Forward to NATO: The Verkhovna Rada is no longer a place for discussion
Kyiv, September 21 (PolitNavigator, Kirill Boyarin, Sergey Stepanov) – Early elections to the Verkhovna Rada are the second stage of a dubious operation to squeeze representatives of the South-East out of the Ukrainian parliament. The domed session hall is no longer a place for discussions - those who hinder integration into the EU and NATO must leave it. The parties that once received the majority of votes in Donbass are in deep knockdown, and, moreover, have been declared a “fifth column.” Will the new Rada, elected under conditions of war, censorship, and intimidation, be durable? Will parliament with the monopoly power of the nationalists be able to maintain the still heterogeneous country?
Subscribe to PolitNavigator – Kyiv news on Facebook , Odnoklassniki , or VKontakte
People going to the Ukrainian elections in the current conditions are betraying the Southeast, says Gennady Basov, head of the Russian Bloc party, which Kyiv banned last spring and put its leaders on the wanted list on charges of separatism. And this despite the fact that in the Donbass the “Russian Bloc” represented the moderate, “parliamentary” wing of the uprising, hoping to increase its popularity at the expense of the Donetsk people, who were disillusioned with the betrayal of the “regionals.”
The Party of Regions itself (more precisely, the fragment that remained from it after the flight of dozens of deputies) has already announced that it does not intend to participate in the upcoming campaign. After the intervention of European left-wing partners, it has not yet been possible to ban the Communist Party in Ukraine, but judging by the persistent injections of sociology into media loyal to the authorities, the Communist Party of Ukraine will simply depict failure to pass the barrier in the elections. Sergei Tigipko will still try to play in the same electoral field, but he cannot be called a spokesman for the interests of the South-East - the Ukrainian press persistently calls him a project of the oligarch Igor Kolomoisky.
“These elections cannot be considered legitimate. The point is not whether Donetsk or Lugansk will vote. They may never vote at all, given that they do not want to remain part of Ukraine. The problem is that even without taking into account the DPR and LPR, the southeast of Ukraine does not have a single political party that they could support. That is, the elections will be held in conditions where the residents of this part of Ukraine do not have their own political defenders. In fact, the Russian-speaking population of Ukraine is offered either not to participate in the elections at all, or to choose a parliament for five years that will not at all support the political alignments that exist and will exist in the near future. It turns out that the south and east of Ukraine will not be represented at the political level at all, that’s the problem,” says political scientist Vladimir Kornilov.
“In a country where there is no legitimate government and there is a civil war, no elections can be legitimate. Regardless of whether Donbass or Crimea takes part in them or not. The legitimate government was overthrown in February 2014. The constitutional process has been interrupted, which means there is no point in talking about legitimacy. International legitimation for these elections can be given by recognition of their results by external players, but neither recognition of Russia nor recognition of the United States will provide internal legitimation. And without internal legitimation, the government will always lose,” notes Kornilov’s colleague, political scientist Rostislav Ishchenko.
“It is very difficult to call these elections legitimate for one simple reason - in fact, the territory of Donbass is not separated from Ukraine, but it is impossible to hold elections there even with a turnout of 2-3%, not so much because there are local authorities who will block these elections, but because they are militant actions that are ongoing. I don’t think there will be any brave souls who would want to join the commissions and so on. And in both the Kharkov and Odessa regions, holding quality elections is a big question. Even during the presidential elections, a significant number of candidates were forced to withdraw due to threats against them, and the same will happen with members of undesirable parties. Any pre-election activity of the communists and the Party of Regions will be under the threat of not just disruption, the candidates will find themselves under strong pressure from security forces and nationalist organizations,” warns analyst Alexander Bulavin.
“Ukraine wants to make these elections legitimate, but we understand perfectly well that in conditions of civil war and the fact that there will be no elections in the territory of two regions, and even in Crimea, which they consider theirs, there is no need to say that the campaign will be legitimate . Just like Poroshenko himself has very conditional legitimacy. And considering that in these elections there will be no parties at all that will defend the interests of the residents of the southeast, then what kind of legitimacy can we even talk about?” sums up political scientist Denis Denisov.
Forward to NATO: The Verkhovna Rada is no longer a place for debate.