Local elections jeopardized. The Law should be urgently amended.

Today, on April 4, the elections to local self-government bodies start. On May 25, 38 mayors and members of 2 city councils, including the capital, will be elected in territorial communities. However, the MPs are planning to consider the mostimportant amendments to the Law of Ukraine on the Elections of Deputies to the Verkhovna Rada of Autonomous Republic of Crimea, Deputies of Local Councils, Village, Town and City Heads, only on April 8.

Blocking of making amendments to the Law on Local Elections will create a precedent, when elections are repeatedly organized according to the most harshly criticized electoral legislation in Ukrainian history. "If national and local elections are conducted in Ukraine simultaneously, the latter usually get less attention of the media and international observers. However, the very local elections are more problematic when it comes to observance of democratic standards. Thus, taking into consideration that the law on local elections is extremely imperfect, we can receive dirty falsified local elections on the background of relatively fair and democratic Presidential election," - Head of the Board of the Committee of Voters of Ukraine Oleksandr Chernenko stated.

When amendments to the Law on Local Elections were considered in the second reading, MPs didn't manage to find an agreement on two amendments, according to which the Central Election Commission should have to change the membership of territorial election commissions in cities of Kyiv and Odesa The certain members of parliamentary coalition, who were close to the Party of Regions, demanded that membership of territorial commissions in Kyiv and Odesa remained the same. However, some members of these commissions were probably involved in doubtful activities during the previous elections."Membership of territorial election commissions is disproportional, and leading positions are not balanced, what results in monopolized decision-making by one political group, - Electoral Programs Coordinator of Civil Network OPORA Olha Aivazovska emphasized.Besides that, there are no TECs in some raion communities and, therefore, the elections cannot be efficiently organized. Thus, 1 TEC in Kyiv will establish voting results on 977 regular polling stations. The quorum, effective on the election day, allows commission minority to take decisions.

The old wording of the Law won't secure the proper organization of the campaign in the capital, and will remove potential self-nominated candidates from the competition."The affective law doesn't provide the right on self-nomination. Only parties can nominate candidates. The removal of competitors from the election campaign is quite easy - it's enough to cancel their registration or not to register at all.- Olha Aivazovska added.

It is necessary to improve the normative base and reconsider key regulations of the effective legislation in order to prevent manipulation of the course of election campaign, as it happened in 2010.Civil Network OPORA, Committee of Voters of Ukraine, and Internews-Ukraine insist on urgent amendments to the Law on Local Elections, as long as it has impact not only on territorial communities, but also on the international image of the country. "If amendments to the Law on Local Elections are not adopted, we'll have the different time of voting on polling stations; uncertainties about the commissions, created for every stage of the election process separately; and confusion of notions “election campaigning” and “informing the voters”, what will complicate journalist activities," - Yevhen Radchenko, Development director of the Internews-Ukraine International NGO.