Odesa City Council Attendance Report: 23 Deputies Perfect, 12 Absent

During the fourth year of the Odesa City Council of the VIII convocation, which lasted from November 2023 to November 2024, twenty-three deputies attended 100% of the meetings, while twelve did not attend any. This is evidenced by the results of the annual monitoring of attendance at sessions conducted by experts of the all-Ukrainian public campaign"Certification of Local Council Deputies." The study covered the activities of 57 current deputies of Odesa City Council.

Changes in the deputy composition

During the fourth year of the deputies' term of office, there were many changes in the council. Eight councillors resigned or lost their mandates. Instead, three new politicians joined the VIII convocation of the Odesa City Council.

At the end of 2023, two deputies resigned their seats - Olena Korobkova from the Servant of the People faction and Vadym Tereshchuk from European Solidarity.

At the session on February 21, 2024, the parliamentary corps nevertheless supported the resignation of MP Oleksandra Kovalchuk from the Servant of the People. The announcement of her resignation appeared on her Facebook page on November 30. However, for two consecutive sessions, the decision did not receive the required number of votes. Some MPs opposed and did not support the vote.

In addition to the decision to terminate the powers of Oleksandra Kovalchuk, three more deputies resigned from the parliamentary membership at the session on February 21: Volodymyr Ivanov, Ilya Freiman and Dina Yatsenko.

Volodymyr Ivanov and Ilya Freiman were elected to the city council from the Shariy Party, which is now banned. Dina Yatsenko was a representative of the Opposition Platform - For Life party, whose faction broke up in the council also due to the ban on the activities of this political force in Ukraine after the full-scale Russian invasion.

During the next session, on April 24, 2024, the deputy from the former OPFL, Viktor Baransky, was deprived of his powers due to the loss of Ukrainian citizenship.

Instead, two new deputies joined the council - Maryna Boyko from the European Solidarity party instead of Vadym Tereshchuk and Andrii Sharashidze from the Servant of the People party instead of Olena Korobkova.

Maryna Boyko and Andriy Sharashidze. Collage: Intent

At the session of June 26, 2024, it became known that Olena Zefner, a deputy from the Shariy Party, was resigning her mandate.

During the same meeting, a new deputy from the Servant of the People party, Oleksandr Slavskyi, was introduced, replacing Oleksandra Kovalchuk.

Oleksandr Slavskyi (center). Photo: Intent/Natalia Dovbysh

Thus, the current composition of the Odesa City Council includes 57 deputies out of 64 elected at the beginning of the VIII convocation in 2020.

Session attendance

During the period from November 1, 2023 to November 1, 2024, eleven plenary sessions of Odesa City Council were held

Factions

Three factions actually continue their work within the council: "Trust the Deeds", "EU", "Servant of the People" and non-factional deputies, which include deputies from the former factions of "OPFL" and the Shariy Party.

Representatives of the European Solidarity faction are the most stable and regular attendees of all meetings of Odesa city council sessions. The average percentage of their attendance is 93%.

The second most regular in terms of attendance is the "Trust the Deeds" faction, with an average of 78%.

Next is the Servant of the People faction. The MPs attended an average of 70% of the sessions during their fourth year in office.

Non-factional MPs have the lowest attendance rate at 65%.

Infographic: "Attendance of local council deputies"

Personal attendance

During the fourth year of the Odesa City Council's mandate, twenty-three deputies attended 100% of the meetings, while twelve did not attend any.

They attended all meetings during the year: Oleksandr Avdeev, Oleksiy Asaulenko, Maryna Boyko, Andriy Vagapov, Olena Vododyuk, Oleh Etnarovych, Oleksiy Yeremytsia, Oleh Zvyagin, Andriy Kislovskyi, Ihor Koval, Volodymyr Korniienko, Iryna Kutsenko, Olha Makohoniuk , Zhanna Mandrychenko, Levon Nikoghosyan, Petro Obukhov, Svitlana Osaulenko, Tetiana Plaksiy, Svitlana Popova, Oleksiy Potapskyi, Roman Senyk, Andriy Sharashidze, and Serhiy Shmatko.

Eight MPs missed only one plenary session and have 91% attendance: Oksana Antonishak, Oleksandr Baiderin, Anastasia Bolshedvorova, Iryna Holovatyuk-Yuzephpolska, Vasyl Ieremiya, Maryna Lozenko, Daria Rybak, and Eduard Stas.

Between 55% and 82% of the meetings were attended by 14 councillors: Liudmyla Varava, Natalia Zhukova, Oleksandr Ivanitskyi, Mykhailo Karpenchuk, Olha Kvasnytska, Liliia Leonidova, Vadym Morokhovskyi, Viktor Naumchak, Serhii Strashnyi, Dmytro Tantsiura, Andrii Ternovskyi, Serhii Uzunov, Oleh Filimonov, and Oleksandr Sheremet.

Oleksandr Slavskyi attended 75% of the council's meetings. According to statistics, he has attended three out of four meetings since becoming a deputy.

Five other deputies attended less than half of the sessions. Ihor Batrakov and Oleksandr Edelman attended five meetings each, Oleksandr Matveev attended four sessions, Serhiy Danyliuk and Yuriy Shumacher attended only three meetings of the Odesa City Council.

Oleksandr Matveev has not attended any sessions since April 2024. This is probably due to his being put on the international wanted list on suspicion of involvement in illegal real estate transactions in the center of Odesa, which, according to the investigation, were carried out under his leadership.

Oleh Bryndak did not attend a single meeting during his fourth year in office. It is worth mentioning that in October 2023, the MP mobilized into the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Since February 24, 2022, four deputies who have a mandate have not appeared in the council: Nikita Avdeev, Bohdan Hihanov, Vitaliy Sautenkov (OPFL), and Ivan Semchuk (Shariy's Party).

It is worth noting that according to the Law of Ukraine "On the Status of Deputies of Local Councils", namely Article 37(2), a local council member's absence from more than half of the council's plenary sessions during a year is grounds for recalling the elected official on people's initiative.

Citizens of Ukraine who are voters of the respective electoral district have the right to submit a proposal to recall a local council deputy on people's initiative (not earlier than one year after acquiring such powers):

• village council - in the amount of at least 30 persons;
• city council of a city of district significance and district council in a city - in the number of at least 100 persons;
• district council - in the number of at least 150 persons;
• city council of a city of oblast significance and district council in the city - 300 persons;
• regional council - in the amount of at least 400 people.
• Based on the results of the verification of the collected voter signatures, the territorial election commission decides to recall the deputy on the people's initiative (if the deputy was elected by self-nomination) or to appeal to the political party from whose local organization the respective deputy was elected to recall the local council deputy on the people's initiative.

The annual monitoring of session attendance was based on the study of minutes and video broadcasts of city council meetings, personal voting results of deputies published on the official city website or the deputy portal.

Вікторія Собко