Borys Kolesnikov, a co-chairman of the Opposition Bloc party and prime minister of the opposition government, has criticized the initiative to create anti-corruption courts in Ukraine and reform the electoral system, while proposing a reduction in the number of lawmakers to 150.

"Structuring the courts by types of crimes, including corruption, is a Ukrainian know-how, which does not exist anywhere in the world. Is murder or rape a less serious crime than corruption? Of course, it's not. Therefore, the creation of a separate, vertically integrated company 'on combating corruption' is not the case when it's necessary to apply such integration," he wrote in his blog on the website of the Segodnya newspaper on Tuesday, October 17.

"And what will be the actions of all economic departments of such agencies as SBU, PGO and the Interior Ministry, and most importantly 'non-corrupt' courts themselves?" he added.

While commenting on parliamentary immunity, he noted: "Nothing prevents anyone from collecting votes and cancelling the immunity of all branches of power: deputies of the Verkhovna Rada, judges and the president of Ukraine."

"There are enough votes in the session hall for such an integrated decision," Kolesnikov said.

Regarding the election system, the politician said that in Ukraine, as a "country that ranks first in Europe in terms of corruption and last in terms of living standards, there can be no majority elections."

"The authorities will buy up all the districts, and, ultimately, we will get the same parliament, and maybe worse," he said.

"If we returned to the constitutional changes of 2004, then let's be consistent. We can have an exceptionally proportional system when the parties are responsible before the voters, but not the 'camouflage' that we observed in the local elections in 2015, when the belonging of deputies to the districts turned into a latent majority system... The Central Election Commission, for the money of political parties, participants in the process, publishes a full list of candidates approved by the congress of a party and sends to all voters, with the full biography of candidates for MP. These are open lists for voters," Kolesnikov said.

In the light of proposals that the salaries of MPs should be raised and their immunity cancelled from 2020, Kolesnikov proposed reducing the number of parliamentarians.

"We should reduce the number of MPs by three times, to 150 people, and triple their salaries. This is real restructuring," he said.