Verkhovna Rada

Coordinates: 50 ° 26 ′ 50.7 ″  N , 30 ° 32 ′ 12.9 ″  E

Verkhovna Rada
Верховна Рада
Supreme Council

logo	Verkhovna Rada 2013
Basic data
Seat:	Kiev
Legislative period :	5 years
First session:	July 25, 1938
MPs:	450 (including 28 vacant)
Current legislative period
Last choice:	July 21, 2019
Chair:	Dmytro Razumkov
Distribution of seats:	Government (248) SN 248 Support (44) FdZ 22 Trust 17 Independent 5 Opposition (131) OP 44 IT 27 AVV 24 ST 20 _________________ Independent 16 Vacant 27
Website
rada.gov.ua

Plenary Chamber of the Verkhovna Rada

The Verkhovna Rada ( Ukrainian Верховна Рада "Supreme Council", Russian Верховная Рада , before 1991 also "Supreme Soviet ") is, according to the constitution, the only legislative body ( parliament ) in the unicameral system of Ukraine . Dmytro Rasumkow ( Sluha narodu ) has been President of Parliament since August 29, 2019 . The meeting place of the Verkhovna Rada is the parliament building of the same name in Kiev , completed in 1939 . The Verkhovna Rada, which has existed since 1938, has 450 seats.

tasks

The Verkhovna Rada is the only legislative body and, as such , faces the executive branch embodied by the President and the Cabinet of Ministers . The tasks are mainly based on Articles 85 and 92 of the Constitution. These include:

• the legislation,
• the decision on constitutional amendments,
• Decision of the state budget,
• Decision to hold a referendum,
• Approval of the appointment of the Prime Minister and the other officials appointed by the President, as well as motions of no confidence in them,
• Decision on the framework conditions for domestic and foreign policy of the Cabinet of Ministers and the President,
• Formation of the armed forces of Ukraine,
• Decision on the event of war and declarations of war,
• parliamentary control of the President and the Cabinet of Ministers,
• Dissolution of the Verkhovna Rada of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, if this was determined by the Constitutional Court of Ukraine for unconstitutional behavior,
• the impeachment of the president.

Unlike in parliamentary systems , the Verkhovna Rada itself cannot directly remove the government or the head of state from office; this requires at least one other constitutional body (constitutional court in the case of the president, the president in the case of the prime minister and the prime minister in the case of the other ministers ). In contrast to the purely presidential system , it at least has a right of initiative with regard to these impeachments.

Working method

The functioning of the Verkhovna Rada is based on the Constitution and a law based on it on the Rules of Procedure of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. The tasks and duties of the MPs are governed by the constitution and Ukrainian laws. The MPs of the Verkhovna Rada can voluntarily form political groups. The minimum size of a parliamentary group is 25 members. The formation of the parliamentary groups is independent of the party membership of the mandate holder.

President of Parliament

The Verkhovna Rada is headed by a president ( Ukrainian голова holowa "head, chairman", unofficially спікер spiker "speaker") and represented externally. This, as well as two deputies, are elected from among the MPs by the MPs for the legislative period, but can be replaced at any time by new elections. He prepares the meetings and maintains the house rules.

List of Presidents of Parliament

Presidents of the Verkhovna Rada since independence in 1991 have been:

#	Surname	Name in Cyrillic script	Beginning of the term of office	Term expires	Political party
1	Leonid Kravchuk	Леонід Кравчук	July 23, 1990	5th December 1991	KPU
2	Ivan Plyushch	Іван Плющ	5th December 1991	May 11, 1994	independent
3	Oleksandr Moros	Олександр Мороз	May 18, 1994	July 7, 1998	SPU
4th	Oleksandr Tkachenko	Олександр Ткаченко	July 7, 1998	January 21, 2000	KPU
(2)	Ivan Plyushch	Іван Плющ	February 1, 2000	May 14, 2002	VDP
5	Volodymyr Lytvyn	Володимир Литвин	May 28, 2002	July 6, 2006	FVU
(3)	Oleksandr Moros	Олександр Мороз	July 6, 2006	4th December 2007	SPU
6th	Arseniy Yatsenyuk	Арсеній Яценюк	4th December 2007	November 12, 2008	BJuT
-	Oleksandr Lavrynowytsch (acting)	Олександр Лавринович	November 12, 2008	December 9, 2008	independent
(5)	Volodymyr Lytvyn	Володимир Литвин	December 9, 2008	December 12, 2012	VP ( BL )
7th	Volodymyr Rybak	Володимир Рибак	December 13, 2012	February 22, 2014	PR
8th	Oleksandr Turchynov	Олександр Турчинов	February 22, 2014	November 27, 2014	AVV
9	Volodymyr Hroysman	Володимир Гройсман	November 27, 2014	April 14, 2016	BPP
10	Andriy Parubiy	Андрій Парубій	April 14, 2016	29th August 2019	VF
11	Dmytro Razumkov	Дмитро Разумков	29th August 2019	officiating	Sluha narodu

Leonid Kravchuk “inherited” the office as chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR in August 1991 (declaration of independence) and held this office until the first presidential election in December 1991, which he won.

See also : List of chairmen of the Verkhovna Rada

Meetings

The senior president of the Verkhovna Rada invites you to the constituent meeting after the election of a new Verkhovna Rada. This is deemed to have come about when at least two thirds of its legal members have been elected. Then the president of the Verkhovna Rada is elected, who then takes over the leadership. The Verkhovna Rada meets by constitution on the first Tuesday in February and September of each year for an ordinary session. In between, the President of Parliament calls extraordinary meetings at the request of a third of the members of the Verkhovna Rada or the President of Ukraine, stating the agenda. In principle, parliament meets in public, but can exclude the public with an absolute majority of its members. It sets up committees / commissions for the preparation of resolutions and submissions. However, decisions may only be made by the plenary , with the majority of its legal members and by the MPs personally. The parliament remains in existence until a newly elected one has met for the first session. The early dissolution by the President of Ukraine is only permitted in exceptional cases, but not during the first six months after his election. The President of Ukraine , every MP, the Cabinet of Ministers and the National Bank of Ukraine have the right of initiative for bills .

Riots and brawls

In the parliament of Ukraine there have already been several riots and violent disputes between the representatives of opposing parties, especially during important votes. In December 2003, a vote to amend the Ukrainian constitution had caused tumultuous scenes. On April 27, 2010, during the ratification of the Fleet and Gas Agreement with Russia, clashes broke out again, and in December 2010, after the arrest of politician Yulia Tymoshenko , fights broke out again between MPs. In May 2012 and March 2013, debates about strengthening the role of the Russian language led to fights in parliament. On January 16, 2014, the parliament, against the background of the passing of laws that u. a. restrict freedom of assembly, again to brawls among MPs.

Electoral system

According to the constitution, the members of parliament are elected in free, general, equal, direct and secret elections by the Ukrainian people, i.e. H. all citizens of Ukraine regardless of their nationality , elected for an electoral term of 5 years. Anyone who has reached the age of 18 and has their place of residence in the Ukraine is entitled to vote. Citizens abroad can register as voters through the competent diplomatic mission in the host country. Whoever has been declared incapable of doing business by a court loses the right to vote. Eligible are those who are entitled to vote, who have reached the age of 21 on election day and have lived in the territory of Ukraine for at least 5 years. This does not apply to anyone who has been legally convicted of a criminal offense. The electoral system has been a mixture of proportional and majority voting since 2011 with 225 direct mandates and just as many list candidates. In contrast to Germany's system , however, it is a ditch election system , i.e. In other words, there is no offsetting between list and direct mandates. The direct mandates are determined by majority vote in 225 constituencies throughout the state, while the whole of Ukraine forms one constituency for the list candidates. There is a threshold of 5% for direct mandates and a total of 3% for each block or party in order to get seats at all.

composition

The Ukrainian parliament has been in the IXth since the election on July 21, 2019 . Legislative period and is composed as follows:

Composition after the 2014 election

Party or alliance	Alignment	Party presidency	Group chair	Seats
Servant of the people Слуга народу	social-liberal , populist , pro-European	Dmytro Razumkov		254
Opposition Platform - For Life Опозиційна платформа - За життя	centrist , social democratic , pro-Russian, EU-skeptical	Viktor Medvedchuk Vadym Rabinovych Yuri Boiko Serhiy Lyovochkin		43
All-Ukrainian "Fatherland" Association (AVV) Всеукраїнське об'єднання «Батьківщина»	liberal - conservative , pro-European	Yulia Tymoshenko		26th
European solidarity Європейська Солідарність	liberal- conservative , pro-European	Petro Poroshenko		25th
voice Голос	liberal , e-democracy , pro-European	Julia Klymenko		20th
Others				10
Independent				46
vacant				26th
total				450

history

See also : History of Ukraine  and Euromaidan

The first session of the Verkhovna Rada of the Ukrainian SSR took place in 1938. On August 24, 1991 at 6:00 p.m., three days after the failed August coup in Moscow , parliament declared Ukraine's independence from the Soviet Union .

Under the authoritarian regime of President Leonid Kuchma , Parliament led a rather shadowy existence. This changed with the 2004 presidential elections , as a result of which parliament and the Prime Minister elected by him were granted more powers through a constitutional amendment. Ukraine went from being a presidential to a semi-presidential republic.

The power struggle between western and Russian- oriented forces was now fought in parliament and, after the 2006 elections, between parliamentary majority and president.

After the forced dissolution of parliament by President Viktor Yushchenko , mass protests broke out on April 3, 2007. The western-oriented president had dissolved it and announced early elections for May 27th, as the majority of the parliament of the pro-Russian prime minister Viktor Yanukovych wanted to "seize power and establish its rule forever" . The background to this was the transfer of several members of the opposition to the government camp, which distorted the composition of parliament according to the elections.

The new elections finally took place on September 30, 2007. The course of the elections, like the 2006 one, was closely monitored by the Council of Europe . The further democratic development of the country is the first prerequisite for ending the monitoring process. A milestone is the democratic process of the parliamentary elections.

At the beginning of 2008 there was a parliamentary crisis in the dispute over Ukraine's possible accession to NATO . Opponents of accession (Party of Regions and Communists) occupied the parliamentary presidium in the meeting room and thus prevented the work of parliament for several days. The possibility of new elections was discussed for the first time on February 6th.

After the collapse of the governing coalition and the expiry of the deadline for the formation of a new government, President Viktor Yushchenko declared on October 8th, 2008, that the parliament was to be dissolved again and announced new elections.

During the re-election of Prime Minister Mykola Azarov in the newly elected parliament on December 13, 2012, tumultuous scenes and violent clashes broke out between MPs from the ruling Party of Regions on the one hand and the opposition parties on the other.

In the parliamentary elections on October 28, 2012 , the Party of Regions , whose honorary chairman was President Viktor Yanukovych, won 30.0% of the vote (2007: 34.37%) and received 187 of the 449 seats. The second largest group is the All-Ukrainian Association "Fatherland" under its chairman Yulia Tymoshenko with 25.55% and 103 seats. This is followed by the Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reforms - UDAR of multiple boxing world champion Vitali Klitschko , which has 40 MPs with 13.9% of the vote. Allied with these two democratic and pro-European parties in the current crisis in Ukraine is the right - wing all-Ukrainian association “Svoboda” , which is represented in parliament for the first time with 10.45% and 37 seats after several unsuccessful candidacies. The Communist Party of Ukraine was able to win significantly votes and now achieved 32 seats with 13.18% (2007: 5.39%). With a total of 7 seats, 4 other small parties are represented in parliament, plus 43 independents who are directly elected in the constituencies.

In the wake of the 2014 coup , some members of the Rada resigned from their mandate or changed parliamentary groups, mainly members of the previous ruling party, the “Party of Regions”. Nevertheless, the parliament still had the minimum number of two thirds of its legal members, so that it remained formally quorate. In February 2014, a transitional government was formed with the Yatsenyuk cabinet . In July 2014, the Communist Party faction was dissolved. The parliament had previously passed a law according to which political groups cannot have fewer than 32 MPs. 10 out of 33 members of the. KP had previously left their faction.

After the Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko prematurely dissolved the Verkhovna Rada by decree on August 25, 2014, an early election to parliament took place on October 26, 2014. The election winners were the new, pro-European Popular Front parties and the Petro Poroshenko bloc . They formed a coalition government with the other pro-European parties that were elected to parliament .

On April 14, 2016, the Verkhovna Rada elected its previous parliamentary president Volodymyr Hroysman as the new prime minister with 257 votes and confirmed the resignation of Arseny Yatsenyuk in this office with the same vote .

On May 20, 2019, the newly elected Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi dissolved the Verkhovna Rada, and an early parliamentary election took place on July 21, 2019 . The first session of the newly elected parliament took place on August 29, 2019.

Influence of the oligarchs

Since the country's independence, financially strong economic actors, also known as oligarchs , have played a decisive role in the political system of Ukraine . According to media reports, most of the MPs in the Verkhovna Rada were controlled by them. The Ukrainian journalist Sergei Leschchenko estimated that out of 450 members of parliament, only 50 were independent from the oligarchs. So should z. B. Rinat Akhmetov alone controlled up to 50 MPs.

Web links

Commons : Verkhovna Rada  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Official website of the Verkhovna Rada (Ukrainian, English, Russian)
• List of Members of the Sixth Term (2007) (Ukrainian)
• The building of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine

Individual evidence

1. ↑ (Verkhovna Rada of the USSR )
2. ↑ Alternatively, July 16, 1990 (according to our own retrospective count, first meeting of the Verkhovna Rada of an independent Ukrainian state) or June 28, 1996 (first meeting under the new constitution of Ukraine ) can be named.
3. ↑ w1.c1.rada.gov.ua/pls/site2/p_fractions
4. ↑ Ukraine before a constitutional reform brawl in parliament Country reports by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation , January 2004.
5. ^ The battle in the Verkhovna Rada FAZ of May 5, 2010.
6. ^ Brawl in the Ukrainian Parliament Die Presse from December 16, 2010.
7. ↑ Ukrainian politicians let their fists speak Spiegel Online from May 25, 2012.
8. ↑ When the fists speak Sächsische Zeitung of March 19, 2013.
9. ↑ Members of parliament have a bloody fight , Die Welt, January 16, 2014.
10. ↑ w1.c1.rada.gov.ua
11. ↑ www.focus.de - "Mass protest against dissolution of parliament"
12. ↑ rus.newsru.ua ( Memento of the original from February 7, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
13. ↑ NEWSru.ua : Ющенко оголосив розпуск Верховної Ради ( Memento of the original from October 10, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
14. ^ Tumults in parliament - Azarov re-elected FAZ on December 13, 2012.
15. ↑ cvk.gov.ua ( Memento of the original from October 30, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Central Electoral Commission website, accessed December 16, 2012. 
16. ↑ Plenary Meeting of the Fourth Session of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine of the Seventh Convocation on Saturday, February 22, 2014 Press release on the Verkhovna Rada website, accessed on March 23, 2014.
17. ↑ Doubtful "historical mission" , FAZ from July 29, 2014.
18. ↑ New elections in October - Kiev: Poroshenko dissolves parliament , on n24 of August 25, 2014, accessed on August 25, 2014.
19. ↑ Central Electoral Commission of Ukraine - Extraordinary Elections of the People's Deputies of Ukraine on October 26, 2014 ( Memento of the original of October 28, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed October 28, 2014. 
20. ^ NZZ on the formation of a government
21. ↑ Ukraine: Hrojsman as head of government fix in ORF.at from April 14, 2016; accessed on April 14, 20.
22. ↑ Ukrainian President Zelenskyi dissolves parliament
23. ↑ Start of parliament in Ukraine: New parliament meets for first session on Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk , August 29, 2019; accessed on August 29, 2019.
24. ↑ The Secret Rulers of Ukraine , The Time of February 4, 2014.
25. ^ An oligarch discovers patriotism , Basler Zeitung, April 9, 2014.