Party of Regions Foreshadows Early Elections Of The Parliament And President to be held Simultaneously

The Christmas break is over and the honeymoon is coming to an end - Now it's down to real politics.

Politics is the art of compromise and policy formation is part of the compromise.

The proposal to hold simultaneous Presidential and Parliamentary elections put forward by Party Regions is a policy worth supporting.

In order to make it work it will require some changes to the current electoral system. changes such as fixed dates for elections and the introduction of Preferential Instant run-off ballots.

Any decision by a head of state to dismiss a parliament without the support of a majority of the Parliamentary representatives should automatically trigger a simultaneous election. The President should be required to seek renewal of his or her mandate at the same time as the elected mandate. The term of office would need to be fixed to expire on a set date such as September 30. These are technical issues that can readily be addressed.

Party of Regions by signalling this policy is stating clearly that negotiations for meaningful constitutional reform will have to address these issues and that unless agreement can be reached constitutional reform will not be achievable.

The Party of Regions has also, once again, stated that the next election will be of it's choosing and that Ukraine can expect early elections. Elections that will be simultaneously held to elect a head of state and a new parliament.

The Tymoshenko's government is on tender hooks and the "democratic in name alone" coalition slender lead (less then 45% of the vote and a parliamentary majority of only 2 votes) gives little room for mistakes.
If fresh elections were held now chances are the Socialist Party would attack an additional 0.14% of the vote and the outcome of the election would change.

With under 45% of the vote the BYuT and Our Ukraine coalition are far from a certinatly to win the presidential election. Many of BYuT supporters are not happy with Yushchenko's performance and it is unlikely that they will support his election to a second term.

Voting support overall within Ukraine has not changed much and Ukraine is as divided as it was back in 2004 with little sign of any real change or compromise.

Two weeks is a long time in politics and nine months is even longer.



Source: Ukrainian News Agency

Parliamentary deputy Hanna Herman of the Regions Party factions allows for the Regions Party initiative of simultaneously holding early elections of the Verkhovna Rada and president.

She has disclosed this during an online conference at the GlavRed webzine.

"I do not rule out new parliamentary election. But that election will be held at the same time with the presidential one. The Regions Party quite may be initiators of such elections," said Herman.

In her words, in case of the power does not care about the interests of the electors in the east, in the centre of the country, if they derogate from rights of Russian-speaking citizens of Ukraine, the party allows for holding snap parliamentary and presidential elections.

As Ukrainian News earlier reported, Parliamentary Deputy Mykola Katerenchuk of the Our Ukraine-People's Self-Defense bloc said that he is not ruling out the possibility of early parliamentary elections at the initiative of the Regions Party.

The legal justification for organization of early parliamentary elections in 2007 was the decision of over 150 parliamentary deputies to relinquish their parliamentary mandates.

Parliamentary Deputy Nestor Shufrych of the Regions Party previously said that he was not ruling out the possibility of the Party of the Regions initiating organization of early parliamentary elections.

The Lytvyn Bloc's leader Volodymyr Lytvyn said in his turn, that it is necessary to hold one more early parliamentary election.

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