Voting For the Unknown

By Walter Kish

As everybody knows, Ukraine is poised for a crucial parliamentary vote five months from now. It is crucial because under constitutional changes that will come into effect this January, there will be a significant shift in the balance of power from the President to the Verkhovna Rada. Parliament will become the dominant force in Ukrainian politics, and the President, though still retaining a certain amount of authority, will no longer be in the driver’s seat.

What most Canadians may not be aware of, though, is that the voting for the Ukrainian Parliament bears little resemblance to what we are used to at home. Canada, like Britain and most of its former colonies including the United States, uses a constituency-based, majoritarian voting system. The country is divided into geographical constituencies or ridings based on the population. Each of these ridings elects a representative to Parliament through a simple majority vote. Although most candidates for office are usually affiliated with a political party, their ultimate accountability is to the electors in their riding. Should a member choose to disavow her party affiliation, she still retains her seat in Parliament.

Majoritarian voting tends to evolve into a two-party system of government in the countries where it is practised. In Canada, for instance, the Conservatives and the Liberals have alternately held power for most of the past 150 years. In the United States there has been a similar exchange between the Democrats and Republicans. In the United Kingdom, the Conservatives have traditionally faced off with either the Labour or the Liberal Party. Although such systems tend to produce more stable governments, their weakness is that new or smaller minority parties and movements have a tough time obtaining a voice in government.

Ukraine has recently shifted to a party-list proportional representation system of electing members to their parliamentary body. This means that electors do not vote for a specific candidate in their electoral district, but for a political party. The party then gets the number of seats in Parliament that is proportional to their share of the national vote. Thus, a party gaining 20 percent of the vote would get 20 percent of the seats in Parliament. There is a minimum cutoff point of 3 percent. Parties gaining less than this share of the popular vote do not receive any seats in Parliament. 

Prior to the election, each party prepares its list of candidates and, after the election, the seats are allocated according to the order of the candidates on the party list. Needless to say, party leaders wield tremendous power in determining who sits in Parliament. Also, should a sitting member leave or be expelled from his party, he forfeits his seat, which the party then allocates to someone else.

Proportional representation is common throughout the world and the usual form of voting in Europe. The Parliament of the European Union follows this system, as do the Netherlands and Israel. Many European countries, such as Germany and Italy, use a mixed-member system where a certain number of seats are elected by a majority vote in defined constituencies and a certain number by proportional representation. In Italy, for instance, 75 percent of the members are elected to geographical constituencies, while 25 percent of the seats are allocated from party lists in proportion to the popular vote.

Obviously, the advantage of such a system is that even small parties can win representation in legislative bodies. In the Canadian model, a party can gain a significant share of the popular vote, and yet not elect a single member to Parliament. So proportional representation, at least in theory, seems like a fairer system that ensures more equitable minority political party representation. However, such systems tend to be less stable in that they often generate parliaments with so many parties that gaining a working majority can be a difficult task.

Other serious issues affect this system, not least of which is that the electorate plays no part in selecting which party members will sit in Parliament. The members of Parliament are, therefore, accountable only to their party and not directly to the electorate. In addition, in countries where the judiciary and the rule of law may be weak, this system is vulnerable to corruption. In Ukraine, where members of the Verkhovna Rada enjoy immunity from prosecution, many anticipate that.

Parliamentary seats will be going “on sale” in the upcoming elections by less than scrupulous party leaders. For many of Ukraine’s rich oligarchs, spending five or ten million dollars for a parliamentary seat is an affordable and self-interested investment.

It is difficult to predict how Ukraine’s foray into this new system of voting will ultimately turn out. In the long term it may come to be perceived as a progressive move, however, in the current political and legal environment, I view it as a very risky proposition.