been violated
150-200 times already after Maidan,” Atroshenko said. “We need to draw conclusions for the future,
to prevent this happen again.”

On Oct.27, an adviser to Interior Minister Anton
Herashchenko announced on Hromadske TV that the General Prosecutor’s Office might
ask the parliament to strip supporters of ‘dictator” laws’ off their immunity.
So far, the criminal probe on the fact of rigged vote count is opened only
against former Party of Regions deputies Ihor Kaletnik, the then first deputy
speaker of parliament, and Volodymyr Oliynyk. Oliynyk did not run this time.
Kaletnik was nominated in Donetsk district 41 controlled by Russia-backed
separatists where elections didn’t happen.

The infographics of the Center for Political Studies and Analytics shows the regions of Ukraine where lawmakers who voted for ‘dictator laws’ were re-elected. Most of them were running in eastern Ukraine, in Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhia and Donetsk Oblasts as well as in Odesa and Cherkasy Oblasts.

The current electoral system, which determines
election of half of the parliament through party lists and half through
single-mandate constituencies enabled re-election of many former Party of
Regions lawmakers, according to Viktor Taran, analyst with the Center for
Political Studies and Analytics.
Its experts compiled a list of 64 deputies who supported “dictator laws” and are
re-elected.

“The majority of these deputies had a chance to come back to parliament only through single-mandate districts, which
they have been feeding (voters) with buckwheat and money during the last few
weeks,” Taran said. “Fighting this corrupt scheme in difficult social
and economic conditions is possible only by switching to the system with open
party lists and it’s a challenge which newly-elected parliament should
take.”

Local and international election observers
also have recommended switching to a system with open party lists which can help
avoid many election violations, which remain common at single-mandate
onstituencies.

“The major confrontation remains in
single-mandate constituencies,” Olga Aivazovska, head of local election
watchdog OPORA said on Oct.27 during watchdog’s press-conference. “However,
this precedent was laid in the current electoral system. It should be solved by
adopting changes (to the law) on the electoral system,” she said.

A list of members of parliament who
voted for Jan. 16 laws and were re-elected on Oct. 26.

Former members of the Party of Regions
parliamentary faction

Oleksandr Bilovol

Anatoliy Denysenko

Dmytro Dobkin

Anatoliy Hirshfeld

Volodymyr Katsuba

Volodymyr Mysyk

Yevheniy Murayev

Viktor Ostapchuk

Valeriy Pysarenko

Dmytro Svyatash

Oleksandr Feldman

Vitaliy Khomutynnik

Dmytro Shentsev

Yevheniy Hyeller

Serhiy Klyuyev

Yukhym Zvyahilskiy

Serhiy Matviyenkov

Ihor Shkirya

Denys Omelyanovych

Yakiv Bezbakh

Artur Martovytskiy

Kostyantyn Pavlov

Andriy Shypko

Dmytro Shpenov

Yavhen Balytskiy

Vyacheslav Bohuslayev

Oleksandr Ponomaryov

Serhiy Kivalov

Anton Kisse

Leonid Klimov

Ivan Fursin

Vitaliy Barvinenko

Volodymyr Zubyk

Hennadiy Bobov

Valentyn Nechyporenko

Anton Yatsenko

Ilyuk Artem

Vladyslav Atroshenko

Serhiy Dunayev

Yuliy Ioffe

Viktor Razvadovskiy

Yaroslav Moskalenko

Mykhaylo Lanyo

Andriy Derkach

Ihor Molotok

Viktor Bondar

Oleksandr Hereha

Oleh Kulinich

Oleksiy Biliy

Nestor Shufrych

Tetiana Bakhteyeva

Vadym Novynskiy

Yuriy Voropayev

Yuliya Lyovochkina

Ivan Myrniy

Yuriy Miroshnychenko

Oleksandr Dovzhenkov

Oleksandr Nechayev

Non-affiliated, later members of Sovereign
European Ukraine parliamentary group

Volodymyr Lytvyn

Serhiy Labazyuk

Ihor Yeremeyev

Stepan Ivakhiv

Serhiy Martynyak

Mykhaylo Poplavskiy

Source: The Center for Political Studies and Analysis