Ukraine’s parliament rejected an important bill on government decentralization on Dec. 6, and reform-minded lawmakers then had to scramble to remove another bill on the issue from the agenda to stop it being rejected too.
The laws, passed at first reading in September, had been intended to help towns and villages set up more than 100 so-called amalgamated communities for self-administration by the end of the year.
But when it came to the vote in parliament, only 168 lawmakers voted in favor of the first law, No. 4676 – a number well short of the 226 votes needed for regular legislation to pass.
Verkhovna Rada Chairman Andriy Parubiy called three votes to return the bill to the agenda for a repeat vote, but each of his attempts failed.
“What a present we have given to local communities on the eve of Local Government Day,” Parubiy said sarcastically after the failed votes.
If approved, the bill would have allowed towns and villages located in the same oblast, but in different districts, to form amalgamated communities, Vadym Miskyi, the head of the advocacy department at Reanimation Package of Reforms (RPR), a civil activism group, told the Kyiv Post.
He said Ukraine’s Central Election Committee has refused to allow 28 newly amalgamated communities to hold local elections, even though they have undergone all of the required procedures to form.
“Pomichna in Kirovohrad Oblast is a vivid example,” Miskyi said. “The town of Pomichna wants to form an amalgamated community with the village of Pomichna, to unite in a single community. But the Central Election Committee refused to allow the town of Pomichna, and 24 other communities, to hold the local elections, because parts of these communities are in different districts.”
As the bill failed at second reading, the document is now considered withdrawn. However, Miskyi says experts may draw up fresh legislation, as the problem hasn’t gone away.
Activists are frustrated at the politicians’ inability to back in parliament reforms that they say they support in public.
“Every political force insists to us that they support self-government in local communities, but unfortunately their actions do not match their words,” Miskyi said. “For instance, today the coalition was short of votes – the Poroshenko Bloc Faction failed to provide 60 votes for the legislation. And the opposition factions gave practically no votes at all.”
Miskyi also said that there is another problem that has yet to be solved in terms of decentralization reform – there is no mechanism for villages to join local communities that have been already created. Legislation to allow this, draft laws No. 4772 and No. 4773, was adopted at first reading in September.
But the first bill, No. 4772, had to be withdrawn by the experts on Dec. 5 to prevent lawmakers from rejecting it. The second bill, No. 4773, can only be passed following the adoption of the first one.
However, civil activists say they aren’t going to give up, and as long as new legislation is passed soon, at least 200 amalgamated communities will be formed by the end of 2017, Miskyi added.
Kyiv Post staff writer Alyona Zhuk can be reached at [email protected]
