Systemic problem. Why did the Verkhovna Rada become incapacitated?

The sudden absence of a small number of deputies caused paralysis of parliament: the “servants of the people”, even together with satellite groups, have a very low margin of safety

The plenary sessions of the Verkhovna Rada on March 6-8 have been cancelled. It is unknown when people's deputies will meet next time. Probably March 20-22, if not April. In January, the Verkhovna Rada met for four days, in February – for five. For the entire 2023 - 51 days, that is, on average, a little more than four days per month.

Of course, such a practice can hardly be called normal. And the reason for it is not war. On the contrary, in the conditions of a major war, it is logical to expect that the Rada should meet more often than before, but not less often. The reason for the current abnormal practice is that the parliamentary mono-majority has long turned into a fiction.

When it was real, “servants of the people” boasted that they were working in turbo mode. This was possible due to the fact that they had a large supply of votes.

And now every vote counts. That’s why it’s “inside-out turbo mode”: we have to negotiate for a long time with other factions and groups on bills that are important for Bankova, and set aside special days for voting.

However, even in this mode, the Verkhovna Rada demonstrates low efficiency. A typical situation is when bills needed by Bankova gain only slightly more than the minimum required 226 votes. Or they don’t get it, as happened, for example, with government bill No. 10439 on rebooting the BSE (Bureau of Economic Security) - on February 23, it received 222 votes in favor and was sent for a second first reading.

Although there are 235 people’s deputies in the “servants of the people” faction, 50-60 of them are consistently either absent or do not vote. Therefore, the dependence of the fictitious mono-majority on the votes of other factions and groups loyal to Bankova is critical. If it is obvious that there are not enough votes, then it is better not to assemble the Radu, so as not to receive failed votes.

This is exactly the situation that arose on the eve of March 6th. And the most interesting thing is why this happened. The deputies voiced two versions, both surprising. It is either the American senators who are to blame, or the incentives for foreign business trips of loyal people's deputies.

Version about American senators

The first version was formulated by the head of the “servants of the people” faction, David Arakhamia. “We have repeatedly said that, by analogy with the work in the districts, deputies will work more with the military - on the front line, in training centers, in permanent deployment points. Now there is an urgent and important task for our deputies in this direction, which directly affects the assistance of our partners. When it is completed, they will return to work in the session hall,” he said on March 5.

What kind of “urgent and important task” this is, said co-chairman of the European Solidarity faction Irina Gerashchenko. According to her, “servants of the people”, instead of a plenary session where they should decide on the ban on the Moscow church and the development of fortifications, will imitate vigorous activity for our American partners.

“Instead of a meeting of the Verkhovna Rada, they form three groups of 10 deputies only from the “servants” in order to drive them to military positions and make a report on fortifications,” Gerashchenko said and cited information from the factional chat of the “servants of the people”:

“We have an urgent need to make a comprehensive report for the US Senate on the trip of deputies to military positions, in connection with which groups are now being formed: 1. Front lines. 2. State of fortification. 3. situations in educational complexes. We need 10 responsible people, in each group one person must speak English. Departure tomorrow. In this regard, the meeting is postponed to 6-8!”

It was proposed to sign up with Yuri Mysyagin - he is the deputy chairman of the “servants of the people” faction and the deputy chairman of the committee on national security, defense and intelligence.

Of course, there was some mutual criticism. Arakhamia, reproaching the opposition, said that “it would not hurt some of our colleagues to sacrifice their comfort for a while and visit a place where anything can fly in at any moment.”

Gerashchenko, in turn, reported that 10 European Solidarity deputies called and wrote to Mysyagin about their desire to join working groups that would go to military positions to check their condition and prepare a report for the US Senate. “Mr. Mysyagin did not answer any of our calls or SMS,” Gerashchenko stated, “they sent a letter to Mr. Mysyagin, Arakhamia and other “servants” through the electronic document management system.”

If you combine the information from Arakhamia and Gerashchenko, you get a fairly complete picture. Obviously, in fact, a request was received from the US Senate, on the fulfillment of which the provision of American military assistance depends. Moreover, this is an urgent request, so we had to send 30 “servants” to military positions immediately, without delaying until March 9. And there is some very important reason (probably formulated at Bankova) why Arakhamia refused the help of deputies from other factions.

Of course, the analogy expressed by Arakhamia with work in the districts looks strange. Is he hinting that the meetings of “servants” with voters were also held for the sake of reporting to American senators? Apparently he was just making a bad joke.

But behind this unfortunate joke lies a serious problem: the sudden absence of 30 “servants of the people” - less than 7.5% of the total number of people’s deputies (401) - causes paralysis of parliament. It turns out that the current mono-majority, even together with satellite groups, has a very low margin of safety.

When there is a big war, it is very dangerous. And for two years the authorities did not want to look for a solution to this problem. The only thing she came up with was to turn the “servants of the people” into serfs and not to satisfy their requests to resign their mandates. Hence the 50-60 “servants” who consistently either ignore meetings or do not vote

Incentive travel version

Another version of events was put forward by the first deputy chairman of the parliamentary committee on finance, tax and customs policy, Yaroslav Zheleznyak (Golos party faction). Its essence lies in the fact that the leadership of the Verkhovna Rada uses foreign business trips as a carrot for people’s deputies for good behavior. Those who vote correctly are rewarded with business trips. And whoever does it wrong is not allowed on a business trip.

According to Zheleznyak, Bankovaya was especially upset by the failed vote on February 23 on the bill on the BES in the wording that suits the deputy head of the OP Oleg Tatarov. Therefore, those who failed this project were punished. “As of now, three business trips have been stopped due to not voting on the Tatar version of the BEB: Brussels, OECD [Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development] and IMF-World Bank spring meetings,” Zheleznyak said.

The BEB bill was put to a vote on February 23, despite the fact that G7 ambassadors opposed it. They warned that this would “negatively affect the country’s fiscal stability and compliance with the terms of the IMF program and European integration.” That is, Bankovaya not only ignored the position of its Western partners, but also decided to punish those who listened to their opinion.

On March 4, Zheleznyak said that he was busy with an interesting matter: “I am writing out the latest cases when people’s deputies who did not vote for the Tatar version of the BEB had their business trips immediately canceled or not signed. I thought I would describe literally a few cases in beautiful English, but it turned out that there are many more of them than even I expected. The letter is already five pages long.”

Apparently, after some time, Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Ruslan Stefanchuk will receive another surprised message from Western partners. And the relevant Deputy Prime Minister Olga Stefanishina will again say that bad people’s deputies are disrupting European integration with their complaints.

But this medal also has a downside. Having taken revenge on all the friends of the G7 ambassadors, Bankova decided to thank her friends. And she allowed a considerable number of people’s deputies from the former OPZZH and the groups “Trust” and “For the Future” to go abroad. But they did not return on time - and this led to the disruption of the work of parliament on March 6-8, according to Zheleznyak.

“In short, the official reason: “urgent need to make a comprehensive report for the US Senate.” I won't even comment. Well, in reality: they let those who voted for BEB go abroad. Especially OPZZH and groups. And here’s a surprise: many “allies” in voting do not return on time this week,” the people’s deputy explained.

– It is clear that without the votes of “allies” from groups (which temporarily became foreign), all sorts of “wish lists” of the OP would not have passed. But there were a lot of important other laws on the agenda: social, educational, military. At least 10 ratifications were on the agenda.

But the absence of “wants” was immediately interpreted as “nothing important” and all meetings were canceled. In general, it turned out very funny: since there were those who were not allowed to go on a business trip because they did not vote for the BEB, then there were those other 222 deputies who voted and who should have been allowed to go on a business trip. I just had to conceptually thank them somehow for their support. Well, then something went wrong.”

That is, again we see the same problem: the sudden absence of several dozen loyal deputies causes paralysis of parliament. And it’s scary to even imagine what will happen if Bankovaya or Stefanchuk, under pressure from their Western partners, refuse to use foreign business trips as a tool for instilling loyalty in deputies.

Many deputies will immediately stop behaving well when they see that disloyal people’s deputies calmly travel abroad, and loyal ones do not receive any reward for their loyalty, even in the form of pleasant business trips. Then the paralysis of parliament may become permanent.

Therefore, most likely, there will be no changes. And the Rada will continue to work four days a month, unless it has to be distracted by urgent reports to American senators.