Current presidential election campaign is conducted in the most difficult conditions for the whole history of independent Ukraine. The constant external threat, instable situation in eastern oblasts, and impossibility to organize the election process in Crimea – are only a part of challenges, faced by this year's electoral process. Despite such complicated conditions, the Central Election Commission has managed to approve the membership of district election commissions in time. Most of them have started their activities this week, and some candidates have launched their active election campaigns. However, we still need to minimize possible development of scenarios aimed to disrupt the voting process on May 25.
The external threat has already become a destabilizing factor for the preparation and conduct of the election campaign in Ukraine. Due to the fact that the Autonomous Republic of Crimea is occupied by the Russian Federation, the conduct of presidential elections on this administrative-territorial unit of Ukraine is impossible. Moreover, the CEC has taken the corresponding decision on impossibility to create DECs on occupied territories (the ARC and Sevastopol), because neither candidates for the President of Ukraine, nor the Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of AR Crimea, nor the Head of Sevastopol City Council have submitted the candidacies for DECs in districts #1-10, 224, and 225.
Olha Aivazovska, Electoral Programs Coordinator of the Civil Network OPORA, is convinced that securing the safe functioning of election commissions now and during the election day would be another challenge, because the seizure of administrative buildings in the certain cities and villages may paralyze the some election commissions. "Disruption of the election process in the certain regions – is a serious challenge. However, we don't see that the government has any plans to minimize this threat," - Olha Aivazovska emphasized.
Since April, some candidates have already started actively campaigning, visiting the voters in regions, and forming local election headquarters. Most of them have their representatives in all 213 district election commissions, or almost in all (210 or 212). However, five presidential candidates have delegated their representatives in DECs only to some regions and districts. For example, Oleh Tsariov hasn't submitted any representatives for DECs in western Ukrainian oblasts (Volyn, Lviv, Zakarpattia, Ivano-Frankivsk, Ternopil, and Khmelnytsk). Mykhalo Dobkin, for his part, doesn't have any representatives in DECs located in Kyiv, Lviv, and Rivne oblasts. However, all the candidates have received the quota of managing positions in membership of DECs, proportional to the number of submitted representatives. They were distributed with the help of an information analytical system "Vybory" (Elections).
More than 1,094 persons didn't come to first meetings of DECs. It's more than 26% of total number of members registered in election commissions. Efficient of commissions was even complicated by the absence of heads, deputy heads, or secretaries of DECs on the first meetings. First meetings of DECs were mostly ignored by representatives of Oleh Tsariov (119 persons), Vasyl Tsuksha (110 persons), Volodymyr Saranov (109 persons), Vadym Rabinovych (89 persons), and Dmytro Yarosh (82 persons). On the contrary, the most disciplined members of DECs are from Yuliia Tymoshenko (8 absent on first meetings), Petro Poroshenko and Oleh Tiahnybok (15 absent), Mykhailo Dobkin and Petro Symonenko (16 absent each).
Oleksandr Kliuzhev, OPORA's analyst, denotes: "Members of DECs were absent during their first meetings because of unavailability of phone communication and no willingness to come to commission meetings because they live in different oblasts. Some members of election commissions even didn't know that they were delegated from the certain candidates. Such situation can cause the certain obstacles for stable functioning of DECs." Observers of the Civil Network OPORA have calculated that at least 304 (7% of the total number) members of DECs were living in other oblasts when they were delegated.
The total number of people in district election commissions is 4,164. 52% of them are men, and 48% - women. Almost 67% of members have already worked in election commissions before. During 2010 Presidential elections, this number was 95.5%. On one side, the number of members of DECs who have received the higher education has decreased from 93% in 2010 to 83% in 2014. On the other side, the number of young people in DECs has increased. There are almost fourth part (23%) of people under 30 years old, compared to 13% in 2010 and 11% in 2014.