Vast majority of Ukrainians don’t trust parliamentarians

According to a public survey carried out by the Laboratory of Legislative Initiatives, only 2.6% of Ukrainians fully trust the Verkhovna Rada, while 58.2% of the respondents expressed total lack of trust in their parliament.  This competed only with the percentage of those who did not trust the President [at the time of the survey Viktor Yushchenko] which stood at 59.4%.  

The main group of people not trusting the Verkhovna Rada were those aged from 25 to 39, while geographically the greatest number of people distrust parliament in the East of the country (92.6%) and in Kyiv (91.1%). The highest level of trust was towards local councils, but highest should be understood in relative terms since only  5.5% fully trust them, while 37.9% don’t trust them at all.

The reasons give included Deputies corruption; the inability of the Verkhovna Rada to take decisions aimed at developing the country; as well as the dependence of National Deputies on big business.

Asked which bodies work most openly and transparently, almost 70% said that no authorities work like this.

Only 17.5% of all Ukrainians surveyed know deputies who maintain links with the voters of their villages, cities, etc, while 51.2% had not heard of such deputies, while 31.3% are convinced that there are no such deputies.

The survey was a joint project of the Laboratory of Legislative Initiatives and the Westminster Democracy Foundation entitled “Increasing the efficiency of Ukrainian parliamentarianism.

The majority (56,2%) thought that the imperative mandate should be retained, and only some of the experts questioned (42%) supported the total removal of deputy immunity.

A majority (56%) supported the introduction of a proportional electoral system with open candidate lists and for the retention of a single-tier parliament (62 of the experts questioned).

Abridged from the original at http://parlament.org.ua/index.php?action=news&ar_id=1978&as=0