mseap

NEWS

Board View
SUBJECT [May 21] PA CSTO, Indonesia elections, Ukrainian president dissolves parliament
DATE 2019-05-21
DOWNLOAD

 

PHOTO: State Duma. Meeting of the Council of the CSTO Parliamentary Assembly.

 

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (PA CSTO), organization responsible for inter-parliamentary interaction of the Inter-Parliamentary Assembly of Commonwealth of Independent States (IPA CIS) members who are also members of the CSTO, held its Council meeting in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan from May 19-20.

 

Speakers of Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Tajikistan participated in the parliamentary assembly, as well as Afghanistan and Serbia who have participated in the observer capacity.

 

The session focused on the harmonization of the national laws of CSTO member states, especially on focusing on effective legislation to address issues of combating terrorism.

 

Chairman of the Russian State Duma Viacheslav Volodin, who is also the chair of PA CSTO, said that “for us, the most important thing is to have a dialogue, because only on the basis of a dialogue, when we discuss issues with each other, trust is born. When there is trust between politicians, there is trust between states.” He congratulated Armenian Speaker Ararat Mirzoyan on his election as Speaker after the 2018 elections and for his first participation in the meeting of the PA CSTO.

 

The CSTO member states said that they will hold six joint military exercises this year: three in Russia, two in Tajikistan, and one in Kyrgyzstan, said acting CSTO Secretary General Valery Semerikov.

 

The 12th plenary meeting of PA CSTO will be held in Yerevan, Armenia sometime between this October and November. Speaker of Armenia Ararat Mirzoyan also accepted the invitation of the Russian side to participate in the International Forum “Development of Parliamentarism” in June in Moscow; moreover, Speaker Mirzoyan voiced a proposal to hold the next Meeting of Speakers of Eurasian Countries’ Parliaments (MSEAP) in Armenia in 2020.

 

 

http://council.gov.ru/en/activity/crosswork/dep/71/

http://vestnikkavkaza.net/news/CSTO-countries-to-hold-military-drills-in-Russia-Kyrgyzstan-and-Tajikistan.html

http://duma.gov.ru/en/news/44980/

http://duma.gov.ru/en/news/44986/

 

 

 

 

 

 

PHOTO: Willy Kurniawan/Reuters. Incumbent Joko Widodo has beaten opposition candidate General Prabowo Subianto in the presidential election.

 

Indonesia’s General Election Commission (KPU) officially announced on Tuesday that Incumbent President Joko Widodo has won last month’s Indonesian election with 55.5% of votes against 44.5% for his challenger, retired General Prabowo Subianto. Widodo won more than 85 million of the total 154 million votes cast on April 17.

 

An election supervisory agency earlier on Monday dismissed claims of systematic cheating because of a lack of evidence and independent observers and analysts have said the poll was free and fair. But a witness for Prabowo’s campaign team and the leading opposition party refused to sign and validate the official results, which were announced more than a day earlier than expected after the KPU worked into the early hours of Tuesday to finish the vote count.

 

“We won’t give up in the face of this injustice, cheating, lies, and these actions against democracy,” said Azis Subekti, a witness from Prabowo’s campaign team. It was not immediately clear if Prabowo would mount a legal challenge to the official result.

 

Authorities have tightened security in anticipation of potential civil unrest and have detained dozens of militant Islamists suspected of planning attacks to create mayhem during demonstrations. Police rolled out barbed wire and readied armored trucks and water cannons around the KPU. They have also prevented people from across Indonesia travelling to Jakarta en masse to join protests.

 

The losing party can lodge a legal challenge at the constitutional court. Otherwise, the commission will officially declare the winner by 28 May. Prabowo has not yet confirmed if he intends to go to court. Prabowo challenged the result after losing to Widodo at the last election in 2014, but his challenge was rejected.

 

 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/may/21/indonesia-election-official-count-hands-victory-to-joko-widodo-as-rival-cries-foul?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_%2B_Pocket%EC%97%90_%EC%B6%94%EA%B0%80

 

 

 

 

 

PHOTO: UNIAN. Inauguration of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

 

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy was sworn in as the country’s new president on May 20, 2019. He ditched the idea of a traditional motorcade to his inauguration, walking to the parliament through a park packed with people. He was seen giving high-fives to some spectators and even stopped to take a selfie with one of them.

 

Addressing the parliament, Zelenskiy asked the MPs to adopt a bill against lawmakers’ immunity from prosecution and support his motions to fire the country’s defense minister, the head of the Ukrainian Security Service and the Prosecutor General. He also referred to his career as a comedian: “Throughout all of my life, I tried to do everything to make Ukrainians laugh,” he said with a smile. “In the next five years I will do everything so that Ukrainians don’t cry.” The parliament did not get to respond to the President’s requests as Parliament Speaker Andriy Parubiy closed off the parliament meeting after Zelenskiy was done with this address, but Defense Ministry Stepan Poltorak promptly published his letter of resignation on Facebook.

 

The first thing he did in office was to disband the Verkhovna Rada through a presidential decree, and set up a snap election in two months.

 

Political party People’s Front has pulled out of the parliamentary coalition with Petro Poroshenko’s Bloc, People’s Front faction on May 17. According to the constitution, the parliament has 30 days to form a new coalition.

 

“The old coalition completed its task,” said Burbak. “According to the Constitution, a new coalition will be formed in the parliament. That’s why the parliament will work until the next election on Oct. 27. The government and prime minister continue working until the new convocation of lawmakers is elected.”

 

The collapse of the ruling coalition has been widely viewed as a move to prevent the incoming president Volodymyr Zelenskiy from dissolving the parliament and calling for an early parliamentary vote, as he intended to do. Zelenskiy’s team defended their stance by saying that this coalition effectively didn’t exist as its legitimacy has always been doubted.

 

According to the constitution, the president may disperse the parliament if it doesn’t form a coalition in 30 days. However, he cannot dissolve the parliament within the last six months of the parliament’s service. Some lawmakers and media outlets have claimed the deadline for dissolutions as May 27, using a reference point of November 27, 2014 (when the current parliament took on its duties).

 

In reality, it is hard to define the legal deadline because the parliament’s service only ends when the new convocation of MPs holds its first session, with no way to predict when exactly that will happen. The law allows a total of 50 days to pass from Election Day until the first session of newly-elected MPs. It means the new parliament may take in its duties as late as December, giving the president time to dissolve the parliament until June 16.

 

But since June 16 is also the last day for the parliament to form a coalition, analysts suggest that the decision of People’s Front to leave the coalition on May 17 ensured that there were almost no chances for the President to call for an early election.

 

President Zelenskiy’s team appears to think that they can still dissolve the parliament that the coalition did not exist in the first place. The legitimacy of the coalition of People’s Front and Petro Poroshenko’s Bloc has been questioned ever since it was formed in spring 2016.

 

http://time.com/5591944/ukraine-volodymyr-zelenskiy-disband-parliament/

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ukraine-new-president-volodymyr-zelenskiy-sworn-in-disbands-parliament-today-2019-05-20/

https://www.rferl.org/a/29951792.html

 

 

BY MSEAP Cyber Secretariat (mseap@assembly.go.kr)