The Rada lost 71 parliamentarian over seven years: why deputies left parliament

Over the past seven years 71 people's deputy lost their powers. This is shown by the results of an analysis by the civic initiative “Holka,” whose information partner is Hlavenkom.

The study states that most often people's deputies relinquished their mandates early by their own choice — about half a hundred such cases were recorded. Another 12 parliamentarians died or were killed, six lost their mandates due to termination of Ukrainian citizenship, and three — after criminal convictions became final and binding.

According to Oksana Stavniychuk, an investigative journalist and data engineer for the civic initiative “Holka,” most of those who submitted resignation statements went on to work in other key state positions.

“Members of the mono-majority most often left the Verkhovna Rada because of appointments to the Cabinet. Even in the fifth year of the full-scale war, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who effectively forms the composition of the government, unfortunately does not see the expediency of involving the opposition and experts in governance. Thus, during the last scandalous government reshuffle in July, people's deputies from Servant of the People, Vitaliy Bezgyn and Denys Maslov, left parliament after becoming heads of the Ministry for Communities and Territories Development and the Ministry of Justice, respectively. The longest-serving cabinet member was former Minister of Defense Mykhailo Fedorov,” the journalist emphasized.

Stavniychuk added that a serious challenge remains in parliament — the inability to terminate the powers of pro-Russian deputies: “Over all these years we have managed to expel from parliament only those pro-Russian deputies who lost their citizenship. This refers to Putin’s godfather Viktor Medvedchuk, Andriy Derkach, Rinat Kuzmin, and Andriy Kozak. But politicians toxic to national security such as Yuriy Boyko (included in the NSDC decision on personal sanctions — he was stripped of Ukraine’s state awards and other forms of recognition) or Nestor Shufrych still remain in parliament.”

Recall that recently the Central Election Commission registered Bohdan Morklyanyk and Viktoriya Reiznikova as people's deputies of Ukraine. Both were elected from the Servant of the People party list in the parliamentary elections in 2019.