The elections campaign for extraordinary presidential elections in Ukraine raised an unprecedentual attention of citizens, politicians, wide public and the international community. As an extremely important form of direct democracy, elections should conclude a current political crisis and resolve the conflict between society and state. There are no senior governmental officials, only three women and a lot of new faces Among the officially registered presidential candidates.
There are no doubts that presidential elections campaign is on top of agenda for Ukrainian political leaders. The Central Election Commission (CEC) received 46 applications for registration for the presidential elections. After reviewing the documents, the CEC registered 23 official candidates for the post of President of Ukraine. The same number of candidates received a refusal of registration due to inconsistencies in submitted documents or failure to provide documents of obligatory monetary pledge of 2,5 mln grn. Several candidates submitted documents, which confirmed a monetary pledge in an inappropriate amount (25 grn., 170 grn. etc). The Civil Network “OPORA” did not register any violations during the implementation of the Central Election Commission’s authority to register presidential candidates.
One of the trends of this elections campaign is a reduced number candidates who are members of political parties. Only 52% of them are political party members, 70% are self-nominated candidates. On the contrary, 80% of candidates were political party members and only 20% were self-nominated in 1999. It demonstrates significant efforts of a big part of candidates focus on a personal social and political position and not to associate himself or herself with political parties. Moreover, currently the level of confidence of the wide public to parties’ institues is low.
In 2014 none of the highest state officials are running in the elections, neither of them is serving in the Cabinet of Ministers or central executive authorities. Due to a removal from office of former President Viktor Yanukovych this election campaign lost of a factor of the head of state in office. On the contrary, the President, the Head of Verkhovna Rada and the Prime Minister participated in the presidential elections in 2010. The absence of senior officials among presidential candidates could reduce an administrative influence on the campaign and decrease the number of conflicts related to allegations of abuse of power.
As during all previous elections, the majority of presidential candidates in 2014 are members of Parliament, namely Anatoliy Hrytsenko, Petro Poroshenko, Serhiy Tihipko, Oleh Liashko, Oleh Tsarov, Oleh Tiahnybok, Petro Symonenko. Also a lot of candidates are temporarily unemployed due to rotations in governmental circles of Ukraine: Mykhailo Dobkin, Yuriy Boiko, Natalia Korolevska, Vasyl Tsushko, Dmytro Yarosh and Zorian Shkiriak.
Only five candidates have an experience of previous presidential elections (Petro Symonenko, Yulia Tymoshenko, Anatoliy Hrytsenko, Oleh Tiahnybok and Serhiy Tihipko). The most experienced candidate is Petro Symonenko, who is running for the presidential post for the fourth time (previously in 1999, 2004, 2010).
This time only three women decide to run in the elections, namely Yulia Tymoshenko, Olha Bohomolets and Natalia Korolevska. The average age of the candidate is 50 years old. 61-year-old Petro Symonenko is the oldest candidate, while 38-year-old Natalia Korolevska is the youngest one.
In addition, all presidential candidates, except of Vadym Rabinovych, have higher education. In most of the cases, the candidates were born in Donetsk, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv and Cherkasy regions of Ukraine.
Since March 2014 The Civil Network OPORA conductes a large-scaled monitoring campaign of the extraordinary presidential elections in Ukraine. It aims at an objective assessment of preparation and conduct of elections as well as prevention of electoral legislation violations through an effectively organized civic control. The organization cooperates with 175 long-term observers, who monitor the progress of the presidential campaign in all regions of the country. On the election day, May 25, 3,000 activists will join the long-term observers to carry out a rapid statistical counting of votes.