(Can you imagine being forbidden from resigning from Congress? What an awful terrorist country!)
12 Dec, 2023
Ukrainian MPs must sit ‘to the end’ – Zelensky ally
Kiev's ruling party is preventing members from quitting despite cancelled elections and the extension of martial law
Many Ukrainian MPs who want to resign are being prevented from doing so as the ruling party believesthat all lawmakers must muster on, its top MP David Arakhamia said in an interview on Monday.
The current, ninth Verkhovna Rada (Ukraine's parliament) waselected in July 2019 in a snap election called by President Vladimir Zelenskyfollowing his inauguration. The Servant of the People party, which had been created so that the former comedian could enter politics, secured an unprecedented majority.Martial law has prevented the renewal of the unicameral national legislature this year, effectively extending its five-year term.
Arakhamia, who has headed the ruling party in the legislature since its creation, discussed the challenges of working under parliamentary rules with a shrinking roster of MPs. Three resignations were confirmed last week, leaving the 450-seat body with just 400 members.A mandate is revoked if a majority of at least 226 sitting MPs votes for it.
“In fact, the number ofpeople who want to leave the parliament is much larger, but we don’t let them out, tell them we won’t vote for it,” Arakhamia explained to the television audience. Current members, he added, “have to sit to the end and adopt legislation that the state needs.”
In the 2019 election, Zelensky’s party won 254 of the 424 seats up for grabs, since Crimea and parts of Donbass were both outside of Kiev’s control and suspended.
The number of seats shrunk again in 2022, when theOpposition Platform – For Life (OPZZh) party, which had the second-largest number of seats in the Rada, was banned by Zelensky's governmentfor allegedly being “pro-Russian.” Some of its MPs switched allegiance, others resigned, and still others were invalidated when thepresident stripped them of their citizenship.
TheServant of the People party lost members too. In August, with the party havinglost 17 MPs and facing a potentially uncertain majority, Arakhamia suggested hemay be forced to seek a coalition.
Some political observers in Ukraine have argued that theruling party’s majority was de facto lost years ago, as MPs listed as its members would oftenvote against the president’s proposed laws.
Public support for the Servant of the People Party plunged in less than two years after its meteoric rise. In the October 2020 municipal elections, the party performed poorly,losing many mayoral offices to candidates from OPZZh and other rivals.
https://www.rt.com/russia/588911-arakhamia-mps-banned-resigning/