Rebellion of the Majority: How the First Conflict Happened in "Servant of the People"

Rebellion of the Majority: How the First Conflict Happened in "Servant of the People"

The leadership of "Servant of the People" and the Office of the President decided to discipline the deputies of their faction as strictly as possible.

They proposed to effectively introduce an imperative mandate under which any people's deputy — whether elected from a party list or a single-member district — could be stripped of their seat if that is the will of the party leadership.

But about a hundred single-member-district deputies from the president’s party voiced dissatisfaction with this approach. After consultations within "Servant of the People," they decided to postpone the idea and continue negotiations with the dissatisfied group, RBC-Ukraine reports.

Already on the first day of the Rada’s work, a group of "Servant of the People" deputies registered draft law No. 1038, which provides that a people's deputy elected from a political party by list or by single-member district is obliged to join the parliamentary faction of that party. Otherwise — they may lose their mandate.

"His (the deputy’s — ed.) powers terminate from the moment a decision is made by the highest governing body of the relevant political party in the manner determined by the party's charter," the draft law says.

This wording became one of the most controversial points that angered the "Servants of the People." "The draft talks about governing bodies of the party, but we are not even party members. Why would they expel us, and what are these bodies?" — single-member-district deputies of "Servant of the People" protested to RBC-Ukraine on Thursday.

The document submitted by SN used wording that the deputy’s powers end in the case of "termination of his membership in the party faction" from which he was elected. But termination of membership can be interpreted as either voluntary departure or as expulsion by force. Previously, the imperative mandate provided for by the Constitution was applied in parliament, but only to list deputies, and only to those who voluntarily decided to leave the faction, journalists note.

After the dissatisfaction expressed by "Servant of the People" deputies elected in single-member districts, SN faction leader David Arakhamia suggested his colleagues submit three amendments to this draft law, and its consideration was postponed to the next plenary week, said one faction member, Oleksandr Dubinsky.

It was Dubinsky who first raised the public alarm, discovering that on the Thursday agenda, 12 September, the first items listed were draft laws numbered 1045 and 1045-1. The first was submitted by more than twenty "Servant of the People" deputies, the second by two — Oksana Hrynchuk and Liudmyla Marchenko. The latter also contains a provision on the imperative mandate. As in draft No. 1038, the imperative mandate is proposed to be applied to single-member-district deputies. In addition, the document contains wording analogous to that in document No. 1038 — that a deputy’s powers terminate in the case of "termination of his membership in the party faction" from which he was elected.

The Parliament’s Main Scientific and Expert Department in its analysis of the draft law also drew attention to this detail. "If the changes provided in the draft law are adopted, the grounds for early termination of the mandate of a people's deputy of Ukraine, in addition to his leaving the faction on his own initiative, may also be his exclusion from the faction by its decision, which, in our view, does not comply with the prescriptions of paragraph 7 of part 1 and part 6 of article 81 of the Constitution of Ukraine," the experts concluded.

"Friends, let’s not treat us like idiots and let's not be idiots, because stories like this undermine trust both externally and internally," Dubinsky appealed to the bill's authors.

Other SN deputies did not make similar statements, but, according to various sources cited by the publication, up to a hundred single-member-district deputies expressed dissatisfaction with the party leadership. Moreover, many were even ready to publicly leave the faction to show their disagreement and block this draft law.

In the end, the fate of the imperative mandate was decided in negotiations within "Servant of the People," which, according to the publication, involved President Volodymyr Zelensky personally. Meanwhile, list deputies told journalists off the record that rumors of a rebellion were somewhat exaggerated. They said the leadership was negotiating with the dissatisfied. "No one is leaving the faction; I'm sure it won't come to that. Constructive talks are underway," one source said.

According to Arakhamia, as a result of the discussion the draft law was withdrawn. An alternative document that will satisfy all "Servants of the People" is to be prepared by a specially created group that includes representatives from all 15 subgroups within the faction.

One of them told the publication that a number of his colleagues were outraged not so much by the norm on the imperative mandate itself — since they remain loyal to their faction — but by the form in which it was done: without warning, as a small inconspicuous line in a draft law.

At the same time, various single-member-district deputies from "Servant of the People" who spoke to the publication are convinced that although the draft law on the imperative mandate was registered in the names of deputies, the initiative actually comes from the Office of the President. "I think this idea is being pushed by the Office. And the harder they push, the worse it turns out. We are loyal without these stupidities, voluntarily," one of them said.

A source close to Zelensky, commenting on the situation, insists there is no specific instigator of the "rebellion." "This is the collective opinion of the single-member-district deputies. They have become important," the source said, but emphasized that the president's team intends to negotiate with the single-member-district deputies.

It was precisely the unexpectedly high result in single-member districts that allowed "Servant of the People" to form a single-party majority and avoid the need to conduct protracted coalition negotiations with anyone, to agree the Cabinet composition, and to coordinate positions on any other issues, the article notes.

But recent events have shown that having such a large number of single-member-district deputies also represents a threat to the president’s party. In addition, RBC-Ukraine reports that "Servants of the People" are already asking the faction leadership questions about the allocation of socio-economic subventions to their districts. "And this issue may come to a head in the coming days after the Cabinet submits the draft state budget for the 2020 year to the Rada. It is quite possible that in the foreseeable future the single-party majority will not be able to operate at the rapid pace it does now, and deputies from SN will begin to show willfulness more often," the article's authors write.