On 20 March by the Committee of the Verkhovna Rada on State Building and Local Self-Government and the European Commission "For Democracy through Law" (Venice Commission) was held an expert roundtable “Using legislation on elections of the people’s deputies of Ukraine in 2012”. Representatives of the public, deputies, experts and researchers discussed the perspectives of fair elections and guaranties established by the law.
Yurii Kliuchkovskyi, deputy of the Committee on State Building and Local Self-Government, analyzed new edition of the Law of Ukraine “On Elections of the People’s Deputies of Ukraine”: “The law can’t guarantee the absence of falsifications, but it can create conditions for fair elections.” A special public control needs changing place of voting, and the procedure of production and transmission of ballots, printing of which in some companies may facilitate falsifications. “Observation – is the only procedural possibility to control the voting and counting process, that’s why we need to use this possibility for securing fair elections,"- stated Kliuchkovskyi.
Election program coordinator of the Civil Network OPORA Olha Aivazovska emphasized, that the idea of fairness in election practices should be also applied to equal opportunities of candidates, equal treatment of subjects of electoral process by the authorities, realization of right on the equality of representation in election commissions. “On the way to fair elections often stands the use of administrative resource, in particular – legislative – giving preferences to certain subjects of electoral process; power – using law enforcement and tax authorities, SBU for intimidation or persecution of candidates; budget – using budget costs for election campaign; institutional and personnel – using human resources of power vertical to support campaigns of candidates; material and technical; regulatory – through pressure from the regulatory authorities; media – better representation of some candidates in the media in comparison to others,” – thinks Olha Aivazovska.
“Electoral system may be changed when one or more players think they can reach better results,” – says Srdzhan Darmanovych, member of the Venice Commission, about the next change in electoral system of Ukraine. “We should prevent redistricting in favor of certain politicians.” Judges and commission members should be ready to changes which a new law is to bring. He hopes that parliamentary elections will be fair.
Participants of the roundtable agreed, that the government and civil society should be a guarantor of democratic elections.