Pathways to evolving Ukraine’s parliamentary elections

Pathways to evolving Ukraine’s parliamentary

elections

International Centre for Policy StudiesKyiv, 13 February 2008

Presentation plan

1. How Ukraine’s electoral system evolved over 1990–2007 and the consequences

2. Key directions for further development3. Questions for discussion

How Ukraine’s electoral system evolved over 1990–

2007and the consequences

Milestones

• Elections in 1990 and 1994: simple majority system• Elections in 1998 and 2002: mixed (parallel) system

225 deputies elected on a simple majority (first-past-the-post) basis 225 deputies elected on a proportional (party lists) basis with a 4%

threshold

• Elections in 2006 and 2007: proportional system with nationwide closed party lists (3% threshold)

Міжнародний центр перспективних дослідженьInternational Centre for Policy Studies

Tel. (380-44) 236-4477Web: www.icps.kiev.ua

Political parties grow stronger

• Parties become the main political unit: – Big Business, regional leaders and influential

interest groups engage actively in the process of party-building

– The country’s top leaders now have to take party interests into account

• Party leaders extend their power: they now determine who gets on party lists and, thus, who gets into the Verkhovna Rada



The structuring of the Rada

1998 – 2007:

• The number of parties and blocs represented in the legislature goes from 8 to 5

• The number of Rada factions falls from 14 to 5

• The number of independents drops from 49 to 0



Vote manipulation loses effectiveness



A first-past-the-post (majority) system gives more bang for the manipulative buck:

• In a majority system, all votes that go other than to the frontrunner are effectively wasted. A small amount of manipulation or ballot-stuffing can affect the outcome.

• In a proportional system, minor manipulations have a limited effect because votes are only wasted on parties below the threshold (3%)

Greater fairness and transparency of results



• The majority system: all votes other than for the frontrunner are effectively wasted

• The mixed system in 1998 and 2002 elections: since the winners of the majority and proportional votes were different, who actually won?

• The proportional system in 2006 and 2007 elections: the preferences of 78–89% of voters are reflected in the outcome

New problems emerge



Political parties remain undemocratic in nature:• Opaque financing based on powerful corporate donors• No grassroots membership, “closed clubs” • Decisions are made only by the leadership and not

openly• Ordinary party members have little influence over party

line

• The gap between voters and deputies has grown

What’s wrong with the current system?



• Voters have no input into party lists and, thus, deputies• Parties are opaque about selecting candidates• There is suspicion of political corruption within parties• Regional political leaders are unevenly represented• Deputies in the Rada are not being rotated

• Changes to the electoral system should encourage democratization within the parties themselves

Key directions for further

development

The proportional system should be improved

• The proportional system is more just than the majority system

• The party system is still too weak to return to a majority system

• Dropping the proportional system is unrealistic: the major parties and their leaders won’t go for it



What kinds of changes are needed?

• Mixing the proportional and majority systems, but using the proportional principle in counting votes

• Opening lists• Instituting regional electoral districts



A mixed, linked system

• The voter has two votes: one for the (closed) party list and one for a specific electoral district

• Votes for party lists have the upper hand in counting ballots:– Whether or not a party gains seats in the Rada is

determined according to the proportional votes– The number of seats a party gains in the specific electoral

district is based on the number of seats it gained through the party list vote

– Any surplus is used to add deputies from the regions or from the party lists



A mixed, linked system:issues for Ukraine

• How will Ukrainian voters respond to such a complicated system? How much will they trust it?

• How will such a system improve representation from the regions?

• What level should the threshold be? Will an alternate threshold be needed?

• How successfully can Ukraine institute a linked electoral system involving both party lists and a single electoral district?



Opening up party lists

• Partly open lists: voters can cast a ballot for one or more candidates on a party’s list

• Open lists: voters can rank all the candidates on a party’s list and/or vote for candidates from different parties

• In major countries, the opening of party lists has generally been simultaneous with the introduction of regional electoral districts



The implications of open lists• Party leadership has less opportunity to

manipulate during the formation of party lists• Intra-party competition grows stronger• Accountability before voters becomes greater

• Greater internal democratization weakens parties

• Parties become decentralized and more fragmented

• Open lists complicate the electoral system



Open lists: issues for Ukraine

• What is the risk that open lists will lead to the breakdown and break-up of the main parties? that political accountability will actually go down?

• What will happen to the party system once lists are open?

• How should this model be designed in order to have an immediate effect while avoiding unnecessary complications?



Regional electoral districts

• The country is broken up into several districts, with each one having a certain number of seats

• Regional lists can be open or closed

• The main questions are, how many regional districts there should be and how many seats each of them should have.



The implications of regional electoral districts

• Candidates become more sensitive to regional issues• Open regional lists leads to selecting the “crème de la

crème”

• Having more electoral districts distorts voting results, compared to a single district

• With more districts, the natural threshold becomes higher

• Having more districts means that smaller parties are less likely to pass the threshold

• Parties campaign only in those regions where they are strong



Regional districts based on current territorial divisions

• # of seats per electoral district: from 4 (Sevastopol) to 44 (Donetsk Oblast)

• Natural threshold: from 2.28% (Donetsk Oblast) to 26.75% (Sevastopol)

• In 2007, this would have meant that PR and BYT would likely have had more seats, NU–NS about the same, while CPU and VLB would have had fewer



Regional electoral districts: issues for

Ukraine How likely is the institution of regional lists to lead to even greater regionalization among Ukraine’s parties?

With such a system in place, how can parties be motivated to expand to all of the country’s regions?

If this system is instituted, how can the threat of having regional interests dominate the Verkhovna Rada instead of party interests be mitigated?

How likely is a change in this direction, given that the smaller parties currently in the Rada and parties that currently represent small districts are likely to oppose it?Міжнародний центр перспективних досліджень

International Centre for Policy StudiesTel. (380-44) 236-4477Web: www.icps.kiev.ua

Questions for discussion

• How should Ukraine’s next electoral system look? Regional lists? Open lists? Mixed and linked?

• How possible is it to institute regional electoral districts based on the current territorial divisions?

• How to prevent parties from weakening with the institution of open lists?

• What is the proper balance between complication and fairness in the new system?

• Previous evolutionary changes in Ukraine’s electoral legislation tended to happen during political crises. How can such an approach be avoided in the future?



Pathways to evolving Ukraine’s parliamentary elections

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