265 votes ‘for’. Three people dead. This is how most of us will remember Ukraine’s current constitutional reform, which passed its first reading last Monday. For the second reading, however, President Petro Poroshenko will need 300 votes—and thousands of police officers.
Widely billed as a change to Ukraine’s system of local self-government and one motivated by the Minsk II agreements, Ukraine’s new constitution has other important provisions. This reform is designed to correct the shortcomings of the constitution, so apparent after Maidan. A closer look reveals the potential for increased political and socio-economic tension within the country.
Special status
For many people, the first question they ask about the constitutional reform is: does the amended constitution give special status to separatist territories in the east? A direct answer is hard to come by, but the language of Point 18 (‘complexities of local self-government in certain districts of Donetsk and Luhansk regions’) of the draft constitution hints at the granting of autonomous status to the Donbas.
