The Rada lost 71 parliamentarians in seven years: why MPs left parliament – Pidozra

Stavniychuk emphasized that a serious challenge remains in parliament — the inability to terminate the powers of pro-Russian deputies

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Most of those who submitted statements resigning their mandates went on to work in other key state positions

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

The study notes that most often people's deputies prematurely relinquished their mandates 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 guilty verdicts by courts entered into legal force.

According to Oksana Stavniychuk, an investigative journalist and data engineer with the civic initiative "Holka," most of those who submitted statements resigning their mandates went on to work in other key state positions.

“Members of the mono-majority most often left the Verkhovna Rada due to appointments to the Cabinet. Even in the fifth year of the full-scale war, Volodymyr Zelensky, 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 to head the Ministry for Communities and Territories Development and the Ministry of Justice, respectively. The longest-serving member of the government was former Minister of Digital Transformation 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 Rezniko as people's deputies of Ukraine. Both were elected from the Servant of the People party list in the parliamentary elections in 2019.