The first local elections of heads and deputies of village, settlement, and city councils in 125 united territorial communities will take place on December 23, 2018. Also, an additional election of deputies of village and settlement councils in 26 communities is scheduled for this day.
The corresponding decisions were made by the Central Election Commission during the meeting on October 12. All 16 members of the Central Election Commission voted for it.
CEC member Andrii Yevstihnieiev has stated before the voting that the legitimacy of election appointment in seven communities is now challenged in courts, and suggested to exclude them from the list of UTCs, submitted for the voting. However, the chairman of the commission Tetyana Slipachuk noted that the current procedure for the appointment of the election provides that an election may not be appointed only in the case of a court decision, and not the fact of judicial proceedings itself. As a result, the proposal of Yevstigneyev hasn't been supported by the commission members.
The Central Election Commission appointed the first local elections in 22 oblasts of Ukraine, except for Kharkiv and Zakarpattia (Vinnytsia obl. - 3, Volyn obl. - 9, Dnipropetrovsk obl. - 1, Donetsk obl. - 1, Zhytomyr obl. - 7, Zaporizhzhia obl. - 8, Ivano-Frankivsk obl. - 4, Kyiv obl. - 4, Kirovohrad obl. - 4, Luhansk obl. - 8, Lviv obl. - 5, Mykolaiv obl. - 12, Odessa obl. - 3, Poltava obl. - 3, Rivne obl. - 3, Sumy obl. - 4, Ternopil obl. - 5, Kherson obl. - 2, Khmelnytskyi obl. - 3, Cherkasy obl. - 27, Chernivtsi obl. - 4, Chernihiv obl. - 5).
Additional elections will take place in 12 oblasts: Vinnytsia, Volyn, Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, Ivano-Frankivsk, Kirovohrad, Sumy, Ternopil, Kharkiv, Chernivtsi, and Chernihiv.
The electoral process will begin on November 3, 2018.
In addition, CEC excluded from the decision of the Central Election Commission of August the second point regarding the appeal to the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Legal Policy and Justice. According to this point the appeals of local state administrations had to be considered after receiving explanations from the Committee.
We remind that the Central Election Commission applied to the VRU Committee on Judicial Policy and Justice on 9 August asking to provide explanations concerning current legislative regulation of organization of national and local referendums in Ukraine, a possibility to legally appoint the first and additional local elections by the Central Election Commission without a local referendum concerning voluntary uniting of territorial communities or joining an existing community, with consideration of Article 6 (2) of the Law of Ukraine on National and Local Referendums, and amendment of the corresponding regulations to remove any legal collisions and inconsistencies.