News Analysis: Ukraine's proposed constitutional changes on decentralization raise controversy

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has submitted a draft law to parliament with proposed constitutional changes on decentralization with an aim to ease the country's ongoing crisis.

However, local experts said the draft law is far from perfect, and it will not make any positive contribution to the country's stability if it is adopted in its current form.

TOKENISTIC ADMINISTRATIVE REFORM

Decentralization reform, which envisages granting special status to certain areas in eastern Ukraine, has been one of the key demands voiced by independence-seeking insurgents in the country's eastern Donetsk and Lugansk regions, known locally as Donbas.

The constitutional amendments on decentralization were also one of the major promises the Ukrainian authorities have made to the people after coming to power last year.

But local experts said the amendments offered no major changes to the country's administrative system.

"The proposed amendments to the Constitution do not meet the stated goal of decentralization. Instead, they may lead to 'centralization' through the strengthening of presidential power," said Ruslan Bortnik, a political analyst at the Ukrainian Institute of Political Management.

The bill does envisage transferring additional powers to regional heads, but the snag is that all actions of the local governments will be supervised by a person directly subordinated to Kiev, analysts said.

Under the draft decentralization law, Ukraine's president will have a representative in each region, called a "prefect," to "coordinate the actions of local authorities."

The prefect, who is appointed and dismissed by the president, will have the right to block any decisions of the regional authorities.

Some local analysts said the introduction of the position of prefect made the idea of administrative decentralization meaningless, as the reform leaves most of the power in Ukraine concentrated in Kiev.

DECENTRALIZATION OR COLLECTIVIZATION?

The economic aspect of the decentralization bill, which stipulates the merging of the 488 Ukrainian districts into fewer larger communities, is also one of the most controversial points of the constitutional amendments.

The Ukrainian authorities assured that the consolidation of districts will make it easier to collect taxes, keep more taxes in the regions and reduce administrative budgetary spending.

However, local analysts feared the amalgamation would mean a weakening of influence of small districts and lead to the strengthening of power of the bigger and wealthier regions.

"What we are seeing today can hardly be called decentralization. It is rather the Soviet-style collectivization. If we say that we should transfer maximum powers to the local authorities, the question arises: Why are we on the path of consolidation?" said independent political analyst Sergey Bykov.

For the so-called "rich" districts, the yearly revenue of which exceeds 110 percent of the average in Ukraine, the new decentralization bill also seems to be a cause for complaint rather than celebration, as it provides for sending a significant chunk of locally collected money to Kiev.

DECENTRALIZATION WITHOUT SPECIAL STATUS

An even more disputable aspect of the draft amendments to the Constitution is that they do not provide for any special status for Donbas.

Some local experts said that if the parliament approves the controversial constitutional amendments, the peaceful process in Donbas might be jeopardized.

"The special status issue may become a stumbling block on the way to resolve the situation," said Vadim Karasev, director of the Institute of Global Strategies.

But some believed that abandoning the special constitutional status of Donbas does not mean the region will not get a special regime of self-rule in the near future.

Alexander Lukyanchenko, a Kiev-appointed mayor of Donetsk city, which is now under control of pro-independence rebels, believed that the step to not include the special status in the Constitution was justified as the Constitution includes regulations which will be in place permanently, but the law on the special status is not yet perfect and requires further revision.

"The law should give a clear indication (about) what the special status term means and where the law is applicable. The text of the law should be itemized and discussed at the highest level before being enshrined in the Constitution," Lukyanchenko said. Endi