Parliament has entered a zone of turbulence. Is the Verkhovna Rada facing a political crisis?

The Verkhovna Rada appears to be on the verge of a parliamentary crisis. Over the past three weeks, people's deputies were able to make only one decision at a time when important issues for the Office of the President were hanging in the air, including the bill on strengthening mobilization.

Recently, the beginning of a possible parliamentary crisis has been quite actively discussed in political circles. There are at least several reasons for the stagnation in the Verkhovna Rada.

First of all, it is worth noting the fact that the number of people's deputies has already reached its historical minimum. In addition to the fact that there are currently 401 people’s representatives left in the Verkhovna Rada, 17 more people’s deputies from the Servant of the People faction have announced plans to resign. The head of the “SN” faction, David Arakhamia, said that no one plans to release these deputies yet. In his opinion, this is the only way to preserve the legitimacy of the Verkhovna Rada and prevent a parliamentary crisis. But it seems that the attempt to “escape” the people’s deputies was not the main problem of the authorities.

People's Deputy Yaroslav Zheleznyak from the "Voice" faction notes that over the past three weeks the Verkhovna Rada has considered only one issue. We are talking about recognizing the so-called “elections” of the Russian President in the occupied Ukrainian territories as illegal—the corresponding resolution was voted on March 14. Almost immediately after this, the meeting was suspended due to an air raid, after which only 203 people's deputies returned to the hall, which is not enough for a quorum.

The beginning of March also turned out to be unproductive, since meetings for March 6-8 were cancelled. Then Arakhamia explained this decision as an “urgent task”, for which the people’s deputies needed, in particular, to carry out a number of trips to front-line units. The opposition believes that the cancellation of the meetings was actually caused by completely different reasons.

It seems that it is becoming increasingly difficult for the authorities to find votes for their key bills. Even within the pro-government faction, there are problems with organizing work. Here it is worth remembering the failed vote for the reform of the Bureau of Economic Security, which was important for the Office of the President, the bill of which, in the Cabinet version, was severely criticized by Western partners and business.

But the biggest sign of the likelihood of a parliamentary crisis may be the delay in the draft law to strengthen mobilization. The document actually hung in the air due to the so-called “correction spam.” Almost 4,200 amendments were submitted to the draft law, most of which were from the “SN” faction. The OP expected that the bill would be adopted as soon as possible, but more than a month and a half has already passed since the Cabinet of Ministers submitted it to the Rada. According to the optimistic scenario, the bill will return to parliament for the second reading no earlier than the beginning of April. In addition, if each author of the amendment wants to put his proposal to a vote, consideration of the bill may drag on for another week

The Office of the President really does not want to delay and demands that the bill be passed before May, when the 5-year term of office of President Vladimir Zelensky expires, which Bankova’s opponents can use as another reason to fuel public discontent in addition to the unpopular bill on strengthening mobilization. Therefore, the OP is considering the possibility of applying a special procedure to the bill, which allows most technical amendments to be discarded. But a number of people's deputies from SN have already informally opposed it.

Political scientist, director of the sociological service “Ukrainian Borometer” Viktor Nebozhenko is not surprised by the delay in considering the bill. Because he is sure that the majority of people’s deputies simply do not want to spoil their political reputation.

“Let’s speak frankly: the president today wants the Verkhovna Rada to take full responsibility by adopting the law on mobilization. But the majority of people’s deputies understand that after such a vote they will already be on the “black list,” so to speak, and not one of them will be able to become a politician in the future. The deputies themselves are not to blame for this, because this is how the circumstances developed, but they do not want to vote. And this is a dead end,” says the political scientist.

Political strategist Alexey Golobutsky has a similar opinion. “We have a parliamentary-presidential state, and over the past two years the head of state has only recently met with the pro-government faction. So much for the level of interaction. People's deputies should show at least some kind of political activity, and not just be, so to speak, “printers”, voting for everything they are told. And in general, parliament does not actually influence anything - everything is decided in the Office of the President,” says Golobutsky.

He adds that, in fact, the parliament is already in a certain kind of crisis, which may even last until the next Verkhovna Rada elections. As a way out, he sees attempts to create a government of national unity so that all political forces understand how to get out of this crisis political situation. “And so that this is not a decision of only Vladimir Zelensky, or the Office of the President, but a general political decision. I don’t see any other way out of the parliamentary crisis,” the political strategist emphasized.