Parliament speaker proposes reducing members to 300, citing demographics
Ukraine may reduce its parliament from 450 to 300 members due to a shrinking population, Verkhovna Rada Speaker Ruslan Stefanchuk said in an interview with news agency Ukrinform on April 11, reviving a 2019 proposal from President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stalled by judicial pushback.
Zelenskyy submitted to the Rada proposals for constitutional amendments that would reduce the number of MPs to 300 on Aug. 29, 2019.
According to Stefanchuk, the previous composition of the Constitutional Court gave a negative opinion on this bill, which effectively blocked its consideration in the Rada.
At the same time, Stefanchuk is confident that this issue will definitely be raised in Ukrainian society.
The parliamentary speacker noted that the reduction in the number of lawmakers may occur due to a decrease in the number of Ukrainians to be represented in the legislature.
“When we had 52 million people, it was one thing, but today, with far fewer, the issue of representation in society needs revisiting,” Stefanchuk said.
“I think that the figure of 300 is the one we can talk about, and it should become a benchmark for further processes.”
On Oct. 2, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine approved the strategy of demographic development of Ukraine until 2040. The reasons for the adopted strategy include the war, low birth rate, migration, high premature mortality, labor market imbalance, etc.
The document also states that as of the date of the All-Ukrainian population census on Dec. 5, 2001, the population of Ukraine was 48.5 million people, and as of July 2024, the country's population was estimated at 35.8 million people, of which 31.1 million people lived in the government-controlled territories.
Florence Bauer, head of the UNFPA Regional Director Eastern Europe and Central Asia, said that since the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion, Ukraine's population has decreased by 10 million people, or about a quarter.
According to a report by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) on mortality and fertility rates in the world, Ukraine has the highest mortality rate and the lowest fertility rate.
In December 2024, Ukrainian Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets stated that Ukraine's population could drop to 25.2 million by 2051.
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