President of Ukraine
Poroshenko Petro Oleksiiovych,
Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine
Turchynov Oleksandr Valentynovych,
leaders of groups and factions of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine,
Members of Parliament of Ukraine
Open appeal
On 1 June 2014, 12 of 15 members of the Central Election Commission had their seven-year term of office expired. According to the last legislative amendments, members of the CEC shall fulfill their duties until the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine passes the decision on their dismissal. Members of the CEC are nominated by the President of Ukraine and appointed by the Parliament.
Non-governmental organizations, which are professionally involved in electoral matters and monitoring of electoral processes, call the President of Ukraine to introduce the corresponding nominations to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine promptly after acquiring his powers, and urge Members of Parliament of Ukraine to urgently appoint new members of the CEC.
However, non-governmental organizations have already stressed that the appointment of nominees for members of the Central Election Commission should be widely discussed by the public, with consideration of expert opinion.
The appointment of members of the CEC by the principle of faction quotas, which was used before, didn't usually correspond to main principles of its functioning: political impartiality and professional qualification. Besides that, it's important to take into consideration that the term of authority of MPs is 5 years, and of members of the CEC – 7 years. Thus, it's impossible to secure the constant proportional representation of parliamentary factions and groups in the CEC.
We are convinced that interests of political forces represented in the Parliament should be taken into consideration during nomination of members of the Central Election Commission, but these interests mustn't be the only criteria for membership of the CEC. Besides that, there is no such requirement in the legislation.
Non-governmental organizations have numerously appealed to government authorities calling to support a representative of the public during appointment of new members of the Central Election Commission. Unfortunately, these appeals weren't heard.
Today, when the nomination of members of the CEC is topical again, we appeal to the elected President of Ukraine with a proposition to nominate, and to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine with a proposition to appoint Yevhen Volodymyrovych Radchenko, a representative of NGOs, as the member of the CEC.
Yevhen Radchenko – is a well-known expert of electoral legislation (specialized in activities of the media during electoral process), expert of the Venice Commission, and one of developers of the Election Code. He is experienced in organizational and administrative matters, and held managing positions in leading NGOs (Committee of Voters of Ukraine, Internews-Ukraine). In March this year, Yevhen Radchenko was recommended for the membership of the CEC by Maidan's Rada.
The undersigned non-governmental organizations hope that the appointment of their representative as the member of the CEC will prove the new approach of the government to personnel issues.
5 June 2014
Civil Network OPORA
Internews-Ukraine NGO
Committee of Voters of Ukraine
Ukrainian Center for Independent Political Research