Ukrainian members of Parliament have approved presidential laws granting special status to Donbas and amnestying members of separatists armed groups in Eastern Ukraine.
First of all the initiators of the laws couldn’t gain enough votes to hold a meeting behind closed doors. With the necessary 226 votes (50% + 1 vote) they gained 221 votes.
However, for the closed meetings they could gain votes on the second time (265 votes in the 450).
The decision about the special status of the Donetsk and Luhansk Regions, as well as the law for an amnesty to militants were adopted in a mode of secret ballot. This means that we would never know the names of those deputies (People’s Deputies of Ukraine) who voted for it. All that was known was the number of them.
The fact of the secret ballot was a violation of parliamentary procedure, as already said the member of Parliament from “Batkivshchyna” deputy Andriy Shevchenko.
(Translation: In the secret mode Poroshenko and Turchynov adopted laws on the special status (277) and amnesty (287))
(Translation: Both laws legalizing the DNR and LNR were adopted with breaches of the procedure. Secret ballot was illegal)
Nevertheless, the number of those who supported the law practically coincides with the number of those who voted for the secret ballot, so it can be suggested: these are the same persons.
Some deputies from parliamentary parties “Svoboda” and “Batkivshchyna” raised in the air their voting cards to show that they didn’t take part in voting. They also tried to make video on mobile phones because journalists were forbidden to be in Parliament.
In addition, these laws provide the special status for only some areas of Donetsk and Luhansk Regions. However, there is no the exact list of the areas in documents. This fact gives the people reasons to suspect that Poroshenko is going to give terrorists a number of released areas in Donbas, and the leader of “Svoboda” Oleh Tyahnybok openly blamed the government in capitulation to Russia.
Also, many people paid attention to the symbolism of numbers: “dictatorial laws” Yanukovych approved on the 16th of January, Russian pseudo-referendum in Crimea was held on the 16th of March, the legalization of terrorist enclave was held today, on the 16th of September. However dictatorial laws ended with the bloody slaughter of people on Maidan square and “Heavenly Hundred”, the referendum in the Crimea caused the Russian army invasion. It is hoped that the attempt to legalize the Russian enclave will not end with the civil war in Kyiv.
