Insight
Will the ‘Servant of the People’ be the master of Ukraine? by Ian Bond 29 July 2019
Ukraine’s parliamentary elections on July 21st produced an absolute majority in the Verkhovna Rada (parliament) for the ‘Servant of the People’ party of President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. The party will have 254 of the 424 available seats. It is the first time since Ukraine gained its independence in 1991 that a President has had such power. In voting for the 225 seats filled by proportional representation, ‘Servant of the People’ was the leading party in 22 of Ukraine’s 25 regions, with the pro-Russian ‘Opposition Platform – For Life’ leading in two regions in the east and the ‘Voice’ party of the rock star Svyatoslav Vakarchuk in one region in the west. The parties of former president Petro Poroshenko and former prime minister Yuliya Tymoshenko also received enough votes to win seats. In the 199 constituencies decided by first-past-the-post voting, ‘Servant of the People’ has won 130 seats. Only a handful will go to representatives of other established parties, with the remaining fifty or so going to independents. (A further 26 seats in the Rada are vacant because Russia has annexed Crimea and occupied parts of the Donbas, and elections cannot be held in those places). In Ukraine’s mixed presidential/parliamentary system, the prime minister and most ministers are effectively nominated and approved by the Rada, so Zelenskiy will now be able to replace the prime minister and cabinet he inherited from Poroshenko. Moreover, he will have no need to rely on coalition partners to pass legislation. It is also the first time that the same party has led the voting in both the east and west of the country. Zelenskiy and his party have benefited from two factors: the collapse in support for Moscow-aligned parties in much of the east since Russia’s attack on Ukraine in 2014; and countrywide dissatisfaction with the performance of Poroshenko and the parties allied with him in reforming Ukraine after the Maidan revolution that preceded Russia’s intervention. Ukrainians voted for a fresh face when they elected Zelenskiy in April 2019: his only experience of politics, fittingly, was a TV show in which he played an ordinary man who unexpectedly becomes president. Now they have elected a parliament of neophytes: 75 per cent of MPs in the Rada will be new CER INSIGHT: Will the ‘Servant of the People’ be the master of Ukraine? 29 July 2019
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