3 November 2011 in Donetsk was held second round of public discussion concerning improving electoral legislation of Ukraine “What kind of election law needs Ukraine”, organized by the Civic Consortium of Election Initiatives complemented by CVU, CN OPORA, ALI and UCIPR.

The aim of the discussion was to attract wide circle of civic experts and everyone who is interested in reforming electoral legislation, providing conditions for the effective dialogue between authorities, civic experts, voters and subjects of electoral process, and also producing recommendations to the electoral legislation.

The main topic of discussion were advantages and drawbacks of the key principles of the draft Laws “On Elections of the People’s Deputies of Ukraine” submitted for consideration to the Verkhovna Rada, in particular the bill No. 9265-1 by the people’s deputy Yefremov etc. Special attention was paid to the conditions of electioneering, financing of electoral campaigns, and the peculiarities of voter lists’ compiling. The date of the second round of discussion became symbolic, because it coincided with the date of consideration of these bills in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

Between many participants of the public discussion were representatives of the local government and political parties, NGOs and mass media, members of election commissions, scientists and students of specialized universities.

Between experts were:

  • Serhiy Tkachenko, the Head of the board of Donetsk regional branch of "Committee of Voters of Ukraine";
  • Oleksandr Klyuzhev, the Head of analytical programs of Donetsk regional branch of All-Ukrainian NGO "Committee of Voters of Ukraine";
  • Taisiya Hladchenko, candidate of sciences in public administration, associate professor in Donetsk State University of Management;
  • Denys Tkalich, Acting Head of Administrative department of the Donetsk Regional State Administration of the State Register of Voters.

Beginning the discussion as a moderator, the Head of the board of Donetsk regional branch of "Committee of Voters of Ukraine" Serhiy Tkachenko, stressed the urgency of the event. He also said that nobody should stay away from the issue of the electoral legislation, and “development of a new electoral legislation – is a problem of all Ukrainian society.”

At the beginning of the discussion, Oleksandr Klyuzhev presented to everybody a summary of the first round of public discussion on the electoral legislation reform in Ukraine, which took place in Donetsk on 27 October. Klyuzhev stated, that the ruling elites are not ready to discuss electoral reform on public, expert and political level; that they are not ready to take into consideration former election experience. He also mentioned that political forces use peculiarities of the electoral system for receiving benefits beyond competition. Political scientist quoted data according to which community and experts support using proportional system with open lists. He also mentioned the proposal to raise the election threshold, which does not contribute to qualitative structuring of Ukrainian Parliament. “Rising electoral threshold to 5% will decrease the level of political legitimacy of Ukrainian parliament. And the number of constituents that will have no representation in Ukrainian parliament may dramatically increase in 2012.” – the expert made such a disappointing conclusion. That’s why, according to Klyuzhev, legislative initiatives of the ruling majority have discriminative character concerning political forces, that are on the verge of passing to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

We remind, that during public discussion on 27 October, a representative of the Consortium of Election Initiatives O.Chernenko and a People’s deputy of Ukraine S.Podhornyy agreed, that “5% threshold for Ukrainian reality is too high. 3-4% would be best for Ukraine.”

Making comments on the issue of electoral districts, experts noted, that in the Law of Ukraine “On Elections of the People’s Deputies of Ukraine” must be established strict requirements to the process of setting electoral districts. They also expressed their opinion on proposed in the bill method of district formation. Experts believe that it gives too many opportunities for violation rights of oppositional political parties. When summarizing the conclusions of previous discussion, politologist also mentioned reducing the allowable deviation from the total number of voters between constituencies, and disregarding administrative and territorial structure of Ukraine.

Besides that, he also named a number of problems connected to the formation of the election commissions’ system. Between them are considerable preferences for political forces, problematic realization by opposition their quotas in election commissions and subjectivity of the criteria for inclusion of petitions from political parties to the commission and the appointment for their leadership.

The next part of discussion were norms of the bill No. 9265-1 concerning financial support of election campaigns. Taisiya Hladchenko expressed her opinion. “Although the bill provides obligatory publication of reports on receipts and spending of electoral funds, there are no recommendations to the content and form of such reports, – said Hladchenko. - Besides that, there is inconsistency in the part concerning financing of pre-electoral agitation. Thus, the formation of electoral funds by contributions from legal entities is formally prohibited, although according to the law on political parties, parties may be financed by legal entities. So, political forces may receive contributions from legal entities to their electoral funds as their own contribution, which size (in contrast to the contribution of individual) is not limited at all.”

Taisiya Hladchenko also drew attention to purposeless preservation of quotes on the political advertising, the problem of imperfect determination of the concept “electioneering” and the necessity to cancel prohibition on political advertising through mass media exceptionally by the means of electoral funds.

Denys Tkalich, Acting Head of Administrative department of the Donetsk Regional State Administration of the State Register of Voters told about the register of voters in Donetsk region, last novelties according to CEC resolutions and the problem of possible voting not by the residence address.

At the end of the event everybody could put their questions to experts. Moderator of the discussion mentioned, that “difficult questions, which sometimes couldn’t be answered and public interest in this theme only proves that adoption of important for the state law needs wide public discussion."


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