The effective Law of Ukraine on Elections of the President of Ukraine needs urgent technical amendment, in order to avoid abuses during the electoral process and secure its transparency, as well as efficient functioning of election commissions, and equal opportunities for the candidates. Today, the major goal is making technical amendments to the Law of Ukraine on Election of the President of Ukraine and securing efficient work of the CEC. Such concerns were aired by representatives of the OPORA, CVU, and Media Law Institute during press-conference on February 24.
"The Parliament still has a few days to amend the Law on Elections of the President of Ukraine. If these elections will be unduly organized with violation of democratic norms and standards during the process, the crisis will deepen and new confrontations will emerge. The elections should be conducted in such a way, so that neither the East nor the West would doubt their legitimacy, and approve the new President, no matter which surname was in protocol on election results, passed by the CEC. Qualitative law and transparent activities of commissions at all levels, proper and wide civic watch, political will of government bodies regarding exclusion of the administrative resource abuses, and efficiently functioning law-enforcement system called to prevent voter bribery, are major challenges of the election campaign. Concurrently with the elections, reformation of electoral legislation should be planned and started, and the Election Code should be elaborated." – stated Parliamentary and Electoral Programs Coordinator of the Civil Network OPORA Olha Aivazovska.
Taking into consideration that draft amendments to the Law of Ukraine on Election of the President of Ukraine have already been registered (bill #739-VII, drafted by R. Kniazevych), which provides a number of innovations, it can be taken as a basis with the following changes in the technical wording of the transient law. These innovative changes included: establishing the minimal membership of district and precinct election commission (more than 12 persons), interim reporting of electoral fund managers of presidential candidates, and administrative responsibility for election campaigning, organized by state authorities and local self-government etc.
The Parliament should immediately form the CEC in new membership, or prolong authority of the effective commission to the end of the electoral process.
"Taking into consideration the experience of previous election campaigns, the society doesn't have enough trust to the certain members of the CEC, and the whole Commission itself. However, formation of a new commission when the elections should be organized already, may seriously damage the quality of the election process. Thus, to compromise, we propose to prolong authority of the effective commission till electoral process ends, and secure comprehensive civic watch over activities of the CEC. The formation of an independent professional and political commission membership may be continued after the elections." - thinks Oleksandr Chernenko, Head of the Board of the Committee of Voters of Ukraine.
As for election campaigning, Director of the Media Law Institute Taras Shevchenko has made his propositions: "We are convinced that the Law on Election of the President should be considerably improved, especially provisions regarding election campaigning and activities of the media. First of all, the amendments should concern the division of campaigning and media coverage regulations, specify the term "election campaigning" and define requirement for TV debates. In order to decrease electoral expenses and efficiently use State Budget costs in such a difficult time, we propose that state media should provide air time free of charge, as long as they are maintained at the cost of taxpayers."
Civil Network OPORA, Committee of Voters of Ukraine, Internews-Ukraine, Media Law Institute, and a number of other NGOs will control and assist to a valuable reform of the electoral legislation, in order to prevent the adoption of politically expedient laws.