400 NGOs Signed the Statement on the Impossibility of Holding Democratic Elections  without the Sustainable Peace — OPORA (updated)

This document is intended to draw the attention of our partners and stakeholders to the primary tasks and priority steps for the preparation of postwar elections. Civil Network OPORA has prepared its own expert vision of electoral process, which takes into account the results of previous professional discussions with official parties (Verkhovna Rada, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Central Election Commission). OPORA calls on the Parliament to hold substantive discussions in order to find systemic solutions, given the need to lay a critical amount of groundwork for the organization of postwar elections before the repeal of martial law. The success of preparation of legislative framework, prevention of Russian interference in the postwar elections, and integration into the European Union directly depend on a depoliticized high-quality discussion.

Russia is interfering with elections in democracies all over the world, resorting to any means, from cyberattacks to direct voter bribery, from sharing disinformation and disrupting society to discrediting candidates who are “unacceptable” for the Russian government. Contrariwise, they support politicians or parties ready to cooperate with the Putin's regime.

Ukraine is updating the electoral law in line with European standards and to account for new challenges. According to Olha Kotsiuruba, a senior legal advisor at the Civil Network OPORA, Ukrainian law needs improvement to align with the EU standards, specifically on campaigning out of the country and on the Internet, and also considering the spread of artificial intelligence and new EU regulations. She shared this during the round table “Campaigning Online and Out-of-Country” on November 26 in Kyiv.

Russian military aggression against Ukraine, which has been ongoing since 2014, has led to an increase in the number of people with disabilities among both civilians and the military. According to the Ministry of Social Policy of Ukraine, the number of persons with disabilities increased by 300,000 over the two years of full-scale war and amounted to more than 3 million in June 2024. It should be understood that this number will only grow over time. As a result, Ukraine faces new challenges that have emerged in the area of political participation of the disabled. To identify these problems and find ways of solving them, Civil Network OPORA conducted more than 20 in-depth interviews with leading experts in the field of elections and inclusiveness, and commissioned a sociological survey which was carried out by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology. 

On Tuesday, November 5, the 8th Ukrainian Women’s Congress took place in Kyiv. It is the annual public platform for gender policy-making. This year, the Congress took place under the slogan “Women’s Potential: New Roles, New Quality.” The discussion “Politics Without Women is a Threat to Democracy” included the Chair of the Board of the Civil Network OPORA, Olga Aivazovska. She believes that Ukraine’s key challenge is to clearly establish where we are and where we aspire to be as a state.

Elections are impossible under martial law. However, this is the time to work on cases from previous campaigns. 

The full-scale invasion presented new challenges for women's political participation and gender-balanced representation. OPORA tried to explore these aspects in this study. In particular, we conducted more than 20 in-depth interviews with leading experts in elections and gender issues. 

The Electoral Code adopted in 2019 guarantees the accessibility of the election process for people with disabilities and low-mobility citizens. However, polling stations in Ukraine still remain non-inclusive, while the number of people with disabilities is growing due to Russian aggression against Ukraine, with infrastructure being destroyed.