Moral Rust of "Servant of the People" over Contacts with Medvedchuk's Associates

Moral Rust of "Servant of the People" over Contacts with Medvedchuk's Associates

“There is no gold in the world for crosses or anything else that could cover the moral rust from ties with a terrorist state” — this is a fragment from President Zelenskyy’s annual address to the Verkhovna Rada on the eve of 2023 year.

The president’s speech in parliament was accompanied by thunderous applause. Representatives of the former Opposition Platform — For Life, who still retain their mandates, also applauded. On why initiatives that could strip these deputies of their powers are being blocked by the leadership of the party brought to power by the president — in the hromadske piece.

Still in power

The leadership of Servant of the People — David Arakhamia and Olena Shuliak — do not support the swift removal of powers from deputies of OPZZh. They and nearly 70 other parliamentarians refused to sign an appeal to the chair of the Verkhovna Rada, Ruslan Stefanchuk, proposing to bring several relevant bills to the plenary session for a vote. The Batkivshchyna faction, practically in full, also opposed this initiative.

Before the full-scale invasion by the Russian aggressor, OPZZh was the second-largest parliamentary faction and counted 44 deputies. Some of them fled abroad before 24 February.

According to a study by the Committee of Voters of Ukraine, six current deputies from the former OPZZh have not voted even once in parliament since 24 February, and four others have relinquished their mandates. At the same time, Viktor Medvedchuk, Putin’s godfather, still has not been stripped of his parliamentary powers.

In April 2022 the year, OPZZh suspended its activities by decision of the National Security and Defense Council, but that did not prevent deputies who remained in Ukraine, as well as those who left abroad, from continuing to work in parliament. They only changed the name: the Platform for Life and Peace, created by 25 deputies from the dissolved faction, and Restoration of Ukraine, which included 12 deputies from OPZZh. Some became non-affiliated.

The Cassation Administrative Court within the Supreme Court of Ukraine finally banned OPZZh in September at the initiative of the SBU. The reason cited was destructive activity, a threat to national security, and retransmission of Russian propaganda.

Currently the activities of deputies from this political force are being investigated by the Office of the Prosecutor General together with the State Bureau of Investigations. Proceedings under the article on treason against all former OPZZh faction members were opened only at the end of last month.

A “pocket” faction

Attention was drawn to OPZZh deputies in parliament much earlier; there are efforts to strip representatives of pro-Russian parties of mandates at local and national levels. But the documents proposing to do this have been left pending — they are not being brought to a vote.

For example, bill 7476 has not been considered for half a year, although it was created to implement the president’s decree and the NSDC decision. It proposes to strip powers from local council deputies from banned parties. Besides seats in parliament, the former OPZZh currently has nearly 3,5 thousand of its deputies in local councils.

To strip OPZZh representatives of the status of people’s deputy, European Solidarity deputies initiated resolution 7694. The document, registered at the end of the summer, has still not been reviewed by the committee. Oleksii Honcharenko, one of the initiators, launched a petition demanding the resolution be considered that gathered 30 thousand Ukrainian votes.

Zelenskyy responded to the petition and asked the chair of parliament to “work on the proposals and inform the author of the appeal about the results of the review.” According to Honcharenko, Stefanchuk responded that such a decision would be unconstitutional.

Co-author of this resolution, Servant of the People deputy Oleh Dunda, adds: “In fact everything depends on parliament speaker Ruslan Stefanchuk and faction leader David Arakhamia. They make decisions on bringing bills to a vote at the coordination council. If they still haven’t managed to put these issues up and vote on them, then these two people are blocking them.”

At the same time the mono-majority continues to collaborate with pro-Russian politicians in committees.

“Shufrich is the chair of the parliamentary Committee on Freedom of Speech. One vote, and you can remove that position from him, but the Servants don’t do that,” notes Oleksii Honcharenko.

Lawmakers also communicate outside of work hours. In December, UP journalists recorded a meeting between the Servant of the People faction head and OPZZh deputy Suto Mamay in a Kyiv restaurant. Similar meetings of Arakhamia had been recorded earlier as well.

In 2021 the year he explained why he meets with representatives of different factions: “That’s my job, I gather votes in parliament.”

Sources from the Servant of the People faction told hromadske that there is an understanding — deputies from the former OPZZh vote according to the instructions of Servant leadership. In return, the Servants do not greenlight bills that would affect the livelihoods of former members of the now-banned party.

“Arakhamia received a ‘pocket’ faction that will vote with his team on issues other colleagues are unwilling to support,” explains one Servant of the People deputy in a comment to hromadske.

OPZZh is trying to preserve its political influence or business, says Committee of Voters of Ukraine head Oleksii Koshel, adding: “We clearly see that a search for ‘compromise’ on a number of issues is underway.”

Self-interested issues

The mono-majority easily finds allies from other factions to pass bills that promote reforms or aim at European integration or improving the situation in national security and defense.

“But because they are also solving their own ‘skin’ issues, of course under such conditions it’s much easier for them to reach agreements with those who are experts at this,” says Holos faction MP Yaroslav Yurchyshyn.

Only recently deputies from the former OPZZh together with the Servants supported a number of questionable bills that provoked public outrage. Such initiatives include the new selection of judges to the Constitutional Court (a concern even in the European Commission) and repeal of lifetime financial monitoring for high officials.

Most telling was the vote on the bill reforming urban planning. It was supported by 228 deputies out of the 226 required. And the votes of deputies from the former OPZZh proved decisive.

The bill’s author — member of the Servant leadership and party chair Olena Shuliak — became embroiled in scandal after attempting to “protect” the bill from public criticism. She went to a hospital to confront wounded soldier and activist Oleh Symoroz. During the meeting Symoroz said: “Instead of fighting the pro-Russian gang, you pass laws in the interests of the construction mafia.”

Among those who supported the bill were former OPZZh members Nestor Shufrich, Serhiy Magera, Volodymyr Kaltsev, Serhiy Dunaiev and Oleksandr Kachnyi. Kachnyi, incidentally, said on the air of the channel Nash in January last year that the West is trying to drag Russia into a war with Ukraine in order to turn all European countries against Russia.

Sources in the urban planning committee call one of the “ultimate beneficiaries” of this bill the former OPZZh deputy Dmytro Isaienko. He is the committee’s secretary, where Shuliak works, and is connected to the construction business. Shuliak insists that her OPZZh colleagues in the committee “work constructively.”

“Isaienko is a lobbyist for the construction business because he is a developer. Shuliak herself is also a developer,” says one Servant of the People deputy.

In the deputy’s declaration for 2020 year it is indicated that she is co-owner of three companies engaged in construction auditing. She also refused to join the collection of signatures to bring to a vote bills on stripping mandates of OPZZh representatives.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy could have vetoed the urban planning reform but did not. The bill was sent to the president on 19 December, and under the law, if the head of state does not use his veto within 15 days, the document is automatically considered approved.

An unconstitutional decision?

Servant of the People MP Oleksandr Kachura denies accusations of his party colleagues’ cooperation with former OPZZh representatives and explains joint voting as follows: “They support the state decisions of the Ukrainian authorities because they have the banal instinct of self-preservation in the face of public fury.”

About the urban planning reform he says: “This bill was scheduled at the end of the day; if it had been scheduled earlier, I think they could have gathered more votes without representatives of the remnants of OPZZh.”

Kachura claims that in the mono-majority “almost everyone is in favor of putting a period” on the question of depriving OPZZh deputies of their mandates.

“But deputies in our and other factions see ways to resolve it differently. That is, internally we have a discussion only about which legal mechanism will be chosen, and overall I think everyone supports the idea. There are different bills, different viewpoints. The issue is the legal impeccability of the decision,” the MP says.

Indeed, OPZZh deputies are still protected by the Constitution, which lists clear grounds for early termination of a deputy’s powers. It is impossible to amend it during martial law.

The aforementioned resolution 7694, co-authored by Oleksii Honcharenko and Oleh Dunda, proposes to terminate the powers of OPZZh deputies due to their exit from the party faction and relocation to permanent residence outside Ukraine.

“This resolution has constitutional defects, since in one decision the Verkhovna Rada mixes two different grounds for early termination of a people’s deputy’s powers. Moreover, the Constitution does not contain such a ground (for termination — ed.) as dissolution of a faction. Therefore I would propose to consider the question of early termination of each deputy’s powers separately on the relevant grounds provided for in Article 81 of the Constitution,” says specialist in constitutional and international law Oleksandr Marusiak.

There is another initiative in parliament that leaves mandates with deputies but does not allow them to participate in plenary sessions. However, bill 7424 is far from flawless either. In particular, “the legal status of parliamentarians who, if the proposed project is adopted, will be deprived of part of their powers is not clear,” reads the GNEU conclusion.

Most deputies interviewed by hromadske are confident: if bills limiting the activities of the former OPZZh reach the plenary hall, deputies will certainly pass them.

“This is a litmus test; society simply will not be able to accept another decision,” says MP Oleh Dunda.

“There will hardly be 45 deputies willing to commit political suicide and trigger a constitutional challenge to such a law (if it is adopted — ed.) in the Constitutional Court,” adds Servant of the People MP Dmytro Hurin.

Yevhenii Shulhat, published in hromadske