Will open lists on local elections be real or fictitious? Will political advertising be banned on elections? How IDPs from Donetsk, Luhansk oblasts and Crimea are going to vote on local elections? These and other issues were discussed by participants of international conference “Has Electoral Reform Been Achieved in Ukraine?” held in Kyiv on 23 June, addressing the upcoming local elections scheduled for October.

Despite there was a Draft Law on Local Elections #2831-2, jointly developed, after finding a consensus, by a Working Group created by the Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada in cooperation of MPs and election experts (Civil Network OPORA, Internews-Ukraine, IFES, Committee of Voters of Ukraine and others), the MPs of Ukraine have chosen to support another bill – #2831-3 developed by Vadym Denysenko, Ihor Popov, Serhii Aleksieiev, Yurii Chyzhmar and Olena Ledovskyh.

According to conference speakers, despite the open-list proportional representation system declared, adopted in the first reading draft law #2831-3 contains significant drawbacks, for example: hidden elements of majoritarian system, a risk of electing some candidates in the certain districts (over-representation), and none in the others (under-representation). Besides that, the draft law lacks progressive regulation of reporting on campaign financing, doesn't solve the issue with voting rights guarantee for IDPs from Donetsk, Luhansk oblasts and Crimea, and contains essential restriction or prohibition on political advertising. The experts have emphasized that only some of these drawbacks could be eliminated by further elaboration of the bill for the second reading, while holding elections under this system can result in even greater organizational challenges and question its conformity to the constitutional principles and international standards of democratic elections.

The problem of securing constitutional voting rights of IDPs from Donetsk, Luhansk oblasts and Crimea must be specifically addressed, and the corresponding mechanisms should be developed in detail to implement these rights. At the same time, neither MPs, nor CEC Members, nor election experts had objections regarding a possibility of holding elections on territories of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts controlled by Ukrainian government.

Video of the conference is available here.

 

Photo report:


Created with flickr slideshow.


Created with flickr slideshow.

 

Event was organized by a group of NGOs comprising Civil Network OPORA, Ukrainian Center for Independent Political Research, Election Law Institute, Regional Press Development Institute, Internews-Ukraine, and RPR with assistance of IFES, USAID and Canadian Government.
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