On 11 October 2011 at the Ukrainian National News Agency, Civic Network OPORA held a press-conference focused on the results of its civic monitoring of local government activities, mayors, openness and transparency of local politics, fulfillment of pre-election promises, and the degree to which elected officials addressed identified community needs. The monitoring in 15 communities included expert interviews, which were conducted at the beginning of the local election campaign and based on the results 100 days of the newly elected government, and six-months of monitoring the meetings of city councils, publishing of draft resolutions, etc. OPORA conducted monitoring in: Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, Chernivtsi, Ternopil, Lutsk, Rivne, Vinnytsya, Cherkasy, Kremenchuk, Sumy, Donetsk, Lugansk, Kryvyi Rig, Odesa, and Kherson.
The results of the analysis of the local council deputies are significant. In most communities, up to 70% of deputies are representatives of business and heads of public, private, public utility companies. This trend creates the preconditions for conflicts of interests among deputies, increasing the risk of corruption in the deputies’ activities.
The research revealed politicization of local councils. In particular, local authorities showed excessive activity in the area of national-level policies on the humanities, which were beyond their powers: the reaction to the removal from Stepan Bandera of the title of Hero of Ukraine, language issues, interpretation of history, such as raising the flag of victory and Soviet symbols during celebrations on May 9 and so on. The experts and monitors gave low marks to the work of local councilors, because their actual political activities did not meet the expectations of the local communities in the socio-economic sphere (education, small business development, recreation activities for children and youth).
According to the results of local elections, which were held under a mixed proportional-majority system, it is worth noting the impact of strengthening the Party of Regions influence, both in ideologically similar eastern regions and in some western regions where they do not have as much electoral support. After the 2010 local elections in Ukraine, Party of Regions formed a majority, and as a result there was a noticeable trend of an uneven distribution of positions in the Standing Committees of local authorities, ignoring the views of the opposition in this process to the point where they have no influence on local policy. The only exceptions are a few communities in the western regions (eg, Lviv, Ternopil), where a similar monopoly was formed by "Svoboda."
As a result of monitoring, there were common problems of openness and transparency of the councils that apply to all 15 communities:
- lack of community involvement in development and decision-making;
- lack of effective opportunities for full and systematic oversight of the community over the activities of local council;
- lack of information about the content of decisions;
- lack of reporting on the activities of local government budget processes; and
- lack of systematic communication between elected council members and voters, as well as the same trends in some cities with mayors.
The research and expert interviews conducted by the Civic Network OPORA found that the activities of city councils and mayors compared to their declared electoral promises, did not address the following issues directly related to citizens’ lives: improving the quality of school education in the community, modernizing schools, computer equipment, upgrading materials and equipment, issues of collection, transport, recycling and disposal of waste, measures to rehabilitate people with disabilities and offering them disability-friendly infrastructure, repair and construction of infrastructure. In some cities, almost 80% of the decisions made by local councils were related to land issues.