Now there are already 403 deputies in parliament - an anti-record in the entire history of independent Ukraine.
Even before the full-scale invasion, 27 seats in the Rada were vacant, because communities with majoritarian constituencies, where 26 deputies should have been elected, were occupied. In another constituency, the planned by-elections were never held - a full-scale invasion prevented it. After February 24, 2022, the number of deputies began to fall sharply again. This time there were many reasons: some went into public service, some lost Ukrainian citizenship, and a large number of members of the already banned OPZZH left the Rada, allegedly of their own free will. Now there are already 403 deputies in parliament - an anti-record in the entire history of independent Ukraine. The Laboratory of Legislative Initiatives decided to predict how many more deputies might leave the Verkhovna Rada and what consequences this might have.
Majoritarians and ex-members of banned parties are in the “risk zone”
If deputies are deprived of their mandates, then why don’t new ones take their place? The point is how exactly the deputy was elected: if according to the party list, then the next person on the list receives his mandate. As practice shows, replenishing deputies from the lists is not a problem. This is exactly what happened, in particular, in the “Voice” party: Maxim Khlapuk came to replace Rustem Umerov, who was appointed chairman of the State Property Fund in 2022 (since September 2023, Rustem Umerov has held the position of Minister of Defense of Ukraine. - Author). The situation with “majoritarians” is much more complicated. If such a people's deputy loses his mandate, elections must be held in the district that lost the representative. This is where one of the two main technical reasons for the sharp decline in the number of parliamentarians comes into play: elections during martial law are not provided for by the Constitution. Therefore, majoritarians are dragging their place in parliament with them into their political grave.
Another reason is that sometimes the party list, like the party itself, no longer exists. This is exactly what happened with OPZH. Since its activities are prohibited on the territory of Ukraine, it is simply impossible to replace the deputies who were elected from its list. Therefore, these two categories of deputies – majoritarians and ex-members of the OPZZH – are the focus of our attention.
But how exactly can deputies lose their mandate early? In Art. 81 of the Constitution of Ukraine contains several reasons. In practice, almost all the losses of mandates over the past year and a half occurred formally for two reasons: deprivation of citizenship and due to personal application. The reasons for the loss of mandates of deputies from the risk group since the beginning of the full-scale invasion: 11 - at their own request, 6 - loss of citizenship, 1 - obtaining a government position, 2 - death.
How many people's deputies can still lose their mandate?
There are several main reasons why deputies left their seats in the Rada earlier. LZI calculated how many deputies may be in the same conditions at the moment.
Risk No. 1 – belonging to pro-Russian political forces (-33).
First of all, we cannot help but recall the prohibited lifelong lifestyle. It is the people from this party who are under special scrutiny. Thus, during martial law, more than one bill was initiated that aims to terminate the powers of deputies from this faction. However, all of them were rejected as “unconstitutional”.
Meanwhile, the ranks of the former OPZZH are thinning even without concrete decisions “from above”: for example, Tatyana Plachkova resigned her mandate allegedly “for health reasons”, and in some cases deputies lose their mandates due to the procedure for deprivation of citizenship. Therefore, it is these deputies who are at particular risk, and the potential “Rada of the Future” may have 33 fewer parliamentarians if all former members of the OPZZh lose their mandates.
Risk No. 2 – transition to leadership positions in the Armed Forces of Ukraine (-1).
More than six months ago, Lieutenant General of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Mikhail Zabrodsky resigned his mandate - he decided to concentrate on working with the General Staff. Among the majoritarians there is one deputy who is fighting, namely, Lieutenant Colonel Sergei Rudik from the “For the Future” group. With further promotion, he, like his former colleague, may concentrate more on military affairs - therefore, the number of deputies may decrease by one more.
Risk No. 3 – entry into force of a guilty verdict (-16)
One of the possible reasons for losing a mandate may be the entry into force of a conviction. Based on the information available in the public space, we counted the deputies against whom criminal cases were opened in recent years, as well as against which of the people’s deputies a pre-trial investigation was launched. We counted 16 such parliamentarians among the majoritarians (excluding deputies from the OPZZH).
LZI has repeatedly sent requests to the Office of the Prosecutor General in order to obtain official information about the number of people’s deputies against whom criminal proceedings have been opened. Unfortunately, information was refused. Therefore, this data is collected based on open sources.
Risk No. 4 – termination of Ukrainian citizenship.
Ideally, second citizenship should also be a sufficient condition for losing the mandate. But, as experience shows, this card is played only when it is convenient - the stories of Vadim Rabinovich and Igor Vasilkovsky are an excellent illustration. However, we did not take this category into analysis: it is almost impossible to find information of this kind from open sources, and the Rada itself does not pay much attention to this.
Taking into account all these risks, we can make an assumption about who the next potential deputy is to “go out”. Full House was assembled by People's Deputy Vadim Stolar. He belonged to the so-called. The “Monaco” battalion, has several criminal proceedings on its record, the SBU visited him with a search, he belonged to the OPZZH. And even more: earlier there were rumors that he would resign his mandate.
Is the reduction in the number of people's deputies critical for the current convocation?
After the introduction of martial law, there was a growing demand for the cleansing of parliament from traitors and corrupt officials. However, their replacement is sometimes impossible. Taking into account all the listed risks, now the minimum possible number of deputies is 353. However, new criminal proceedings and rotations in the Government may appear at any time. Why is this dangerous?
There are several thresholds for the number of votes that the Rada must achieve to fully carry out its work. This is 1) 226 for the adoption of laws, 2) 300 for changes to the Constitution and 3) 338 for the impeachment of the president. Probably, the 9th convocation will not fall to such indicators and parliament will still be able to continue working.
Although problems cannot be avoided anyway: as First Deputy Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Alexander Kornienko said, “this is the first Rada in which there are no 10% of deputies, and you also need to understand that this affects committees where there are not so many people... The quorum is worse there Now". So, the ability of parliament to make decisions will certainly decrease, and the fewer deputies there are, the more obvious this problem will become.
There is another dimension to this story. The fate of not only individual deputies is important, but also the political forces to which they belong. To form a faction or group in parliament, a minimum of 17 deputies are required. Already, there are three groups of deputies whose composition is equal to this minimum: “Restoration of Ukraine”, “For the Future” and “Trust”. However, if you break down the “risky” deputies by faction, you can see that all four deputy groups that exist in the Rada may cease to exist.
In this case, the configuration of deputy groups may change: if the “risky deputies” are completely purged, 33 more deputies will remain from the ex-members of these political forces - this is almost enough to create two more groups. At the same time, there will still be 20 non-factional deputies in parliament, who can be used as additional persons to cover possible shortfalls.
Another risk that Parliament faces is the loss of a mono-majority. “Servant of the People,” in response to loud scandals among coalition members, simply expels them from the ranks of the faction. This is exactly what happened in August with Anatoly Gunko and Bogdan Torokhtiy. Tellingly, David Arakhamia, commenting on the exclusion of Torokhtiya, directly stated that “there are some attempts to manipulate the situation in order to further reduce our faction.”
That is, the danger of, if not disintegration, then at least a critical reduction of the mono-majority, is already foreseen by the head of the faction himself. Now there are 235 deputies in the ruling faction, but if we take away six more, allocated by us, only 229 will remain. That is, four more scandals will separate Servant of the People from the need to create a coalition, uniting with another faction, or look for other ways to replenish the faction - “recruit” non-factional deputies or return “former” ones.
The constant decrease in the number of people's deputies is most reminiscent of zugzwang - a situation on a chessboard, when each subsequent move only worsens the existing situation. Society demands a sharp response to any scandals in which the people's representatives get involved. If there is no answer, the “attacker” will remain with privileges that he may not deserve. If he loses his mandate, the problem of (not) getting votes will become more and more obvious. Perhaps it is precisely the reluctance to lose the Rada’s capacity that is responsible for such a protracted delay in depriving the mandates of deputies from the long-banned OPZZH. Still, they became a convenient lever in the hands of the authorities, honestly playing their role as pawns.
