The Community of practice on local democracy in Ukraine held an online meeting on “Local Elections in Ukraine: Ensuring respect for electoral standards during times of pandemic” on 6 October 2020. Representatives of four national associations of local and regional authorities in Ukraine explored the challenges and good practices in effectively safeguarding the integrity and the principles of free and fair elections during the pandemic.

The representatives expressed their concerns with obligations imposed on local authorities by Resolution 846 of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine in the context of local elections in Ukraine scheduled for 25 October. They reached a common position to voice those concerns in a joint call to the Government, highlighting that health safety of oncoming elections cannot depend solely on local budgets, but requires support from the National Covid-19 Fund.

While presenting the recent Congress report on Local and regional elections in major crisis situations, Stewart Dickson (UK, ILDG), Congress Thematic Spokesperson on the observation of local and regional elections, stressed that “free and fair elections remain a bedrock of our democracies. At the same time, the current situation shows that local and regional authorities are in the forefront of coping with repercussions of the health crisis. In this context, the democratic legitimacy of elected representatives on local and regional levels provided by free and fair elections is even more essential than ever”.

Robert Grüman (Romania, EPP/CCE), Chair of the Congress Governance Committee, shared the experience of recent elections in Romania and reaffirmed that “in order to ensure voters’ confidence in electoral systems during health crisis, we need to allocate proper financial resources for the implementation of sanitary measures, and most importantly allow all citizens to exercise their right to vote and to be elected”.

Andriy Hevko, member of the Central Electoral Commission of Ukraine (CEC) emphasised the challenges faced in the preparation of the oncoming elections, and briefly presented the online training course “Elections in simple terms”, developed by the CEC together with the Council of Europe. Examples from recently held elections in Germany and Austria were shared by Dirk Breuer, Mayor of Hürth, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany and Michael Mathis from the Secretariat of the Association of Municipalities of Vorarlberg, Austria.

The webinar was organised in the framework of the project “Strengthening democracy and building trust at local level in Ukraine”, implemented by the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities within the Council of Europe Action Plan for Ukraine 2018-2021, jointly with “U-LEAD with Europe”, programme funded by the European Union and its member states, Germany, Poland, Sweden, Denmark and Estonia. The Community of practice on local democracy in Ukraine was established with aim of reinforcing the capacity and the institutional position of Ukrainian local and regional authorities, as well as their national associations, enabling them to advocate for reforms with a common voice.

See also:

• Report CG-FORUM(2020)01-05 on “Local and regional elections in major crisis situations”
• Online hub “COVID-19: response at local and regional levels” created by Congress to presents a set of resources deployed by local and regional authorities, partner networks and other organisations. An interactive module allows cities and regions to contribute directly and share their initiatives.
• Resolution 846 of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine
• “U-LEAD with Europe” news