Parliament amends its regulations to ensure that MPs vote individually

The Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine's parliament, has amended its regulations in order to ensure that all MPs vote individually.

A total of 339 of the 350 MPs registered in the session hall supported the amendments on Friday. In particular, 156 members of the Regions Party faction voted for the document, 78 MPs from the Batkivschyna faction, 34 from the UDAR faction, 33 from the Svoboda faction, 22 from the Communist Party faction, and 16 independent MPs. According to the document, if an MP violates the law on individual voting at a plenary sitting by voting instead of other MPs, the consideration of the issue on the agenda will be stopped. The parliamentary chairman has to check whether all of the MPs whose voting cards were used to vote for decisions attended the sitting. The voting cards of the MPs that are absent from the sitting should be removed and given to the chairman. Following the abovementioned procedure, a repeated voting on the suspended issue will be held. The opposition parliamentary factions have been blocking the parliament's work since February 5, demanding that individual voting be introduced. The parliament's work was unblocked on Friday, February 22.