What will the local referendum be effective?

Under the name of August 31, the Polissya Fund of International and Regional Studies conducted a round table, which became another step in the implementation of the project “Reform of the Institute of Local Referendum: Participation of Citizens in Governance”, The purpose of which is to develop recommendations on the bill “On the Local Referendum” and their implementation through the mobilization of the efforts of regional experts.

Representatives of public organizations, political parties, authorities, media and candidates for People’s Deputies were invited to participate in the Round Table.

Opening the event, Gennady Maxak, the head of the Polissya Fund, reported that the initiative “Reform of the Institute of Local Referendum: Participation of Citizens in Governance” is implemented in 8 regions under the general coordination of the laboratory of legislative initiatives, which directly cooperates with representatives of the Committee on State Construction and Local Self -Government of the Verkhovna Rada. The project is implemented within the framework of the joint initiative of Pact Inc., the International Renaissance Foundation and the Eastern Europe Foundation.

According to the words Eugene Romanenko, project manager, participants of the coalition to achieve the goal concentrated their efforts in two main directions: promotional and analytical. Thus, as part of the analytical component of the project, focus group research and expert surveys were conducted, which are generalized by the laboratory of legislative initiatives in specific recommendations and widespread, in particular, in the regional information space. The promotional direction included informing local expert circles about an effective tool for direct democracy-a local referendum and a large promotional event-a mini-referendum in Chernihiv. “Today’s event is a continuation of the work on updating the subject of local referendums in the expert environment. At present, we can be pleased to state the fact of expanding the circle of supporters of this tool of direct democracy: representatives of political forces and individual candidates actively articulating issues of referendums at the local level, expressing their willingness to include it in the election programs, ”Yevgeny Romanenko said.

Within the framework of the round table, participants were asked to express their thoughts on the readiness of the territorial communities of the region to use a tool of local referendum, the presence in the region of structures capable of initiating and holding this major event. In addition, experts were asked to outline a number of questions that can be taken to a local referendum.

The main thesis, which was supported during the discussion by virtually all participants of the event – now local communities are only approaching a complete understanding of the nature and content of the referendum tool. However, today there is an opportunity to use the benefits that the future law will give. According to the opinion Stanislav Tavluja, Deputy Chairman of the Board of the Orange Center, enough 5-7% of the active population of the territory to realize the benefits and achieve significant changes. There were also thoughts on the need to continue the information campaign among the general population and create conditions that would make it impossible to manipulative use of the local referendum mechanism by either party. “Local referendum law should become a” fuse “for the authorities when making decisions, and therefore, it is necessary to provide for mandatory implementation of results,” – stressed Pavel Pushchenko, Head of the Initiative. The need to introduce a system of control over compliance with the norms of the future law with the prediction of a clear mechanism of taking into account the resultsRoman Semeshko, Assistant Consultant of the People’s Deputy of Ukraine.

As a result of the Round Table, the participants supported the organizers to attract the recommendation developed in the project of lobbying in the project by signing an appeal to the profile committee of the Verkhovna Rada.

Reference:

The Reform of the Institute of Local Referendum: Citizens’ Participation in Governance is implemented by the Polissya Fund of International and Regional Research as a joint initiative of Pact Inc., the International Renaissance Foundation and the Eastern Europe Foundation.

The implementation of the Local Initiatives Support component for the UNITER, which is implemented by Pact Inc., has become possible due to the sincere support of the US people provided through the USAID Agency (USAID) and the financial support of the International Renaissance Foundation.