During recent years, the Council of Europe has been actively supporting the Central Election Commission of Ukraine in its efforts to develop electoral practice in line with the European electoral standards and good practice. Currently, the Council of Europe project "Supporting the transparency, inclusiveness and integrity of electoral practice in Ukraine" is implementing a joint awareness raising project with the Central Election Commission of Ukraine ‘CEC: Prosvita’. It is an interactive online educational platform about elections which is aimed at raising public awareness about electoral standards, procedures and processes.
These measures are implemented in accordance with the CEC Strategic Plan for 2020-2025 and aim to widely inform the subjects and other participants of the electoral process, including voters, about the novelties in the electoral legislation.
It is clear that on the eve of the local elections in Ukraine, which are scheduled for October 25, 2020, the joint activities are primarily focused on the upcoming elections.
Regular local elections will be the first nationwide elections for the current composition of the Central Election Commission of Ukraine.
The elections will be held in accordance with the new rules specified in the Electoral Code of Ukraine, adopted in December last year and significantly amended in part of local elections legal framework in the mid of July this year. Only then, the legal framework for these local elections has become known.
The Council of Europe supports and assists the Central Election Commission of Ukraine in preparing awareness raising and educational materials on the eve of local elections this year.
Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic with its second wave, expected during September-October 2020, may affect the preparation and conduct of the upcoming elections.
Will it be possible to hold local elections in the conditions of the quarantine restrictions and the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic? What special measures are planned to be taken to prevent the spread of coronavirus during the election process?
The Chair of the Central Election Commission of Ukraine, Mr Oleh DIDENKO, answered these and other questions.
Chief State Sanitary Doctor of Ukraine, Mr Viktor LIASHKO, during his interview to Ukrainian Radio said: "If the whole country becomes a red zone, then it might be necessary to limit mass events". Will it be possible to hold local elections in the conditions of the quarantine restrictions and the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic? Are there any plans to adopt special measures to prevent the spread of coronavirus during the electoral process?
The answer about the possibility of holding elections during the quarantine is clear from the legal point of view. The Constitution of Ukraine provides for two cases when the elections cannot be held – if a state of emergency or martial law is introduced in Ukraine. Moreover, the procedure for adopting such a decision is clearly defined: the relevant Decree should be issued by the President of Ukraine with further approval by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. If there are factual grounds and a real threat to citizens’ lives, the competent authorities will consider the issue of adoption of such a decision in accordance with the procedure defined by the Constitution of Ukraine.
Regarding special measures on preventing the spread of coronavirus during electoral process, the Central Election Commission of Ukraine (CEC) established a working group to prepare relevant proposals for holding elections under the quarantine restrictions. This group is consisted of the representatives of various state authorities concerned. As a result of its work, several proposals were drafted and, by a resolution of the CEC, transmitted to the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine for further consideration. The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine by its resolution calling the elections, particularly, instructed the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine to prepare in cooperation with the CEC measures preventing the spread of coronavirus during the electoral process. Thus, the CEC has fulfilled its obligations under this resolution, and we hope that the Cabinet of Ministers will adopt further measures.
One should understand that the prevention of the spread of coronavirus disease is not within the competence of the CEC, and the electoral legislation does not provide for this, nor does it provide funds to finance the relevant activities within the electoral process. As far as I understand, these activities should be financed by the relevant fund specifically created for this purpose. This requires clear coordination of local authorities and local self-government bodies in order to provide all election commissioners and all election commissions with appropriate measures to prevent spread of coronavirus during the electoral process.
The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine has recently supported amendments to the Electoral Code of Ukraine. The amendments are made to the provisions of the articles of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, which are designed to protect the electoral rights of citizens, including members of election commissions at various levels and observers. The implementation of these norms will directly require timely and effective action by law-enforcement authorities. How do the CEC and lower-level election commissions work and plan to work with law-enfrocement authorities to respond in a timely manner to election offenses and bring perpetrators to justice?
The CEC has always interacted effectively with law-enforcement authorities to the extent possible. Although, the possibilities of such interaction are not that big. In case of violations, the CEC files a request to law-enforcement bodies to react accordingly. There is also ongoing coordination during the electoral process, considering that national police is involved into guarding the ballots and the polling stations during voting.
On July 17, the Verkhovna Rada liquidated 490 rayons and created 129 new ones. How does this fact affect the electoral process, particularly, in terms of local elections?
It was not the decision of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine on the liquidation of 490 rayons and the creation of 129 new ones which influenced the work of the CEC, but in general the fact that preparations to local elections has been taking place in the conditions of uncertainty with respect to the administrative and territorial basis on which the elections shall be held. This led to numerous practical problems and many of them remain unresolved. The problem was that amendments to the legislation on administrative-territorial reform and the electoral code were drafted simultaneously. It was clear that these two processes had to be combined. In fact, the amalgamation of rayons happened as a result of this resolution. And, for example, if one rayon territorial election commission earlier established 100-150-200 precinct election commissions (PECs), nowadays, following the rayons enlargement, there are rayons where more than 700 precinct election commissions have to be established. The task to establish more than 700 election commissions is arduous for rayon territorial election commission. The CEC has already completed the procedure of establishment of 532 territorial election commissions (TECs). It was an extremely difficult task for the CEC, even working 24/7 and having a big secretariat. I simply have no idea how a rayon TEC could operate in such conditions without an appropriate secretariat and without a necessary number of people. This seems unreal to me. That is why, at the last moment, when it became clear that the enlargement of rayons will take place, the necessary changes were made to the draft legislative amendments. The subject establishing a PEC was changed: the rayon territorial election commission was replaced by territorial election commission at the community level – village, town, city. The same applies to the establishment of voting results at the elections to oblast councils. One needs just to imagine how 700 PECs would have brought protocols to rayon TEC and how long it would have taken for the commission to receive and process them. This is unreal.
There were many practical issues like that. The same applies to the transportation of voting ballots and their transfer after production. The CEC proposed to simplify this procedure, given that the distances have increased. Unfortunately, these proposals were rejected at the last moment, because some MPs saw them as a threat of fraud or abuse. The problems may arise due to the changes. From our side, we are ready to minimize them as much as possible.
On August 8, the CEC approved the Calendar plan of actions related to preparation and organization of 25 October local elections. On August 10, the CEC established 22 oblast, 119 rayon, 381 city, and 10 rayon in Kyiv TECs. During the last elections, there was a problem related to many replacements of election commissioners made by political parties and candidates. Will it be the problem for the upcoming local elections? How can it be solved?
This problem really exists, and the CEC is overloaded with the requests to replace TEC members. Usually, the practice is the following: as soon as the commission is formed, the replacement happens. Often, the relevant party organizations submit their nominations only for the sake of nominations, and then some manipulations may take place. Sometimes, there is no manipulation and local organizations, having realized that they have received a leadership position in the commission, try to strengthen it, so it can be an objective process as well. Sometimes, however, it is subjective. Unfortunately, we are all aware that some abuses may happen in the allocation of quotas in commissions. How can we deal with it? The biggest problem about this is inefficiency of trainings for election commissioners. There is no sense of training people, if closer to the elections they will be replaced by other people, who are not trained, but who will conduct the elections and organize the process of establishing the results of voting and the results of specific type of local elections. This is a real problem. It can be solved in different ways. For example, we can solve this issue by introducing a different approach to the establishment of election commissions and selecting members on a professional basis. This issue is quite difficult though, because, on the one hand, it would be good, but on the other hand, we understand that such an approach requires significant funding. If we move the political principle of establishing commissions aside and replace it with the professional one, we need to understand that huge amount of money has to be allocated from the state budget in order to finance the permanent work of election commissioners. And I am not sure whether the state is ready for this. Based on our observation of recent legislative developments, there is now a compromise option of preserving the political principle of establishing election commissions. Political parties are, in fact, very cautious and they even react negatively towards any initiatives of any changes aimed at professionalization of election commissions. We noticed that when we proposed to form at least the leadership of district election commissions on the basis of the CEC territorial representations. This idea has been widely criticized. The Central Election Commission was blamed for the attempt to misuse administrative resources. Therefore, I think that the way election commissions are formed will unlikely be changed in the nearest future.
Contact us